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Cochrane review reignites Alzheimer’s amyloid wars

SRPT
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Cochrane review reignites Alzheimer’s amyloid wars

Roche said it will run another Elevidys trial to support European approval, extending the regulatory path for the Duchenne muscular dystrophy gene therapy developed by Sarepta Therapeutics. Eli Lilly said its GLP-1 pill Foundayo was non-inferior to insulin glargine in a cardiovascular outcomes trial and plans to submit it to the FDA by end-Q2 under the Commissioner’s National Priority Review Voucher. Separately, the FDA will convene advisory panels starting in July to revisit restrictions on compounded peptides, signaling a potentially important regulatory shift for the biotech sector.

Analysis

SRPT’s near-term setup is less about U.S. sales and more about whether ex-U.S. optionality survives a second regulatory look. A European trial readout would matter because the outside-U.S. franchise can become a meaningful valuation bridge for a company otherwise dominated by one high-beta asset; however, the market should discount a long, binary process with meaningful execution risk, so the uplift is likely to be a series of catalyst-driven re-rates rather than a clean rerating today. The second-order issue is capital allocation and bargaining power. If Roche has to spend time and capital re-validating the program, it reduces the chance of a quick ex-U.S. revenue stream and increases the probability that any eventual approval comes with tighter label or manufacturing scrutiny, which would slow uptake and cap the royalty/margin mix. That matters for competitors because a delayed EU pathway keeps the door open for alternative DMD approaches to retain mindshare and partnership leverage over the next 12-24 months. The broader FDA peptide review is a warning sign for the GLP-1 ecosystem: compounding risk can persist longer than the market expects, but it also highlights that enforcement is cyclical and political rather than purely scientific. If the agency reopens access, it could pressure branded obesity-drug pricing at the margin through a gray-market substitute, but only in segments where supply remains tight or out-of-pocket sensitivity is high; this is more of a share-shift issue than a demand-destruction event. Contrarian view: the market may be overestimating the speed at which regulatory reversals translate into commercial damage. For SRPT, the real downside is not the headline of another trial but the possibility that ex-U.S. approval gets pushed into 2027, forcing investors to underwrite a longer bridge with higher dilution risk. For compounding, the consensus likely underappreciates how quickly enforcement can re-tighten once advisory-panel optics fade.