Hicham Mahboubi, PhD

Global adventurer 🌎 Scientist🔬 discovering new medicines @Novartis 💊. @mcgillu alum. Tweets on #Biotech #Pharma #Research. Opinions=my own 🗣En/Fr/Es/Ar/It

[Joshua Meier @joshim5]

I'm delighted to announce a new collaboration between @ChaiDiscovery & @Novartis.
It's been a pleasure working together over the past year, and we're excited to scale our collaboration to support broader deployment of Chai-3 across multiple therapeutic programs.

[Nature Reviews Drug Discovery @NatRevDrugDisc]

Design, simulate, refine: simulation-guided clinical trials for accelerated drug development
https://t.co/S5cnzzdZ9M
https://t.co/vZI21gUhII
This new Perspective discusses the value of trial simulations, presents best-practice recommendations and describes case studies of impact

[STAT @statnews]

Novartis is expanding its relationship with molecular glue specialist Orionis Biosciences in a deal worth up to $1.4 billion, betting that advances in AI and automation can help unlock hard-to-drug targets.

Learn more. https://t.co/nj05y8604P

[BioSignal @BioSignal]

Think ADCs are the final frontier in oncology? Think again. Big Pharma is officially front-running the next major therapeutic paradigm shift: DACs (Degrader-Antibody Conjugates).

J&J ($JNJ) just announced a massive $1 billion all-cash acquisition of preclinical startup Firefly Bio. Paying a 10-figure sum for an asset that hasn't even entered human trials yet is a massive validation signal for the entire space.

Why is smart money losing its mind over DACs?
• Traditional ADCs deliver highly toxic chemotherapy payloads directly into cells.
• DACs completely swap the chemo for targeted protein degraders (PROTACs/molecular glues).

Instead of poisoning the cell, DACs hijack the body's internal recycling machinery to systematically destroy disease-driving proteins. Firefly's platform specifically limits payload leakage in the blood, maximizing safety, lowering required doses, and unlocking previously "undruggable" targets like mutant KRAS.

The tier-1 validation capital entering this modality is staggering:
• Eli Lilly ($LLY) was an early venture backer of Firefly.
• Roche just signed a $1B+ DAC deal with C4 Therapeutics ($CCCC) in April.
• Pfizer ($PFE) remains hitched to Nurix Therapeutics ($NRIX).
• Bristol Myers ($BMY) is already in P1 with an anti-CD33 DAC.

The ADC land grab is rapidly transitioning into the DAC supercycle. With preclinical platforms clearing a $1B benchmark, the public landscape for targeted protein degradation is about to experience severe upward repricing. 🧵

$JNJ $LLY $CCCC $NRIX $BMY $PFE $XBI $IBB

[BioSpace @biospace]

Roche and Nurix Therapeutics will advance their BTK degrader for chronic lymphocytic leukemia, as well as immunology and neurology indications.

https://t.co/l99aJXFHzj

[Eric Topol @EricTopol]

Another major advance vs cancer! @ASCO #ASCO26
Personalized neoantigen mRNA vaccine 5 year follow-up vs metastatic melanoma reduced recurrence and death by 49% (on top of Keytruda)
https://t.co/NadITTYIT2

[Avi Roy @agingroy]

A new class of drugs just entered the clinic. Not inhibitors. Destroyers.

Traditional cancer drugs block proteins. PROTACs (proteolysis-targeting chimeras) tag them for destruction, hijacking the cell’s own waste disposal system to eliminate the target entirely.

Vepdegestrant is the first PROTAC ever approved by the @US_FDA. In ESR1-mutant breast cancer, it cut progression risk by 43% vs. fulvestrant. Median PFS: 5.0 months vs. 2.1 months.

The drug class took 20 years from concept to approval. Now the platform exists for hundreds of “undruggable” targets.

What protein would you degrade first?

[FierceBiotech @FierceBiotech]

From shrinking drug development timelines to scouting potential acquisitions, the recent run of first-quarter earnings results marked a shift for Big Pharma from AI hype to explaining how the technology is being applied in practice. https://t.co/d2EybZcivC

[Nature Reviews Drug Discovery @NatRevDrugDisc]

For readers interested in GLP-1-based therapies for obesity and beyond, here's a comprehensive review
https://t.co/X714Dj2BNb
https://t.co/I5EhueTg6N

[BioSpace @biospace]

Drug discovery can be an uphill battle, especially lately given recent upheaval at the FDA and muted investment activity. BioSpace spoke to four industry executives about key issues facing those working in this space, starting with planning around uncertainty.
#drugdiscovery #biopharma #biospace
https://t.co/8T2TeBb4kx

[Isomorphic Labs @IsomorphicLabs]

Today we share a technical report demonstrating how our drug design engine achieves a step-change in accuracy for predicting biomolecular structures, more than doubling the performance of AlphaFold 3 on key benchmarks and unlocking rational drug design even for examples it has never seen before.

Head to the comments to read our blog.

[Nature Reviews Drug Discovery @NatRevDrugDisc]

This article in the February issue analyses M&As and partnerships in the biopharma industry in 2025, with GSK's potential $12.5 billion partnership with Hengrui Pharmaceuticals focused on a PDE3/4 inhibitor for COPD in the top spot for licensing deals https://t.co/XNvCW57QmG

[Andrew Dunn @AndrewE_Dunn]

EXCLUSIVE: GSK will pay millions to license AI models, rather than drug candidates, from Noetik

$50M in upfront and near-term milestones, centered on accessing virtual cell models for lung and colon cancer.

Talked to @Ronalfa in my latest:
https://t.co/bu7a0qNxXG

[NVIDIA Healthcare @NVIDIAHealth]

🌍 Revolutionizing Drug Discovery with AI + NVIDIA BioNeMo

🆕 The expansion announced at #JPM26 includes:
- New open models like RNAPro (RNA structure prediction) & ReaSyn v2 (AI-driven synthesis design)
- Powerful tools like BioNeMo Recipes & nvMolKit to scale model training and molecular discovery
- Seamless integration of agentic and physical AI to accelerate science

📦 Unpack the details https://t.co/GpAWfyEStM

[FierceBiotech @FierceBiotech]

Johnson & Johnson is paying $3.05 billion to acquire Halda Therapeutics, obtaining a novel cell death platform while strengthening its prostate cancer franchise built on Erleada. $JNJ
https://t.co/4j5WqAGm50

[Fabian Theis @fabian_theis]

🚀 Our new Science paper is out (w/ B DeMeo, D Burkhardt, A Shalek, M Cortes): https://t.co/NSfnCblwHh
We show that active learning + transcriptomic perturbations can guide which exps to run next, boosting phenotypic hit rates >13x. AI not just predicting bio, but designing it.🔁

[The Nobel Prize @NobelPrize]

Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi have been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their groundbreaking discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance that prevents the immune system from harming the body.

The Nobel Prize laureates identified the immune system’s security guards, regulatory T cells, thus laying the foundation for a new field of research. The discoveries have also led to the development of potential medical treatments that are now being evaluated in clinical trials.

The hope is to be able to treat or cure autoimmune diseases, provide more effective cancer treatments and prevent serious complications after stem cell transplants.

#NobelPrize

[FierceBiotech @FierceBiotech]

Introducing Fierce Biotech’s 2025 class of Fierce 15 winners. From advancing radically new therapies to refining existing modalities, this year’s companies are pushing the envelope and giving us a reason for optimism. https://t.co/Vc27STebhB

[FiercePharma @FiercePharma]

Novartis' malaria drug for babies wins world-first approval https://t.co/D6AuuVQWDy

[Gilead Sciences @GileadSciences]

#GileadNews: The FDA has approved our injectable HIV-1 prevention medication, making it the first and only twice-yearly #HIV prevention option in the U.S. This approval is helping to usher in the future of prevention as we work to help end the epidemic. https://t.co/wGacaduPRn