Developing New Therapies Through Partnership, Electricity, and Immunotherapy

Novartis has agreed to license and develop Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals’ preclinical stage small interfering RNA (siRNA) therapy ARO-SNCA, a potential treatment for Parkinson’s disease and other synucleinopathies, plus additional targets. Two stories this week covered very different types of cell reprogramming techniques for therapy development. The first approach may overcome the time delays and safety risks of traditional immunotherapies, especially for patients with aggressive, late-stage disease. Meanwhile, electrical stimulation of macrophages could represent a new therapy to boost the body’s own repair processes in a range of injury and disease situations. Finally, Eli Lilly saw its shares climb 5% this past week after announcing that its history-making oral obesity candidate, orforglipron, aced the Phase III ATTAIN-2 trial.

Join GEN editors Corinna Singleman, PhD, Alex Philippidis, and Uduak Thomas for a discussion of the latest biotech and biopharma news.

Listed below are links to the GEN stories referenced in this episode of Touching Base:

The State of Biotech Summit Registration

Novartis Commits Up to $2.2B toward Developing Arrowhead siRNA Therapy

Alex Philippidis, GEN Edge, September 2, 2025

Off-the-Shelf Immunotherapy Demonstrates Multipronged Attack Against Cancer

GEN, August 29, 2025

Human Macrophages “Reprogrammed” by Electrical Stimulation to Encourage Faster Healing

GEN, September 2, 2025

StockWatch: Analysts See $10B+ in Sales for Lilly Oral GLP-1

Alex Philippidis, GEN Edge, September 1, 2025

Touching Base Podcast