Richard Pops

• Alk­er­mes $ALKS is mov­ing ahead with plans to file a new de­pres­sion drug, ALKS-5461, lat­er in the year. “This is a fast-track des­ig­nat­ed med­i­cine,” CEO Richard Pops told an­a­lysts in Wednes­day’s quar­ter­ly call. “As we’ve done through­out the de­vel­op­ment process, ear­li­er this week we met with FDA for a Type C sci­en­tif­ic ex­change to share with them the da­ta from FOR­WARD-5. The meet­ing with FDA was pro­duc­tive, and we are on track with the plan sub­mis­sion of the NDA in the sec­ond half of the year.” And he is push­ing ahead with a care­ful eye on ALKS-3831, “which is com­ing in­to fo­cus as the piv­otal pro­gram ma­tures.”

• Mar­tin Shkre­li’s ap­pear­ance at Har­vard last night came with a string of heck­ling in­ter­rup­tions and protests from stu­dents. Price goug­ing on Dara­prim? Oh, no, said the ex-Tur­ing CEO. “It’s that every­one was get­ting a free ride be­fore, not that this is price goug­ing,” Shkre­li said, ac­cord­ing to the Crim­son. 1,400 peo­ple cur­rent­ly re­ceive Dara­prim for free, he claimed. “I wish no one got it for free, but the rules are they get it for free.”

• Pfiz­er has inked a broad rang­ing dis­cov­ery pact with Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty in St. Louis.