In this week’s edition of InnovationRx, we look at the boom in autoimmune disease therapies, OpenAI’s healthcare push, Vertex’s $10 billion purchase of Crinetics, and more. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here.

AbbVie’s Skyrizi, an injectable drug for autoimmune diseases that include psoriasis and Crohn’s disease, is expected to surpass $33 billion in revenue in 2032, making it the world’s second-biggest selling drug, according to a recent report from pharma consultants Evaluate. That puts it smack between Eli Lilly’s GLP-1 blockbusters, Mounjaro (for diabetes) and Zepbound (for weight loss).

“Only autoimmune disease drugs come close to rivaling Lilly’s anti-obesity blockbusters given their potential to treat dozens of conditions driven by self-directed immune system attack,” the Evaluate researchers write. They now expect drugs that modulate the immune system to grow at a compounded annual rate of more than 9%, ahead of the pace of the popular metabolic drugs.

“It is a boom right now,” says Jane Grogan, executive vice president and head of research at Biogen, the $31 billion (market cap) biotech firm that recently expanded its immunology pipeline with the purchase of RayThera for up to $1 billion. “We’re really excited about what’s coming in the immunology space, especially in lupus, which has been a hard-to-crack disease.”

Autoimmune diseases are complicated: More than 50 million Americans suffer from 100 different autoimmune diseases that include rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis and lupus.

But scientific breakthroughs are paying off, both at Big Pharmas and at biotech startups. Venture capitalists have been pouring money into the field—a total of $2.1 billion of the total $9 billion-plus........

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