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Dispatch seeks to address two main challenges of immunotherapies in solid tumors: the lack of a target and the immunosuppressive tumor environment.
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On the FDA’s docket this month are two expansion bids, one for GSK’s asthma drug Nucala into COPD and another for Merck’s oral cancer drug for a pair of rare tumors.
As the Trump administration—including HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—plays fast and loose with scientific studies and facts, there may be a more sinister force at play: censorship.
When it comes to vaccination, the COVID-19 pandemic divided American society. President Donald Trump and his new Health and Human Services secretary are bringing down the hammer. What happens when there is no middle ground?
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Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, announced that Health Canada has granted approval of KEYTRUDA®, Merck’s anti-PD-1 therapy, in combination with gemcitabine-based chemotherapy, for the treatment of adult patients with locally advanced unresectable or metastatic biliary tract carcinoma.
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—along with FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and CBER Director Vinay Prasad—argued against vaccine mandates, partly because they limited medical choice. This week, the FDA under their leadership approved updated COVID-19 vaccines with restrictions that do the same.
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The revamped and “more anti-vax skewed ACIP committee” at the CDC “has a bone to pick with mRNA vaccines,” according to Truist Securities analysts. Meanwhile, the FDA moves forward on having Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna update labels for their COVID vaccines.
The FDA found that data from a single Phase II study were “insufficient” to justify an accelerated approval review for sevasemten in Becker muscular dystrophy.
Altimmune’s pemvidutide failed to significantly improve fibrosis in MASH patients in a Phase IIb study. The biotech crashed 53% in the aftermath of the readout.
Calico will leverage 9MW3811’s anti-inflammatory mechanism to advance its mission of addressing aging-related diseases.
While ALTO-203 missed its depression-related endpoints, improvements in EEG biomarkers, attention and wakefulness point to signals of drug activity, William Blair said, though the analysts pointed to other indications as potentially more promising for future development.
In the race to make the most tolerable obesity drug, there seems to be no clear winner—at least not according to analysts parsing the data presented at the American Diabetes Association annual meeting this week.
Susan Monarez, already acting director of the CDC, said during her confirmation hearing that she sees no causal link between vaccines and autism.
Jefferies analysts called the proxy filing, which is a standard disclosure after a merger agreement, “much more intriguing than normal” given the regulatory turmoil it revealed.
Minovia’s lead product is MNV-201, an autologous hematopoietic stem cell product that is enriched with allogeneic mitochondria.
Flagship Pioneering’s ProFound Therapeutics will use its proprietary technology to mine the expanded proteome for novel cardiovascular therapeutics. Novartis has promised to pay up to $750 million per target, though it has not specified how many targets it will go after.