| |   | Hi, it's Meghana. Biopharma is welcoming Illumina this week into the drug development space, Novartis will temporarily stop making two cancer drugs, and more. | | | Illumina will begin discovering drugs Illumina, long a purveyor of tools for drug discovery, is entering the fray itself. Yesterday it announced a partnership with Deerfield Asset Management, which will provide “expertise in early stage drug development,” and will use artificial intelligence to probe genetic data to find new drug targets. “This is a huge win for us if we could accelerate the availability and accessibility of effective genomics-driven therapies into the market,” CEO Francis deSouza said. The company’s primary goal, he said, is less about having ownership of new drugs, and more about proving genomics as a powerful tool to discover them. The ultimate idea is to tempt more pharmaceutical companies to invest in the space. Read more. | Who’s going to run Biogen? Does Aduhelm have a future? And is it OK to shame reporters? We cover all that and more on “The Readout LOUD,” STAT’s biotech podcast. We delve into Biogen's twin announcements that the company is pulling the plug on Aduhelm and replacing its embattled CEO, discussing the future of Alzheimer's disease and just who might want to lead the company. We also explain the latest on Covid-19 vaccines, a strange situation for Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and the controversy surrounding the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Listen here. | May 24 | The STAT Health Tech Summit Join us virtually, or in San Francisco, as we convene experts from Amazon Lab126, Ascension, Google Health, and more to discuss the next big innovations in health tech. We’ll cover everything from patient data to AI to telemedicine. Get your ticket here. | Novartis pauses manufacturing two drugs Novartis has (voluntarily) halted production of two of its cancer therapies — Lutathera and Pluvicto — as a result of quality issues with manufacturing. The company has also paused clinical trials for Pluvicto, a prostate cancer drug, which was just approved two months ago. Novartis said it intends to resolve the manufacturing issues in the next six weeks. The company said it took this step “out of an abundance of caution,” and that “there is currently no indication of any risk to patients” from the suspect doses, despite the quality concerns. Novartis has told treatment sites to closely monitor patients for adverse events, and report any back to the company. Read more. | Checks and balances necessary with biomedical innovation There are certain underserved markets in medicine that offer enormous financial potential — should an enterprising company develop an effective treatment. This has perhaps never been more obvious than with Aduhelm, the embattled Alzheimer’s drug from Biogen that was cleared by the FDA despite disputed data. Although the company’s been roundly chastened — by watchdogs, by politicos, by CMS — there are still plenty of companies that want to follow Biogen’s example and chase a lucrative market, despite middling results, opines geriatric psychiatrist Anand Kumar. There is a lot of potential for fraud in the name of medical science, he said. “This drive for innovation must be matched with strict scrutiny — checks and balances at all levels — to ensure that the science upon which products are based and developed is strong and objective,” Kumar said. Read more. | More reads - FDA limits use of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine, citing clotting risk. (STAT)
- Prisons didn’t prescribe much Paxlovid or other COvid-19 treatments, even when they got the drugs. (STAT)
| Thanks for reading! Until next week,  | | | |
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