Research
Vindicated MIT professor says fraud probe decimated his lab
In 2019, after Ram Sasisekharan was accused of scientific fraud by some of his peers, the MIT professor went quiet. And stayed quiet — for nearly four years.
There was a reason for that: MIT had mounted an internal review of the allegations, and school policy mandated that all parties keep the whole thing confidential. Recently, however, the review concluded, clearing Sasisekharan of wrongdoing and freeing him to speak publicly.
That has allowed him both to post a detailed defense of his work and to bemoan the price paid because of the investigation, which he said sidelined his work and decimated his team.
"The feeling was that we were guilty of something until we were proven innocent," Sasisekharan, a decorated scientist whose work helped launch six biotech companies, said in an interview with STAT. "There were times I would wake up wondering if it had all been a nightmare."
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Washington
Sanders wants NIH to get tougher with drug companies over prices
Sen. Bernie Sanders earlier this week threatened not to proceed with the confirmation of President Biden's nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health until the administration provides a "comprehensive" plan to lower prescription drug prices. And, it turns out, he has some ideas of his own.
As STAT's Ed Silverman reports, Sanders yesterday called for the NIH to reinstate a provision into contracts with drug companies that would require them to set reasonable prices when they license the agency's inventions. The NIH previously incorporated such a clause in contracts with drug companies but removed the language in 1995 after the industry became reluctant to commit to pricing terms while projects were in the early stages of development.
Sanders' appeal coincided with the release of a report from the Senate health committee showing that medicines developed with help from the NIH have often cost Americans more than what is paid in other countries.
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Biotech
Protagonist Therapeutics looks to pivotal trial for its rare blood disorder therapy
Bay Area-based Protagonist Therapeutics has hit some drug development hurdles in recent years. In 2021, the FDA put studies of its experimental rare blood disorder drug, rusfertide, on hold due to concerns about skin malignancies. While that hold was lifted quickly, the FDA, citing further concerns about malignancies, yanked the therapy's "breakthrough" designation the following year.
But as STAT's Andrew Joseph reports, company executives at last weekend's annual meeting of the European Hematology Association, sounded confident about the road ahead for the drug, designed as a treatment for a chronic condition called polycythemia vera, which is characterized by the overproduction of red blood cells..
In presentations at a press briefing and at a session for late-breaking studies, researchers outlined what they portrayed as promising Phase 2 results indicating rusfertide helped stabilize red blood cells at healthier levels and improved patients' symptoms, including fatigue and brain fog. A Phase 3 trial of rusfertide is ongoing.
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