The need-to-know this morning

More pharma earnings: Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly
Notable biotech earnings: Alnylam.
UniQure said it will submit a marketing application for its Huntington's disease gene therapy to U.K. regulators in the third quarter.
Craig Venter, scientist, genomic pioneer and entrepreneur, died.

nih

It's far harder to get an NIH grant these days

The odds of landing an NIH grant have cratered to near-unsustainable levels. Only 13% of applications were funded last year, STAT’s Anil Oza writes, with even top-scoring proposals no longer having good odds. Now, researchers are scrambling to survive in a system that’s become both hypercompetitive and opaque.

Labs are spending more time writing grants than doing science, chasing alternative funding that rarely materializes, and contorting projects to fit shifting political priorities. Along with staffing cuts and delays, the result is a demoralized workforce and a growing sense that academic science is running on fumes.

“Everything is so backlogged, I've submitted a grant in June of 2025, and it didn't get reviewed until February of 2026,” one researcher told STAT. “It is demoralizing, and I have learned to live with the anxiety because it is out of my control. I have done nothing wrong. I have done good science. It is recognized by my peers. I am proud of the work that I have done,” she said.

“It may come to an end," she added, "but it's not my fault.”

glp-1 drugs

Five-way obesity drug is super effective — in mice

Researchers have engineered a “quintuple agonist” that effectively stacks the benefits of GLP-1 and GIP incretin drugs with a three-pronged PPAR metabolic booster, a new study in Nature shows. In obese mice it outperformed today’s heavy hitters, cutting weight, food intake, and blood sugar more than semaglutide or dual agonists alone.

The trick is targeted delivery: by tethering a PPAR drug to incretin signaling pathways, the therapy appears to amplify insulin sensitivity and anti-inflammatory effects while avoiding some of the baggage of standalone PPAR drugs. It’s an impressive preclinical result, with broad metabolic improvements and no obvious safety red flags in mice. But while promising, it comes with the usual caveat that what works spectacularly in rodents doesn’t always translate to humans.

obesity

New obesity risk score aims beyond BMI

A new tool called OBSCORE is trying to move obesity diagnoses past the blunt instrument of BMI, STAT’s Elizabeth Cooney writes. It uses a mix of clinical, lifestyle, and socioeconomic data to predict a patient’s 10-year risk of a wide range of complications — and, potentially, who should get pricey GLP-1 drugs.

Built from UK Biobank data and using machine learning, researchers narrowed thousands of variables down to about 20 indicators tied to 18 outcomes, offering a more nuanced way to triage risk and allocate treatment.

“To me, the main contribution of this article is to put this issue on the radar of people working in obesity to recognize the importance of prioritizing treatments to those with the highest risk to develop complications, but also those who already have those complications,” a preventative cardiologist at Mayo Clinic said.

manufacturing

Novartis doubles down on U.S. drugmaking footprint

Novartis is adding a new plant to develop active pharmaceutical ingredients in North Carolina — the final piece of its yearlong, $23 billion push to build a fully domestic manufacturing and R&D network.

The company’s aim is to produce everything from raw ingredients to finished drugs — including newer modalities like RNA therapies — within the U.S. The expansion, spanning seven new facilities plus upgrades across multiple states, underscores a broader industry shift toward localizing supply chains and scaling up capacity for complex treatments like radioligand therapies.

The Trump administration has heavily incentivized drugmakers to bring their manufacturing stateside. That said, just a couple days ago Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan told CNBC the administration’s most-favored nation drug pricing efforts pose a “very difficult situation” for both drugmakers and patients.

Alzheimer's disease

Alector halts Alzheimer's trial after futility signal

Alector is discontinuing a Phase 2 study of its drug nivisnebart after an interim analysis found it unlikely to slow disease progression, the company said. This is yet another setback for its progranulin-focused approach after a prior late-stage miss in frontotemporal dementia. The company laid off nearly half its staff last fall as a result.

Alector said it will pivot toward earlier-stage programs, including antibody, enzyme replacement, and siRNA therapies enabled by its blood-brain barrier platform, with new trials expected to begin over the next two years.