Medicare delays pilot for covering obesity drugs

One of the key health care accomplishments the Trump administration wanted to claim was securing coverage of obesity drugs for seniors. That plan is now unraveling.

Medicare has been legally barred from covering medicines for weight loss purposes, but the administration wanted to launch a pilot program to cover the drugs through the Part D benefit. Not enough insurers agreed to participate by this week's deadline, though, and Medicare has now indefinitely delayed those plans.

Shares of Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly fell about 2% yesterday.

oncology

RevMed previews next-gen RAS inhibiting drug

After RevMed wowed oncologists last week with the clinical trial success of its pancreatic cancer therapy, it showed intriguing preclinical data yesterday on a new compound.

That drug, currently called RM-055, is a type of targeted therapy that not only blocks the RAS signaling that drives cancer, but molecularly turns the cancer protein off.

At the annual meting of the American Association for Cancer Research, researchers presented data showing that in mice with pancreatic cancer, lung cancer, and colorectal cancer that were RAS mutant, the next-gen therapy had “robust” anti-tumor activity.

immunology

Safety questions loom over Roche's MS drug

Roche's investigational multiple sclerosis drug has now been shown to be effective in three late-stage trials, but it's not clear whether regulators will approve the treatment, called fenebrutinib.

Analysts have highlighted some potentially worrying liver safety signals, an issue that previously led the FDA to reject an MS therapy developed by Sanofi. In data released yesterday, researchers also disclosed there were two drug-related deaths among patients who took the therapy.

An approval would help Roche offset some of the revenue loss that’s expected when its current best-selling medicine, an MS treatment called Ocrevus, starts to lose exclusivity protections in 2029.

biotech

CAR-T for autoimmune disease faces regulatory test

CAR-T treatments are currently only approved for blood cancers, but more biotechs are pivoting their programs to study CAR-T therapies in autoimmune diseases. The first such treatment may soon be on the market.

Kyverna Therapeutics reported yesterday that its one-time, personalized cell therapy improved mobility and reduced disabilities in patients with stiff person syndrome, a rare, neurological autoimmune disorder.

With those results, the biotech plans to submit the treatment to regulators this year.