STATUS REPORT
Molly, mushrooms, ibogaine — oh my!
Alex Hogan / STAT
Before watching this video, I had no idea how to pronounce ‘ibogaine,’ the psychedelic that has Joe Rogan in a tizzy. Do you also want to learn how to pronounce words favored by podcasters? Or, maybe more importantly, understand what Rogan is texting Trump about? The latest STATus Report has you covered. Alex Hogan and Daniel Payne dive further into Trump’s recent actions on psychedelic policy, and what it means for mental health treatments.
DRUGS
Regeneron signs drug pricing deal, secures gene therapy approval
Regeneron had a busy Thursday.
The drugmaker struck a private drug pricing deal with the Trump administration to reduce prices on drugs to Medicaid, the last of 17 deals initially sought by the White House last year. The company also agreed to invest $27 billion in drug development in the United States. Health officials promised more drug pricing agreements in the near future, specifically targeting smaller pharma companies.
Regeneron also announced FDA approval of Otarmeni, the first gene therapy to be greenlit under the agency's new National Priority Voucher program. In early trials, the drug provided modest hearing gains for people with a rare type of hearing loss, though its development has received pushback from parts of the Deaf community. Regeneron plans to offer the drug at no cost to American patients.
Read more from STAT’s Daniel Payne and myself.
VACCINES
International childhood vaccine campaign grows
A multiyear campaign to rectify the damage the Covid-19 pandemic did to immunization efforts in developing countries has delivered more than 100 million vaccinations to 36 countries.
New data released Thursday suggest the Big Catch-Up campaign has vaccinated at least 18.3 million children under the age of 5, and appears to be on track to hit its goal of 21 million children when the final tally is calculated. Importantly, 12.3 million of them were what are known as “zero dose children” — kids who’d previously received no vaccinations. The program, which began in 2023, was conducted by the WHO; Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; and UNICEF.
Kate O’Brien, WHO’s director of immunization, vaccination, and biologics, said one of the pluses of the campaign is that countries are now monitoring vaccination coverage in kids up to the age of 5. Previously monitoring stopped after the age of 2 in many countries, an approach that all but assured that children who were missed in their first two years of life would remain unvaccinated. — Helen Branswell
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