A drug for the world's third-biggest killer cut attacks by 30%, and it was tested in the patients the other new drugs leave out

The rest of the day

20 more stories on this beat.

Each with its own sources. None of these is a link to the story above.

1. 02

   Novartis loses a second big trial in three days

   Novartis, one of the world's biggest drugmakers, said on Tuesday that its drug del-desiran had failed the final-stage HARBOR trial in myotonic dystrophy type 1, a disease that slowly stiffens and weakens muscles. [2] The trial's main measure was video hand opening time - how fast a hand relaxes after squeezing - and the drug did no better than a dummy treatment. [3] It was the company's second late-stage failure in days, after its cholesterol drug missed on Friday. [2][3] The shares fell as much as 10%, and Novartis left its sales forecast to 2030 unchanged. [3]

   Why it matters — Novartis is heading into a patent cliff, when its biggest sellers lose their protection, and the drugs it has bought are what is meant to replace them. [2]

2. 03

   Roivant's lung drug cuts a pressure measure by 56%

   Roivant said on Tuesday that mosliciguat met every goal of a mid-stage trial in pulmonary hypertension linked to interstitial lung disease - high blood pressure in the vessels between heart and lungs, in people whose lung tissue is scarring. [5] Over 16 weeks it cut pulmonary vascular resistance, a measure of how hard blood must push through the lungs, by 56% against a dummy treatment. [5] Patients also walked 35 metres further in six minutes. [5] Roivant has already started a final-stage trial, and one analyst put possible sales above $10 billion a year. [4]

   Why it matters — The 56% describes pressure inside the lungs and the 35 metres is a patient walking further in six minutes; the final-stage trial now has to repeat both. [5]

3. 04

   Bristol Myers reports a win and no numbers

   Bristol Myers Squibb said its cell therapy arlo-cel hit the main goal of the pivotal Quintessential trial in multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells in bone marrow. [6][7] The treatment takes a patient's own immune cells, edits them in a laboratory to recognise a protein called GPRC5D on the cancer, and returns them in one infusion. [7] Everyone in the trial had already failed four classes of standard treatment. [6] The company released no figures at all, saying only that the result was statistically significant and clinically meaningful. [6][7]

   Why it matters — Johnson & Johnson's rival drug against the same protein reported a 72% response rate, so until Bristol Myers publishes a number nobody outside the company can tell whether arlo-cel beats it. [6]

4. 05

   Pharvaris cuts swelling attacks by 83%

   Pharvaris, a Swiss biotech, said its once-daily pill deucrictibant cut the rate of swelling attacks by 83% over 24 weeks in 85 people with hereditary angioedema. [8] The condition is inherited and causes sudden swelling of the face, limbs and airway with no warning, and it can kill. [8] Among the 80 patients with the two commonest forms, the reduction was 87%. [8] It is the drug's second final-stage win; the US drug regulator is due to rule on a different version of it in April 2027, and the shares rose 14%. [8]

   Why it matters — Pharvaris says the pill could be the first single drug used both to stop an attack and to prevent them; the existing oral rival, KalVista's Ekterly, only treats attacks. [8]

5. 06

   Inhibrx's result came from a small group inside the trial

   Inhibrx said its drug INBRX-106, given with Merck's Keytruda, shrank tumours in 48.3% of head and neck cancer patients against 26.5% on Keytruda alone, in a 68-person mid-stage trial. [10] Everyone enrolled already had high levels of PD-L1, a protein that marks out who tends to respond to this kind of immunotherapy. [10] The strongest effect was in patients whose tumours carried HPV, the human papillomavirus: 80% responded, against 33.3%. [10] Inhibrx is now adding 50 more HPV-positive patients to chase a faster approval. [10]

   Why it matters — STAT reports the benefit was largely driven by that subgroup, which could sharply limit who the drug is ever licensed for. [9]

6. 07

   Spyre's third gut-disease win in five months

   Spyre Therapeutics said its antibody SPY003 met its goals in a mid-stage trial in 44 people with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory disease of the large bowel. [11] Disease activity fell by ten points on the Robarts index, a score doctors read off a sample of bowel lining under a microscope. [11] It is the third of three Spyre antibodies to succeed since April, each blocking a different part of the immune signal that drives the disease. [11] The company's plan is to combine them rather than pick one. [11]

   Why it matters — Spyre's chief executive called it three potential best-in-class readouts in five months, and the plan is to use the three antibodies together rather than pick a winner. [11]

7. 08

   $116m for a children's brainstem tumour

   BrainChild Bio, spun out of Seattle Children's Hospital, raised $116 million to finish a pivotal trial of BCB-276 in diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, a tumour that grows into the brainstem of children. [12][13] Surgeons cannot reach it, no drug is approved for it, and radiation adds only a few months of life. [12] There are 250 to 300 new cases a year, and the money came from the hospital itself and one local fund. [12] Unlike every approved cell therapy, BrainChild's cells are given in repeated doses. [12]

   Why it matters — Brain tumours are now the leading cause of cancer death in children, and a disease this small struggles to attract investors at all. [12]

8. 09

   $70m to switch off a gene in fat cells

   Moonwalk Biosciences raised $70 million and said its first drug will use RNA interference - switching a gene off before it can make its protein - aimed at fat tissue rather than at appetite. [14] The company launched in 2024 to mine the epigenome, and changed course because RNA drugs reach patients faster, its chief executive said. [14] The technology is licensed from Suzhou Siran Biotechnology in China. [14] Human testing is planned by the end of 2027. [14]

   Why it matters — GLP-1 drugs dominate the obesity market and work by suppressing appetite; Moonwalk's chief executive says acting on fat cells instead could avoid the gut side effects and help keep muscle. [14]

9. 10

   Approval closed the door for pancreatic cancer patients

   When the US drug regulator approved Rasonque for pancreatic cancer last month, its maker Revolution Medicines immediately shut the programme that had been supplying the drug free before approval. [15] Insurers take weeks or months to start paying for a newly approved medicine, so people already on the waiting list now have neither route. [15] Kelsey Solano, a nurse in Washington state, was partway through that process for her husband Juan, whose pancreatic cancer has spread. [15] One patient on Medicare, the US health scheme for older people, was refused cover in writing. [15]

   Why it matters — The drug has been shown to nearly double how long patients live on average, and pancreatic cancer gives them very little time to wait for paperwork. [15]

10. 11

    Caffeine acts on a different switch than expected

    Researchers at Queen Mary University of London reported that caffeine slows cell ageing by switching on AMPK, a sensor that tells a cell it is running low on fuel. [16] The same group had previously thought caffeine acted directly on TOR, the switch that decides when a cell grows. [16] The work was done in fission yeast, a single-celled organism used as a stand-in for human cells, and published in the journal Microbial Cell. [16] AMPK is the same system the diabetes drug metformin works through. [16]

    Why it matters — Nothing here shows that coffee slows human ageing; what it gives is a specific target that exists in people too. [16]

11. 12

    Semaglutide linked to fewer psychiatric admissions

    Researchers led by Griffith University in Australia followed nearly 15,000 people in Sweden with bipolar disorder who had been prescribed GLP-1 drugs, the weight-loss and diabetes family, over 15 years. [17] Periods when someone was taking semaglutide - sold as Ozempic and Wegovy - carried a 21% lower risk of being admitted to hospital for their mental illness than periods off it. [17] Other GLP-1 drugs showed no such link. [17] About 37 million people worldwide live with bipolar disorder. [17]

    Why it matters — The study compares the same people at different times rather than assigning the drug at random, so it cannot show that semaglutide kept anyone out of hospital. [17]

12. 13

    Sudan's health system is close to collapse

    Medecins Sans Frontieres said Sudan's health system is close to collapse because the money that ran it has gone. [18] The US government closed USAID, its aid agency and Sudan's largest donor, last year, and grants to many organisations it funded ran out in June. [18] In central Darfur 45 health centres lost their funding in May alone, and admissions to facilities MSF supports rose 22.5% early this year. [18] In one camp holding 18,400 displaced people, the maternity and surgical wards closed, so women needing a caesarean travel three hours. [18]

    Why it matters — More than 33 million people in Sudan need medical help after three years of war, and international aid fell 21.3% worldwide in 2025. [18]

13. 14

    A tropical mosquito bred in east London

    Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that carries dengue, chikungunya and Zika in hot countries, has been found breeding in homes in east London. [19] It is the first time the species has bred in the UK and the fourth time it has been found there. [19] The UK Health Security Agency said the risk is low, no human infections are linked to it, and the British climate is still too cold for the species to settle. [19] It most likely arrived in vehicles, luggage or imported plants. [19]

    Why it matters — The agency expects more arrivals as the climate warms, and a study this year found chikungunya can now be passed on in most of Europe. [19]

14. 15

    Congo's Ebola deaths pass 3,000, and schools reopen anyway

    More than 3,000 people have now died in the Democratic Republic of Congo's worst Ebola outbreak, spread across six provinces, with 48.6% of those infected dying. [21] Schools reopened this week even in Ituri province's red zones, where transmission is active - more than 1,000 schools - after Congo's government dropped a plan to replace lessons with worksheets and radio broadcasts. [21] Officials said pupils would otherwise fall too far behind. [21] Separately, AFC/M23 rebels reported a new case in North Kivu, two months after declaring their territory free of the virus. [20]

    Why it matters — The new patient is a 21-year-old man who had arrived from government-held Butembo, and nobody yet knows where he was infected. [20]

15. 16

    An Alzheimer's trial in people with no symptoms

    An NHS trust in Surrey has become the first site in Europe to enrol patients in a trial of trontinemab, a drug meant to delay or prevent Alzheimer's before any symptoms appear. [22] The trial is recruiting 1,600 healthy adults aged 55 to 80 worldwide, and blood tests are used to pick the people most likely to benefit. [22] The drug clears beta amyloid, a sticky protein that builds up between brain cells in the disease. [22] Almost all Alzheimer's research so far has treated people who already have symptoms. [22]

    Why it matters — About 982,000 people in the UK are living with dementia, of which Alzheimer's is 60% to 80% of cases. [22]

16. 17

    Three genes in a blood sample to find TB

    Researchers testing samples from 175 adults narrowed a 12-gene blood signature down to three genes that separate active tuberculosis from other lung diseases. [23] In a first clinical check on 56 people, the signatures were right for more than 77% of TB patients and more than 94% of those without it. [23] Almost every TB test in use needs a sputum sample coughed up from the lungs, which many patients cannot produce. [23] The authors say a blood method could be cheap enough for primary care clinics. [23]

    Why it matters — Tuberculosis is among the ten biggest infectious causes of death worldwide, and this has only been checked in small groups so far. [23]

17. 18

    Gut infections leave immune memory at the brain's border

    Giving mice gut bacteria and parasites changed the immune cells sitting in the dura mater, the tough outer wrapping of the brain. [24] Immune cells trained in the gut travelled to that border and settled there for the long term, and when the same germ was later injected into the blood they reacted straight away. [24] The dura's blood vessels are leaky, which is how germs carried in blood can reach the brain. [24] The work was published in Nature Neuroscience. [24]

    Why it matters — It is a mouse result, and what it means for human brain inflammation is not known. [24]

18. 19

    GBP500,000 each for two UK biotechs

    Medicines Discovery Catapult, a UK research organisation, put GBP500,000 each into Flip Therapeutics and Nascent Therapeutics, using money from Innovate UK, the UK government's innovation agency. [25] Flip is trying to reprogramme immune T cells inside the body so they stop driving inflammation and start calming it, in diseases such as psoriasis and alopecia areata. [25] Nascent, a spinout from the University of East Anglia, works on the cell's power packs in ageing-related disease. [25] Both also get access to the Catapult's laboratories and advisers. [25]

    Why it matters — About one in ten people in the UK has a chronic autoimmune or inflammatory disease of the kind Flip is aiming at. [25]

19. 20

    A duck cell line instead of chickens' eggs

    ProBioGen widened its licence to Transgene for AGE1.CR.pIX, a cell line grown from a duck embryo and used to make vaccines from viruses. [26] Much viral vaccine is still grown in hens' eggs, which is slow and depends on a steady egg supply; a cell line grows in a defined liquid with no animal ingredients. [26] Every batch then starts from the same fully characterised stock. [26] Transgene makes personalised cancer vaccines, including one for head and neck cancer. [26]

    Why it matters — This is manufacturing rather than science, and it is the part that decides whether a personalised vaccine can be made for more than a handful of people. [26]

20. 21

    More exercise, worse results, in one genetic group

    Researchers followed 682 adults aged 65 and over through annual health checks. [27] Women who carry two copies of one version of the ACTN3 gene did worse at standing up from a chair five times if their activity went above a certain level. [27] That version leaves them without a muscle protein called alpha-actinin-3. [27] Below that level, more activity went with better results, making a U-shaped curve. [27] The gene by itself showed no link to muscle loss. [27]

    Why it matters — The authors call the exact threshold exploratory and say it needs checking in other groups before anyone reads advice into it. [27]