Biotech & Longevity · Saturday, 17 October 2026

01 Briefing what happened

China proposes to ban foreign takeovers of its gene therapy and RNA drug platforms, while leaving drug licensing deals open

China's trade ministry published a draft on Friday that would stop foreign companies buying the Chinese methods behind gene, cell and RNA medicines. Renting out the rights to single drugs, which is how nearly all of this year's $120 billion in deals were done, stays allowed.

$120bn

of foreign deals for Chinese biotech drugs and rights, January to August

36% more than the same months last year, by China's drug regulators' count [1]

5 of 40

technologies on China's draft export list are medical

another 23 are kinds of AI, such as the models behind chatbots [1][2][3]

deals Roche has signed with Chinese drug developers since late August

GSK and AstraZeneca each signed five over the past 20 months [5]

15 Nov

when comments on the draft close

until then, exports in its fields must be registered with China's commerce ministry [1]

The lead story — what happened

China's Ministry of Commerce, which runs the country's trade, published a draft on Friday adding biotech methods to its list of technologies that cannot freely leave China. [1][2]
Foreign companies would be banned from buying Chinese platforms for cell and gene therapy and for siRNA, small pieces of RNA that switch off one gene. [1]
A platform here means a set of reusable tools that can produce many drugs, not just one. [1]
Platforms for gain-of-function work, which makes germs more dangerous in order to study them, would also be banned from sale, and China's commerce ministry gave national security as the reason. [1]
Selling abroad the full methods for finding and checking drug targets in these fields would need government approval. [1] A target is the molecule in the body that a drug acts on.
Licensing stays open: a Chinese company can still rent out the rights to a drug, or do research and manufacturing for foreign clients. [1][2][4]
China's drug regulators count $120 billion of foreign deals for Chinese biotech assets this year up to August, 36% more than a year earlier. [1]
Western buyers have almost always bought single drugs, or used a Chinese platform to find new ones, rather than buying the platform itself. [1] AstraZeneca's $1 billion purchase of Gracell, a Chinese maker of CAR-T cell therapy, at the end of 2023 is the kind the draft would likely stop. [1]
Roche, the Swiss drugmaker, has signed five deals with Chinese drug developers since late August, more than any other big drugmaker. [5]
One of them, on 13 October, rented the rights to an RNA-based obesity drug from Rona Therapeutics, built on Rona's own delivery platform. [6] Roche pays up to $100 million soon and up to $1.06 billion later. [6]
Aaron Gu of Han Kun, a Chinese law firm, called the draft significantly better than the market expected. [1] A list rumoured in May had also covered antibody-drug conjugates, antibodies that carry a drug to a cell, and other popular kinds of medicine. [1]
The same draft covers 40 technologies in all, including 23 kinds of AI such as large language models and chip designs. [1][3]
Two members of the US Congress have proposed a bill to put US deals for Chinese drugs under more checks, but it has not moved. [1]
Comments on the draft close on 15 November. [1] Gu says that until the list takes effect, exports in its fields must be registered with China's commerce ministry. [1]

Kinds of AI23 · 57%
Medical methods5 · 13%
Others, such as solar12 · 30%

The 40 technologies on China's draft export list. The 12 others is 40 minus the 23 and the 5 counted by Bloomberg.

Who is involved

China's Ministry of Commerce

the Chinese government department that runs the country's trade; it wrote the draft and takes comments until 15 November
Chinese biotech companies such as Rona Therapeutics

drug developers that rent out the rights to their drugs abroad; they could no longer sell their whole platform to a foreign buyer
Roche and AstraZeneca

two of the biggest European drugmakers; Roche rents Chinese drugs, and AstraZeneca bought Gracell outright in 2023
Aaron Gu

a partner at Han Kun, a Chinese law firm that advises on drug deals; he says the draft is milder than feared

How it unfolded

End of 2023 AstraZeneca buys Gracell, a Chinese CAR-T maker, for $1 billion [1]
2025 more than 60 deals between Western and Chinese drug companies are signed [5]
May 2026 rumours spread that China will ban sales of drug platforms [1]
13 Oct Roche rents an obesity drug from Rona Therapeutics [6]
16 Oct China's commerce ministry publishes the draft list [1][2]
15 Nov the period for comments on the draft ends [1]

Where this points

Watch what the final list says after comments close on 15 November, and whether US Treasury rules also leave licensing of Chinese drugs open. [1]

What is pushing on the whole day

The bar and the word are our reading of how hard each one is pushing today. The arrow is where it is heading. The evidence is in the stories below.

Weight-loss drugs spreading High↑

Europe's drug advisers backed a second weight-loss pill on Friday, Eli Lilly's Foundayo. [7] An online programme in the UK put 8,127 women on these drugs and checked them by video each week. [17] A five-year study of about 69,000 pairs of people found no rise in blood cancers among those taking them. [16]

Money for drug-making methods Building↑

City Therapeutics raised $200 million on Nasdaq for a method that silences genes. [18] Estuary raised $93 million to deliver genes into the kidney. [21] Insilico says its AI picks a new drug candidate in 12 to 18 months. [26]

Scientists' results being rechecked Building↑

Four studies on diabetes in pregnancy were retracted after a university found copied images. [22] Nature put a warning on a famous 2017 autism paper in mice. [23] A Stanford professor says the lack of evidence behind Theranos is, if anything, worse in start-ups today. [24]

Checks after a product is sold Steady→

Only 25% of the hearing aids listed on Amazon could be matched to FDA records. [25] The UK will review a vaccine injury scheme that paid just over 1% of Covid claims. [15]

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.

02
Europe's drug advisers back Lilly's weight-loss pill

The committee of the European Medicines Agency, the EU's medicines regulator, recommended approval on Friday of Foundayo, Eli Lilly's weight-loss pill. [7] Foundayo, also called orforglipron, is a GLP-1 pill. [8] GLP-1 drugs copy a gut hormone that makes people feel full. It is the second weight-loss pill to win the committee's backing, after Novo Nordisk's Wegovy pill. [7]

Why it matters — Eli Lilly, the US drugmaker, is trying to catch up with Novo Nordisk, its Danish rival, in pills. [8] A recommendation is not yet a licence: the final approval in the EU comes after it.
03
Kenya confirms a third Ebola case

Kenya confirmed its third Ebola case on Friday, a 65-year-old woman who is a close relative of its first two patients. [9] She had been in quarantine since 6 October when she fell ill with fever and a sore throat. [9] Kenya's first patient, a 40-year-old businessman, died on 5 October after travelling from Congo through Uganda. [9][11] Officials say 127 of 130 known contacts are traced and quarantined. [9]

Why it matters — In Congo's Ituri province, 10 of 25 school pupils confirmed with Ebola have died since schools reopened. [10] This outbreak is the Bundibugyo strain, for which there is no specific vaccine or treatment. [9]
04
A shot at home for thyroid eye disease

The FDA, the US medicines regulator, approved Roche's Enspryng on Friday for thyroid eye disease. [12] In this disease the immune system inflames the tissue around the eyes, which can bulge and see double. [12] Enspryng is an antibody that blocks a signal driving the swelling, and patients can inject it at home. [12] In one final trial, 52.9% on the drug had less bulging, against 23.4% on a dummy. [12] The other trial missed its main goal. [12]

Enspryng52.9%
Dummy shot23.4%
Share of people with active disease in the SatraGO-2 trial whose eye bulging improved.

Why it matters — It is the first treatment for the disease given as an injection under the skin rather than through a drip. [12] About 155 in every 100,000 people have the disease. [12]
05
Jury sides with ousted scientist Sabatini

A jury in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, awarded $6 million on Friday to David Sabatini, a former MIT professor and star biologist. [13] His career collapsed after Kristin Knouse, a younger scientist, said he pressured her into a relationship and ran a sexualised lab. [13] His lab was at the Whitehead Institute, a research centre in Cambridge. [13] The jury of seven women and six men found she had defamed him and must pay, plus interest. [13]

Why it matters — The three-week civil trial showed how much power lab heads hold over the young scientists who work for them. [14] The case turned on two scientists' opposite accounts and their text messages. [14]
06
UK will review its vaccine injury payments

The UK government said it will review the scheme that pays people injured or bereaved by vaccines. [15] Baroness Hallett, who chairs the official inquiry into Covid, had called the scheme not sufficiently supportive. [15] More than 24,000 people have claimed for Covid jabs, and just over 1% won the one-off award of 120,000 pounds. [15] Claimants must show they are at least 60% disabled. [15]

1 of 100
Covid claims that won an award, of every 100
Just over 1 in 100 of the 24,000 Covid vaccine claims won the payment.

Why it matters — The campaign group Vaccine Injured and Bereaved UK says the UK government gave no timetable. [15] Running the scheme has cost more than double the 32 million pounds it has paid out. [15]
07
No rise in blood cancers on GLP-1 drugs

A study published on 12 October looked for blood cancers in adults with type 2 diabetes who started GLP-1 drugs such as semaglutide, the drug in Ozempic. [16] It matched 68,949 of them with similar people starting a different diabetes pill and followed them for up to five years. [16] Rates of seven kinds of blood cancer, including lymphoma and leukaemia, did not differ. [16] Against a third drug class, GLP-1 users had fewer of three blood cancers. [16]

Why it matters — The data came from TriNetX, a network of over 100 million health records, so the study can show a link or its absence but not prove a cause. [16]
08
8,127 UK women lose weight through an online clinic

A study in Nature Medicine on 16 October followed 8,127 women in the UK who started a weight-loss drug through an online programme. [17] Almost all, 99.8%, took tirzepatide. [17] After six months they had lost 15.5% of their starting weight on average, and 91.4% were still taking part. [17] The programme required blood tests and a video check-in every week. [17]

Why it matters — Staff of the two companies that ran it, eMed Healthcare UK and SheMed, are among the authors. [17] The women paid for themselves and there was no comparison group, which the authors list as limits. [17]
09
Two drug start-ups sell shares to the public

City Therapeutics raised $200 million on Thursday by selling 11.1 million shares at $18, more than it planned. [18] It began trading on Nasdaq on Friday. [18] It makes RNAi drugs, which silence a gene before it can make a harmful protein. [18] Its lead drug targets Factor XI, a clotting protein, and cut its level by up to 85% in early tests. [18] Iambic Therapeutics, which designs drugs with AI, saw its shares rise more than 50% after a $150 million listing. [19]

Why it matters — All eight approved RNAi medicines act in the liver, and City is trying to reach other parts of the body. [18] Earlier AI drug companies lost value after listing: Recursion's shares fell from $18 to under $4. [19]
10
Novartis stops a lupus kidney trial

Novartis, the Swiss drugmaker, ended a mid-stage trial of its pill Fabhalta in lupus nephritis, a kidney inflammation caused by the immune disease lupus. [20] It gave strategic considerations as the reason, in the US government's database of clinical trials. [20] Fabhalta is also called iptacopan. [20]

Why it matters — Novartis gave no results, so it is not known whether the drug worked in these patients.
11
Start-up gets $93 million for kidney gene therapy

Estuary Biotherapeutics, a California company backed by Biogen and run partly by its former staff, launched on Friday with $93 million. [21] It aims at ADPKD, an inherited disease in which cysts grow in the kidneys and often cause kidney failure. [21] In mice, restoring proteins called polycystins shrank the cysts. [21] Its two gene therapies are due to start human tests in 2027 and 2028. [21]

Why it matters — About 1 in 400 to 1,000 people have ADPKD, and only one drug, tolvaptan, is approved for it. [21] Estuary's chief executive says getting genes into the kidney is the hardest step left. [21]
12
Four diabetes-in-pregnancy studies retracted

Journals retracted four studies on how a mother's diabetes affects the neural tube, the early form of a baby's brain and spine. [22] The University of Maryland, Baltimore found copied images and other data problems, the retraction notices say. [22] All four list Peixin Yang as the lead author to contact. [22] Data sleuths have flagged 44 studies on which he is the only shared author. [22]

Why it matters — Yang's lawyer says three of the notices do not find that he committed misconduct. [22] Mary Loeken, a Harvard researcher, says her lab could not reproduce the team's results. [22]
13
Warning added to a famous autism paper

Nature added an expression of concern, a public warning to readers, to a 2017 paper last week. [23] The paper linked a mother's gut bacteria to autism-like behaviour in her mouse pups, and has been cited more than 680 times. [23] The same values repeat across 10 of its figures. [23] The raw data were lost when the lab moved, so the numbers cannot be checked. [23]

Why it matters — Jun Huh, the Harvard immunologist who led it, says later studies support its findings. [23] Mu Yang, a Columbia scientist who checks research, says the repeated data are central to its conclusions. [23]
14
A Theranos film opens, and scientists worry

A documentary on Elizabeth Holmes, You Can See Everything, opened in cinemas on Friday. [25] Holmes ran Theranos, which claimed one drop of blood could run hundreds of tests. [24] She was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for defrauding investors. [25] Her partner, Billy Evans, is building a new blood-testing company, Haemanthus, with Holmes listed as an adviser. [24]

Why it matters — John Ioannidis, a Stanford medical professor who questioned Theranos early, says start-ups now make claims without strong evidence more often. [24] A Case Western researcher says Theranos made funding harder to win for scientists who study blood tests. [24]
15
Shop-bought hearing aids are cheaper but hard to check

Four years after the FDA let adults buy hearing aids without a prescription, a study in JAMA, a leading US medical journal, weighed the result on Thursday. [25] Over-the-counter aids cost about $500, against about $3,400 for prescription ones, and most first-time buyers now choose them. [25] Only 25% of the hearing aids listed on Amazon could be matched to FDA records. [25]

Over the counter$500
Prescription$3,400
The usual price of one hearing aid, by how it is bought.

Why it matters — Some of the first companies to sell them have already left the market. [25] It is not known how many people who need a hearing aid now buy one. [25]
16
AI-designed painkiller beats morphine in animals

Insilico Medicine, a drug company whose AI team works mainly in Abu Dhabi, says its pill ISM9528 eased pain better than morphine in animal tests. [26] It is not an opioid, the family of addictive painkillers that includes morphine. [26] It has not yet been tested in people. [26] Insilico says its AI lets it pick a drug candidate in 12 to 18 months, against about five years usually. [26]

Why it matters — Nine in ten drugs that reach human testing are never approved, so an animal result is only a first step. [26] The company says AI does not shorten human trials, which can take a decade. [26]
17
A fat-burning switch makes cancer-killing cells stronger

Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a US research centre, reported in Nature Immunology this week that a protein called PPARD can help immune cells fight cancer. [27] Cancer cells use PPARD to grow, but turning it on in immune cells made them burn more fat and attack tumours harder. [27] In lab models of human colon cancer, CAR-T cells with PPARD switched on slowed or stopped tumour growth. [27]

Why it matters — CAR-T cells are a patient's own immune cells re-engineered to hunt cancer. [27] Colorectal cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death in people under 50, and this approach has not been tested in patients. [27]
18
Mixed bisphenols change breast tissue grown in a dish

Researchers at Tufts and Boston University grew small balls of breast tissue, called organoids, from cells given by 13 healthy young women. [28] Three common bisphenols, BPA, BPS and BPF, are chemicals that can interfere with the body's hormones. [28] Alone, each did little. [28] Mixed at levels found in people's blood and urine, they disrupted how the tissue developed in most donors' samples. [28] The work appeared in PNAS. [28]

Why it matters — The changes matched patterns seen in invasive lobular carcinoma, a breast cancer that a mammogram can miss. [28] The study does not show that the chemicals cause cancer. [28]
19
A short pill course clears resistant TB in Lesotho

A study in Nature Communications on 17 October followed 238 adults in Lesotho with drug-resistant tuberculosis, a lung infection that the usual antibiotics no longer kill. [29] They took a shortened course of pills only, with no injections, a treatment the WHO backs. [29] Of 148 whose lab cultures showed the germ at the start, 142 cleared it within four months. [29] There were 27 poor outcomes, including 20 deaths. [29]

19 of 20
cleared the TB germ within four months, of every 20
142 of 148 patients is about 19 in every 20.

Why it matters — Most of the patients, 62%, also had HIV. [29] Scarring and holes in the lungs on the first X-ray pointed to who would do worse. [29]
20
Moderna's shares are up 600% this year

Moderna's shares have risen more than 600% this year, against 23% for XBI, a fund that tracks biotech shares. [5] They fell to about $22 last year, near their 2018 debut price, after demand for its Covid vaccine dropped. [5] The rise took off in August, when its melanoma vaccine with Merck succeeded in a final-stage trial. [5] The vaccine uses messenger RNA, like Moderna's Covid shot. [25]

Why it matters — The full trial results are due at a medical meeting later this month. [5] RBC Capital Markets, an investment bank, calls that the biggest event for both companies for the rest of this year. [5]
21
South Africa moves to curb pharmacy-made weight-loss jabs

The South African Pharmacy Council, which sets the rules for pharmacists, is working with the industry's regulator to tighten rules on pharmacies making their own copies of medicines, Reuters reported. [30] The copies include versions of the weight-loss and diabetes drugs Ozempic and Mounjaro. [30] The council's chief executive, Vincent Tlala, says some pharmacies now make large batches in advance, rather than for specific patients. [30] New guidelines are expected around March next year. [30]

Why it matters — Novo Nordisk won a court case in June against local pharmacies making unauthorised copies, and it and Eli Lilly are likely to welcome the change. [30] South Africa has Africa's highest adult obesity rate, 30%, and the branded drugs cost too much for most people. [30]

02 Lesson why it matters

Why a tool that makes many medicines is guarded harder than any one medicine

China lets its biotechs rent single drugs to foreign firms but not sell the method behind them, because the method keeps making new drugs.

The twist

A licence hands over one drug, and the Chinese company can go on making more. A takeover hands over the method itself, with every drug it would have made later.

The picture

A licenceone drug

A takeoverevery future drug

China's draft lets the first kind of deal go on and blocks the second for gene, cell and siRNA methods.

How it works

A platform is a reusable method that can make drug after drug
Licensing one drug hands over that drug and keeps the method at home
Selling the company hands over the method and every drug it would make later
So China lets licences go on and blocks takeovers of the platform
Foreign buyers still get drugs, and the know-how stays in China

The same force, elsewhere today

Where this chain is also running, in today's other stories.

City Therapeutics' share sale

investors paid $200 million for a gene-silencing method that City wants to use across several diseases, before any of its drugs is approved
Insilico's painkiller

the drug is one of many from one AI method, and Insilico says that method now picks a candidate in 12 to 18 months
Estuary's launch

the $93 million backs a way to get genes into the kidney, which its chief says is the hardest step for every kidney gene therapy
Roche's Enspryng approval

a drug first approved in 2020 for a nerve disease now earns from a second disease, and a decision on a third is due in January

Where you've seen this

Restaurants

a chef can sell a dish to a supermarket and keep the recipe, or sell the restaurant and lose both

Music

a band can license one song to an advert and still own all its songs

Farming

a seed company sells seeds each year but keeps the parent plants that breed them

The catch

The list guards methods, not people. A Chinese scientist who moves abroad still takes the know-how, and an export list cannot stop a published paper.

And the whole of it

A patient in Europe may one day take a cancer drug first made in a Chinese lab and licensed to Roche or AstraZeneca. Neither that patient nor the scientist who made it gets a say in which kind of deal is allowed.

03 Truth what's really going on

What is really going on

China's government wants foreign drugmakers to keep renting the rights to Chinese drugs, but to stop buying the Chinese companies and methods that invent them. Its draft bans foreign takeovers of gene, cell and siRNA platforms, and leaves deals like Roche's licence for Rona Therapeutics' obesity drug untouched. [1][6]

Why it works on us — The word ban makes the draft sound like a wall between Chinese biotech and the West, though the licensing deals that make up nearly all of the trade stay allowed. [1]

Who gains

Chinese biotech companies that license their drugs — They keep owning their methods while earning upfront money, milestone payments and royalties from foreign partners. [1][6]
Roche and other drugmakers that rent Chinese drugs — The draft leaves licensing open, and Roche has signed five such deals since late August. [5][1]
Eli Lilly — A yes from Europe's drug advisers moves its weight-loss pill towards the EU market, where Novo Nordisk's pill already has backing. [7][8]
Roche, again, with Enspryng — A drug approved in 2020 for a rare nerve disease now has a second US market in thyroid eye disease. [12]
City Therapeutics' early investors — It raised $200 million on Nasdaq, more than it expected when it set its plans, after about $239 million from private investors. [18]

Who pays

Foreign buyers who want a whole Chinese platform — A purchase like AstraZeneca's $1 billion takeover of Gracell would likely not be allowed. [1]
Founders of Chinese biotechs hoping to sell outright — The draft closes the route of selling the whole company abroad, which a Chinese executive told Fierce Biotech China's government wants to stop. [1]
People in the UK injured by Covid vaccines — Just over 1% of 24,000 claims won an award, and the scheme has cost more to run than the 32 million pounds it paid out. [15]
Health workers facing Ebola in Kenya — Many have no health cover, rural centres lack protective gear, and a hiring freeze leaves too few staff. [11]
People buying hearing aids online — Only 25% of the aids listed on Amazon could be matched to FDA records. [25]

What nobody knows yet

Open questions from across today’s stories — ours included.

01

What China's final list will say.

This is a draft open for comment until 15 November, and a version rumoured in May covered far more kinds of medicine. [1]
02

Whether US rules on deals for Chinese drugs will also leave licensing open.

Reuters reported last month that the US Treasury's rules would probably keep most licensing deals legal, and a bill in the US Congress to add checks has not moved. [1]
03

How many people in Kenya have been exposed to Ebola.

On one count 113 of 128 contacts had been found, five of them abroad; the latest count is 127 of 130, with three still missing. [11][9] Critics ask how the first patient passed airport screening in Nairobi. [11]
04

Why Novartis stopped its Fabhalta trial in lupus kidney disease.

It gave only strategic considerations as the reason and released no results. [20]
05

Whether the changes bisphenols caused in breast tissue grown in a dish happen in people.

The tissue came from 13 donors, and the authors say larger studies are needed before anyone knows. [28]
06

When the UK's vaccine injury scheme will change, and how.

The UK government promised a review but gave no timetable, its campaigners say. [15]
07

Whether Moderna and Merck's melanoma vaccine looks as strong in the full data.

The full results come at a medical meeting later this month, and the shares have already risen more than 600% this year. [5]

04 Hope carry this

In Lesotho, 142 of 148 people with drug-resistant tuberculosis cleared the germ within four months on a short course of pills, with no injections.

Also true today

People in the US with thyroid eye disease can now treat it with an injection at home, after the FDA approved Enspryng on Friday.
A study of about 69,000 pairs of people with diabetes, followed for up to five years, found no rise in blood cancers among those taking GLP-1 drugs.