Beat
Drug trials, gene editing, and longevity — the science with the caveats intact.
Kenya's Ebola cases rise to seven, and three of the new patients are health workers who treated the first one →
Kenya confirmed four new Ebola cases on Saturday, a relative of its first patient and three health workers who cared for him, in a strain with no approved vaccine or treatment.
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.
Pig kidneys stored like glass at -150C, one for over a year, are rewarmed and work again, scientists report →
University of Minnesota scientists rewarmed pig kidneys kept frozen for days to over a year and saw them make urine, though the organs showed injury and were watched in pigs for only two hours.
Kenya confirms a second Ebola case, a relative of its first patient who was already in quarantine, as Congo's outbreak passes 9,000 cases →
A 39-year-old relative of Kenya's first Ebola patient fell ill in quarantine and tested positive, while in Congo a third of new cases are found only after death; the US drug regulator also approved a bladder cancer drug for patients it was never tested on alone.
BioNTech's mRNA vaccine for one kind of head and neck cancer misses its first main goal in a final-stage trial →
Adding BioNTech's BNT113 to the immune drug Keytruda did not slow tumour growth, and the trial now waits on survival; seven deaths are linked to Neurocrine's Prader-Willi drug, and Roche pays $100 million for a Chinese obesity drug.
Bristol Myers Squibb's lung-scarring drug passes its final trial, but only the lower of its two doses worked →
Bristol Myers Squibb said admilparant slowed the loss of breathing in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis over a year at 60 mg while 120 mg fell short, and its radiation cancer drug RYZ101 also passed a final trial.
US measles cases reach 4,080, and the CDC's count of two deaths leaves out the five that Pennsylvania reports →
The US is having its worst measles year since 1991, with 414 people taken to hospital, while the CDC and Pennsylvania disagree on how to count a measles death.
US regulator approves the immune drug Tecentriq for one kind of stage 3 colon cancer, after a trial found it halved the risk of the cancer returning →
The FDA approved Genentech's Tecentriq, given with chemotherapy, for colon cancers that cannot fix their own DNA copying mistakes. A trial of 712 patients found it halved the risk of the cancer returning or death. Also: a monthly schizophrenia shot, a new herpes pill, a 140-country survey of trust in science, and the latest on Ebola and the Russian plague-lab death.
The US drug regulator lets Tukysa, Pfizer's breast cancer pill, join the first round of treatment, after it cut the risk of the cancer growing or death by 36% →
The FDA approved Tukysa as a chemotherapy-free follow-on for HER2-positive breast cancer that has spread. Also today: Rasonque's weaker result in the commonest gene change, Ebola's route into Kenya, and a lung-scarring drug that improved breathing.
Argenx's best-selling drug Vyvgart fails in Sjogren's disease, wiping 15% off its shares, while a celiac drug it bought passes a mid-stage trial →
An outside board stopped argenx's final trial of Vyvgart in Sjogren's disease a year early, and the shares fell 15% the same day its celiac drug FB102 passed a mid-stage test. Also today, Viatris agreed to buy the painkiller maker Pacira for $1.65 billion, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. opened an NIH clinic for vaccine injuries, and the first human test of cell reprogramming reported early safety results.
Caribou Biosciences, an early CRISPR company co-founded by Nobel winner Jennifer Doudna, stops all drug work because investors would not pay for its final trial →
Caribou's donor-cell cancer treatment matched two approved ones in an early trial and the FDA had agreed the final test, but no investor would fund it. Also today, a light-sensing gene therapy partly restored sight in six of ten blind people, a Dutch court blocked Merck's under-the-skin Keytruda in eight countries, and a new kind of Parkinson's pill passed its final trial.
Adding Genmab and AbbVie's Epkinly to chemotherapy cut the chance of lymphoma growing or death by 51% in 900 newly diagnosed patients →
In a final-stage trial in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, the most common lymphoma, Epkinly plus standard chemotherapy beat chemotherapy alone by more than investors expected. The full data are not yet published, and Genmab's shares rose about 8% in Europe.
Vaxcyte's vaccine against 31 strains of a pneumonia germ matched Pfizer's and Merck's shots in 3,500 adults →
In its first final-stage trial, VAX-31 gave antibody responses at least as strong as the two shots on sale on 28 strains and stronger on its three extra ones. It trailed Merck's shot on two strains under a stricter test, and Vaxcyte's shares rose about 50%.
Australia's CSL pays $355 million up front to share an experimental antibody for rare kidney and liver diseases, tried so far in 26 kidney patients →
CSL will take 55% of the profits from lixudebart, a Swiss antibody aimed at the scarring signal in damaged organs; its best evidence is an early look at 26 patients, reported by the two companies.
Bayer plans a $2.2 billion medicine plant in Ohio, days after the US began taxing some imported medicines at 100% →
Bayer's Ohio plant will make medicine ingredients from 2031, and the new US tax on imported medicines left cheap generic pills out.
Advice to give Prozac to depressed children leans on one doubtful 40-child trial, a new analysis finds →
Re-running two major reviews without a 2006 trial from Iran made Prozac's large advantage over a dummy pill disappear. The authors ask guideline committees to look again, not doctors to stop prescribing.
US regulators approve the first heart valve that can be widened as a child grows, which may spare children repeat open-heart surgery →
Edwards Lifesciences' Autus valve goes in as small as 13 millimetres and is later stretched with a balloon to 22. It was tested in 62 children, with results so far covering six months to a year.
Lilly's two-drug weight-loss treatment cut 23% of body weight in people with diabetes, and up to 27% stopped taking it →
Eli Lilly's EloraTZP, Zepbound plus an experimental amylin drug, took off 23.3% of body weight in 48 weeks in people with type 2 diabetes. Stomach side effects made up to 27% stop.
Novo Nordisk pays China's Hengrui $300 million up front, and up to $2.6 billion, for a once-a-week weight-loss pill no person has taken yet →
The pill copies two gut hormones, like Lilly's injection Zepbound, and is built to be taken once a week instead of every day. It has only been cleared for a first human trial in China, and Novo, which has lost ground to Lilly, gave no dates for its own tests.
A transplanted heart takes on the biological age of the body it goes into, an early study of mice and 11 patients suggests →
Old donor hearts looked younger inside young bodies, and young hearts looked older inside old ones, by chemical tags on their DNA. The study has not been checked by other scientists yet, and its author says older hearts now turned down might one day go to younger patients.
The FDA approves AbbVie's Juvmo, a once-a-day Parkinson's pill that acts like dopamine, the brain chemical the disease runs short of →
Parkinson's slowly takes away control of movement. AbbVie got the drug by buying Cerevel Therapeutics for $8.7 billion in 2023, and has not yet said what Juvmo will cost.
Ebola in Congo reaches two more districts, and 8 in 10 new cases were never on a list of known contacts →
About 30,000 people are on Congo's Ebola contact lists, where health workers would expect about 420,000, and the outbreak has now reached 63 districts in seven provinces.
The FDA approved Lilly's Onswik, a once-a-week insulin for type 2 diabetes. It matched the daily shots it replaces, and cuts more than 300 injections a year. →
The US drug regulator cleared Eli Lilly's weekly insulin on 24 September, six months after Novo Nordisk's. The same week Novo paid up to 1.17 billion euros to make its own shots monthly, three cancer drugs were approved or withdrawn on very different levels of proof, and biotech share sales kept landing.
Merck's new eye drug did no worse than Lucentis in a year-long trial. More patients had bleeding inside the eye. →
Remigromig, a drug for eye swelling caused by diabetes, works differently from today's drugs. It matched Lucentis on vision after a year, but had more bleeding and more patients stopping. Merck says it is aimed at the 30% to 40% of patients today's drugs fail.
FDA advisers all called Grail's cancer blood test safe. Only six of ten said it works. →
A panel advising the US drug regulator voted three times on Galleri, a blood test that looks for many cancers at once. It was 10 to 0 on safety, 6 to 4 on whether it works, and 7 to 2 on whether its benefits outweigh its risks.
Telix is buying ITM for at least $1.65 billion, a month after the US regulator turned down ITM's cancer drug over how it is made →
An Australian maker of radioactive cancer medicines is buying a German rival whose lead drug the FDA rejected in August, and a day later Novartis agreed to pay a Chinese company for another. Also today: FDA advisers meet on a blood test for many cancers, Amgen wins the first late-stage trial in Sjogren's, and the US Treasury weighs whether drugmakers may keep buying medicines from China.
A man with ALS was given a drug written for his mutation alone. A year later he is still working as a doctor. →
The drug took three years to make and targets a gene fault carried by fewer than one in a hundred people who inherit ALS. In the same week, two ALS drugs aimed at everyone with the disease failed.
A health service in England will now pay for a breast cancer drug it refused for years. The drug's price did not change. →
The NHS in England has started paying for Enhertu, which it had turned down on cost, after raising the most it will pay for one extra year of good health from 30,000 pounds to 35,000. EU advisers backed the same drug for an earlier stage of the disease.
Fiji has declared HIV a national emergency. One adult in 60 now carries the virus, against one in 167 five years ago. →
Fiji recorded 2,016 new HIV diagnoses in 2025, sixteen times its 2019 figure, and only 22% of the people who have the virus are getting the drugs that hold it down. The country is now writing a law so it can hand out clean needles for the first time.
One brain implant let two paralysed men speak and gesture at the same time, through an avatar. A wireless one let a Michigan woman phone her grandchildren. →
A team at UCSF read words and hand movements from the same brain implant in two men who cannot move or speak, and a company, Paradromics, said its wireless implant gave a 68-year-old woman back conversation.
The first treatment for Sanfilippo syndrome, a disease that takes speech and thinking from young children, is approved in the US. It was tested on 17 children. →
The US drug regulator approved Ultragenyx's Fayuvi, a one-time gene therapy, after treated children scored higher on thinking tests than untreated children from medical records; the rest of the day was drug deals that pay little up front, a measles standoff in Pennsylvania and the end of a record US parasite outbreak.
Measles has killed more than 1,000 children in Bangladesh, and 83% of confirmed cases never had the vaccine →
Bangladesh has counted more than 194,000 measles cases since March, more than any other country this year. The WHO calls the emergency vaccination campaign a success; a public health expert says it missed too many children, and eight more people died with suspected measles on Tuesday.
The first psychedelic medicine is close. The argument is over who may sit in the room. →
The US drug regulator heard the public this week on how psychedelic treatments should be given, days after an LSD-based drug won a second late-stage anxiety trial and a psilocybin treatment went into filing. Most of the argument was about who may supervise a dose, not about the results.
The US regulator approved the first drug for spinal muscular atrophy that works on the muscle itself →
Isembyld is given on top of the drugs that keep nerve cells alive, and children on it moved better after a year while those on a dummy drip got worse. It costs about $310,000 a year and carries a warning about broken bones.
Baby girls exposed to paracetamol in the womb had 40% smaller ovaries. The study cannot say the drug caused it. →
A Danish study of 302 baby girls linked the most common painkiller in pregnancy to smaller ovaries and fewer egg sacs, and nobody yet knows what that means for their fertility.
Ten women's fractures nearly stopped after one infusion of their own cells, given a sugar coat so they could reach bone →
A small trial in Spain took bone-marrow cells from ten women with advanced osteoporosis, added a sugar that lets the cells leave the bloodstream, and put them back in one infusion. The women went from a broken bone every year or two to about one a decade. There was no comparison group, and nobody tracked where the cells went.