Biotech, in brief

Pennsylvania's health department reported two measles deaths on 25 August, the first in the United States this year. [3][6]

Both people were unvaccinated, lived in Lancaster County, and tested positive for the measles virus. [1][3]

The new head of the US disease agency, Erica Schwartz, has ordered officials to challenge the state's finding, the New York Times reported on 31 August. [1]

That breaks the agency's standing practice, which is to accept the data states send it. [1]

Its website said the week's outbreak update would not include the two deaths. [1]

The national measles death count for 2026 still reads zero. The agency delayed its Friday update to keep it there, and on Sunday the two deaths appeared on its measles page and were then replaced by an asterisk. [2]

Debra Houry, a former chief medical officer of the agency, called it highly unusual, and said it did not happen with three measles deaths in Texas and New Mexico last year. [2]

The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, wrote that the deaths may have been fabricated, and accused Pennsylvania's governor of manipulating the truth. [1][4]

A county coroner in Lancaster County, which is an elected political post, said one of the deaths was unrelated to measles. The cause he gave would be consistent with measles. [4]

One of the two was a newborn with a ruptured spleen. Nothing has been released about the second person. [1]

Reporting on 28 August put Pennsylvania at about 424 confirmed cases and 73 people in hospital. Nobody who fell ill was fully vaccinated. [4]

The United States has recorded 2,777 measles cases this year, more than the 2,289 in all of 2025, and its worst year since 1991. [3][5]

In November an international panel decides whether the United States has lost its measles-free status. Canada lost its last year. [5]

Why it matters. The next weekly update is the test: either the two deaths appear in the national count, or the agency has to publish what its own review actually found. [1][2]

Novartis put holds on 24 August on trials of its cell therapy rap-cel in lupus, myasthenia gravis and multiple sclerosis, after three patients developed a rare and possibly life-threatening immune reaction. Bristol Myers Squibb has also paused enrolment in its own autoimmune trials of zola-cel. [7]

Why it matters. This is the class of treatment that recently put three of six people with severe rheumatoid arthritis into drug-free remission; what reboots an immune system can also overshoot it. [8]

Novartis said on 1 September that its once-daily pill remibrutinib cut relapse rates by more than teriflunomide, the tablet used now, in two phase 3 trials in relapsing multiple sclerosis. It released no figures. [9]

Why it matters. A claim of superiority with no numbers attached is a press release, not a result.

The US drug regulator approved Rasonque for pancreatic cancer on 26 August, Lisraya for the muscle and skin disease dermatomyositis on 27 August, and Mimrylo for the blood disorder polycythemia vera on 28 August. That is 36 never-before-approved drugs this year. [10][11][12]

Why it matters. Three first-of-their-kind approvals inside one week is unusual, and all three treat conditions with few or no existing options.

Lisraya, the newly approved dermatomyositis treatment, will list at $35,000 for a 30-day supply, its makers said on a Friday call. Pfizer discovered the drug and licensed it to Priovant, which chose rare diseases because there is less competition there. [13]

Why it matters. The price is set where nobody else is selling, which is the same reason the disease was chosen.

The pancreatic cancer drug was reviewed under a new pilot at the US drug regulator called the National Priority Voucher, which shortens reviews for products that support stated US national interests. A cross-specialty council discusses the application before the normal division decides. [11][14]

Why it matters. Speed through a regulator is now something a company can be granted for reasons that are not only medical.

Full results for Cytokinetics' heart drug aficamten showed 53% of 517 patients improved on at least three of five measures, against 13% on a dummy. About one in ten had a dangerous drop in the heart's pumping strength, and there were 12 heart failure events. [15][16]

Why it matters. The company blames a rigid dosing rule that took the decision away from doctors, an explanation offered after the fact.

Arrowhead released full results for plozasiran, which raised liver fat by about 1.5% against a dummy, compared with 2% to 4% in trials of Ionis's already-approved Tryngolza. The two drugs have never been tested against each other. [16]

Why it matters. A comparison across separate trials is not a comparison, but it is the one analysts are pricing.

Pacibekitug, an antibody that blocks the immune signal interleukin-6, produced sustained falls in inflammation markers in a mid-stage trial presented in Munich on 29 August. Higher doses produced bigger falls. [17]

Why it matters. Markers are not heart attacks, and the trial that would settle it has not been announced.

Turkey's competition authority opened an investigation into Teva, the world's largest maker of generic drugs. The regulator says Teva may have made it harder for rivals to enter the market, and made misleading claims about their safety. [18]

Why it matters. Teva paid a $503m fine in Europe two years ago over conduct it says is similar, and is appealing. [18]

A large US health insurer and Amgen, a big biotech company, are in court over Amgen's purchase of a pending patent application, and whether that let it hold on to a monopoly. The US competition regulator has weighed in on the insurer's side. [19]

Why it matters. If buying an unfinished patent counts as blocking rivals, a common industry deal becomes an antitrust question.

The US drug regulator approved reformulated COVID vaccines from Pfizer and BioNTech, from Moderna, and from Novavax, all aimed at the XFG variant. All three carry the narrower clearance now given to newer COVID shots: everyone over 65, and younger people at higher risk. [20]

Why it matters. The shots are updated every year, but who is allowed to have them has narrowed.

Guinea-Bissau reported its first mpox outbreak, part of a spread that has produced almost 190,000 laboratory-confirmed cases across 145 countries since 2022. The US disease agency said this month that mpox is on course to become permanently established in the United States. [21]

Why it matters. A disease that used to appear in small bursts in a few countries is settling in.

Researchers built near-complete genomes and cell lines for eight closely related Myotis bats, a group whose lifespans vary enormously for their size. They found changes tied to long life and cancer resistance, and a split in how bats handle DNA viruses compared with RNA viruses. [22]

Why it matters. Bats carry viruses that would kill other mammals and live for decades; the genomes are where both traits have to show up.

A tool called PathStAR read 25,306 post-mortem tissue samples from 40 organs in 970 donors aged 21 to 70. Blood vessels age early, the uterus and vagina accelerate around menopause, and organs in the same body were found to decline together. [23]

Why it matters. Ageing is usually measured in molecules; this measures the shape of the tissue itself.

The Dog Aging Project found that patterns of small molecules in dogs' blood predicted earlier or later death in almost the same way the equivalent patterns do in people. [24]

Why it matters. A dog's whole life fits inside a study, which a human life does not.

Yale researchers measured more than 7,000 proteins in 42 people who cut their calories by 11% to 14% for two years. One immune protein, C3, fell sharply, and blocking C3 directly reduced age-related inflammation in mice. [25]

Why it matters. Severe calorie restriction extends life in animals and also leaves them more prone to infection, so a substitute is the point.

People whose first thousand days fell inside Britain's postwar sugar rationing had lower rates of several cancers and showed slower biological ageing decades later. They were also still eating less sugar in their fifties. [26]

Why it matters. Rationing ended for everyone on one date, which makes it a natural experiment nobody could run on purpose.

In a trial of people with obesity, prediabetes and fatty liver, all three diet groups lost about 10% of their body weight, but the very-low-carbohydrate group cut liver fat by 67% against 45% for the others. About half no longer met the definition of prediabetes after four to five months. [27]

Why it matters. Same weight lost, different result, so the weight was not doing all the work.

Across two large European groups, hardly anyone in the top quarter of one healthy-diet score was in the top quarter of another. Each pattern left a different chemical mark on DNA, and the marks led back to the same biological pathways. [28]

Why it matters. The scores disagree about who eats well and then agree about what it does.

Among more than 500 healthy people, middle-aged adults who woke briefly more often during the night carried a higher genetic risk of Alzheimer's disease. The link did not appear in younger adults. [29]

Why it matters. A genetic risk score is not a diagnosis, and the study cannot say which came first.

A lithium salt will be tested in people with early Alzheimer's for the first time next month, at Johns Hopkins University. The idea follows Harvard work showing the same salt reversed memory loss in mice, and that people who died of Alzheimer's had less lithium in their brains. [30]

Why it matters. Lithium has been used in medicine for a century, which makes it cheap and its side effects well mapped.

A cage of nanoparticles carrying antibodies converted astrocytes, the brain's support cells, into neurons in mice bred to have a version of Alzheimer's, and the mice then did better on thinking tests. [31]

Why it matters. Mice engineered to have the disease are not people who have it.

Columbia researchers found that human microglia, the brain's immune cells, mature far more slowly than the same cells in other animals, and traced it to human-specific copies of a gene called SRGAP2. [32]

Why it matters. The same gene was already known to make human nerve connections form slowly and densely.

A Georgia Tech analysis found brain evolution is not new rational layers stacked on an ancient instinct core, a picture proposed in the 1950s. Evolution instead trades off two competing wiring styles, growing one and shrinking the other. [33]

Why it matters. The layered picture is still how most people describe their own decisions.

A method called prime assembly swapped a stretch of DNA for a 2.9-kilobase replacement in up to 57.8% of human cells in a dish. It put a cancer-fighting receptor into human T cells in 28.1% of them, and reached 4.3% of liver cells in mice. [34]

Why it matters. Gene editing has mostly changed single letters; whole faulty genes need whole replacements.

University of Toronto researchers restored the missing cystic fibrosis protein in lung cells, in mice, and in tissue grown from patients, using inhaled transfer RNAs that read through a premature stop signal in the gene. [35]

Why it matters. The same trick would apply to any disease caused by a stop signal landing in the wrong place.

Researchers edited the parasite Schistosoma mansoni to secrete an antibody fragment, and the change passed down two generations of worms. Blood from mice carrying the worms neutralised SARS-CoV-2 in a dish. [36]

Why it matters. A parasite that lives in a person for years is being tested as a factory that never needs another dose.

In a Gambian household study of 342 people tested weekly for a year, antibodies in the nose predicted protection from RSV better than antibodies in the blood, and the two barely tracked each other. [37]

Why it matters. Vaccines are usually judged on what is in the blood, because that is what is easy to sample.

In a 748-patient trial, the pill anlotinib with chemotherapy gave the same median time before the cancer worsened as the injected standard, bevacizumab: 11.0 months in both groups. [38]

Why it matters. Matching is the goal here, because the pill replaces an infusion.

A re-analysis of a 1,199-person trial in frail adults over 70 looked at an exercise and nutrition programme. It cut the risk of losing mobility or dying by about a fifth overall, and by about a third among those who also had a psychiatric condition. [39]

Why it matters. A re-analysis splitting a trial into subgroups finds effects that the trial was not designed to test.

Twelve specialists rated answers from several chatbots to 20 patient questions about using viruses to treat drug-resistant infections. Ratings were generally favourable, but 20% of the answers contained wrong information. [40]

Why it matters. Favourable average ratings and one wrong answer in five can both be true of the same set of answers.

A New York start-up used CRISPR, the gene-editing tool, to make two beagles that appear unable to produce a protein that sets off allergies in some people. A gene-edited hypoallergenic cat announced two and a half years ago is still not on sale. [41]

Why it matters. Pets are where gene editing meets a paying customer with no regulator in between.

The US drug regulator authorised the JUUL2 device and its tobacco and menthol flavoured pods on 28 August, three products in all. [42]

Why it matters. The same agency approving first-of-their-kind cancer drugs also decides which nicotine products may be sold.

A study announced by Eli Lilly found that adults over 55 who stayed on its obesity drug Zepbound went to hospital and to emergency rooms less often, and cost less to treat over six months. [43]

Why it matters. The company that sells the drug is the one announcing the study that says it saves money.

Across nine trials covering 6,239 people without diabetes, injected semaglutide cut body weight by about 12% and the inflammation marker CRP by about 41%, compared with a dummy injection. [45]

Why it matters. Pooling nine trials gives a firmer number than any one of them, and hides how different their patients were.

Two experimental Zika vaccines both protected mice, but one worked mainly through killer T cells rather than through the antibodies such vaccines are designed to produce. [46]

Why it matters. There is still no effective Zika vaccine, and this changes what a candidate should be measured on.

Flu is circulating at moderate levels in Australia and other Southern Hemisphere countries, and this year's shots appear well matched to the virus now spreading. [44]

Why it matters. The Southern Hemisphere's season is the only advance look the Northern Hemisphere gets.