Biotech, in brief

Hearts from young donors aged faster inside older bodies, and hearts from older donors became biologically younger inside young ones, a study by Jesse Poganik of Harvard and colleagues reports. [1]

Biological age here means how much wear a heart's cells show. It is read from chemical tags on DNA that shift as we age. [1][2]

In mice, the team added a second heart from a young, middle-aged or old donor and left each mouse's own heart in place. [1][3]

Four to six months later, three different DNA age tests put the extra hearts closer to the age of the mouse they lived in. [1][2]

The mice's own hearts, livers and blood did not appear to change age, so a young heart did not seem to make an old mouse younger. [2][3]

Stored heart samples from 11 transplant patients at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston showed the same pattern. The donors and patients were 8 to 50 years apart in age. [1]

In the records of hundreds of patients a year after surgery, heart rate, heart-wall thickness and fitness during exercise tracked the patient's age, not the donor's. [1][2]

Not everything moved. "Some things are probably simply irreversible," Poganik told Nature. [1]

Hearts are scarce. Of about 50,000 organs transplanted in the US each year, only a few thousand are hearts. [4] Hundreds of people worldwide die each year on waiting lists for organs. [1]

Guidelines generally recommend heart donors under 45, and many older hearts are thrown away on the assumption they will work less well. [1][3]

Poganik says older hearts that are now passed over might one day go to younger patients, but that much more work is needed first. [2]

The study was posted online before peer review. A King's College London researcher warned that the DNA age tests are still experimental. [1][2]

Why it matters. The study still has to pass review by other scientists, and Poganik says much more work is needed before donor rules could change. [1][2]

Kodiak Sciences said on Monday that its drug Zenkuda matched Eylea, Regeneron's eye injection, in a final-stage trial in wet age-related macular degeneration. [5][6] In this disease, blood vessels in the eye overgrow, and drugs like Eylea block that growth. [6] Patients read 7.2 more letters on an eye chart on Zenkuda and 7.6 on Eylea. [6] A tool that spots fluid in the eye decided when each next shot was due, and 54% on Zenkuda went six months between shots. [5][6] The same drug failed against Eylea over four years ago, and extra cataracts paused it in 2023. [5][6]

Why it matters. Kodiak's shares more than doubled on Monday, and it plans to ask the FDA for approval by the end of 2026. [5][6] It will compete with cheaper copies of Eylea, whose patents have expired. [5]

AstraZeneca, the British drugmaker, will invest $2 billion in Summit Therapeutics, Summit said late on Monday 28 September. [7] AstraZeneca is buying shares at the equivalent of $18.36 each, 18.6% above Summit's closing price that day. [7] Summit's drug ivonescimab blocks two things at once: PD-1, which helps cancer hide from the immune system, and VEGF, which tumours use to grow blood vessels. [7] The companies will run trials giving ivonescimab together with AstraZeneca's own cancer drugs. [7]

Why it matters. AstraZeneca gets joint trials of its cancer drugs with ivonescimab, and the two agreed to look at pairing it with more of AstraZeneca's medicines. [7] Summit's shares rose more than 15% in trading after the market closed. [7]

The FDA, the US drug regulator, approved Emcitate from Egetis Therapeutics, the first treatment for MCT8 deficiency, a very rare genetic disease that mostly affects boys and men. [8] A faulty gene breaks the protein that carries thyroid hormone into the brain. [8] So the brain gets too little of the hormone, while too much builds up in the blood. [8] Many patients cannot walk, sit up alone or speak. [8] Emcitate's active ingredient, tiratricol, gets into cells without that protein, and it lowered the extra hormone in the blood in two trials. [8]

Why it matters. The approval covers the too-high hormone level in the blood, which strains the heart and metabolism. [8] Emcitate is a once-a-day liquid that can also go through a feeding tube, so patients who struggle to swallow can take it. [8]

Adicet Bio said on Monday that 12 of 22 people with lupus were in remission a year after one dose of its cell treatment, prula-cel, in a small early trial. [9] In lupus, immune cells called B cells go rogue and help the body attack itself. [9] Prula-cel is made of immune cells built to hunt B cells. [9] Eight of the 16 whose kidneys were affected had their kidney disease go into remission. [9] It is made in advance and kept ready to use, while rival treatments from Novartis and Bristol Myers Squibb are built from each patient's own cells. [9]

Why it matters. Novartis's rival treatment was linked to three deaths from a severe inflammation, and Adicet reported no cases of it. [9] Adicet says the FDA has agreed to one larger trial, with no comparison group, for lupus in the kidneys, starting next year. [9]

Mirum Pharmaceuticals said on 28 September that its antibody brelovitug beat delayed treatment in a final-stage trial for chronic hepatitis delta, a virus that inflames the liver. [10] The trial counted patients whose virus fell and whose main liver-inflammation test returned to normal. [10] That happened in 56% on a weekly dose, 45% on a dose every four weeks, and none of those whose treatment was held back for 24 weeks. [10] Gilead's daily shot Hepcludex was approved in the US after a 48% response on a combined measure in its own trial. [10]

Why it matters. Liver inflammation is the main driver of scarring, cirrhosis and cancer, a Mirum executive said. [10] Mirum expects a second trial's results in the last three months of 2026, and if it succeeds it could ask for approval in the first half of 2027. [10]

Merck will pay $400 million up front to SciBrunch Therapeutics, a two-year-old company in Shanghai, for world rights to a cancer molecule called SPR2015. [11] Further payments could lift the deal to $2.13 billion. [11] The molecule targets KRAS G12D, a faulty version of a protein that tells cells to grow, left switched on by the fault. [12] That fault is found in about 38% of pancreatic cancers. [11] SPR2015 has worked against tumours in lab dishes and animal tests, but has not yet been tested in people. [11][12]

Why it matters. For years no drug could grip KRAS, until Amgen's Lumakras and Mirati's Krazati hit a different faulty version of it. [11] Bayer made a similar deal with Kumquat Biosciences, worth up to $1.3 billion, for an early G12D molecule. [11]

Roche stopped work on emugrobart, an antibody meant to protect muscle during weight loss, after an early look at a mid-stage trial said success was unlikely. [13] Weight-loss drugs like Lilly's tirzepatide take off muscle as well as fat. [13] Emugrobart blocks myostatin, a protein that holds back muscle growth. [13] In March it had already failed to build muscle in trials for two muscle-wasting diseases, spinal muscular atrophy and a muscular dystrophy. [13] Roche handed it back to Chugai, its Japanese subsidiary. [13]

Why it matters. Chugai says the data so far support a final-stage trial in spinal muscular atrophy, one of the diseases where it fell short, and is looking for partners. [13] AstraZeneca, Biohaven and Wave Life Sciences are still chasing muscle-sparing weight loss. [13]

A vaccine against Sudan virus, a cousin of Ebola, was well tolerated and made antibodies in its first human trial, the Lancet Microbe published on 23 September. [14] Thirty-six healthy adults in Texas got one shot at one of three doses, or a dummy shot, in 2023. [14] Antibodies appeared by day 29 and were still there at six months in everyone who got the vaccine. [14] Two in three also had antibodies that block the virus in lab tests. [14] The trial was paid for by BARDA, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. [14]

Why it matters. Sudan virus has caused nine outbreaks since 1976, two of them in Uganda in 2022 and 2025. [14] Data from this trial supported using the vaccine in a trial during Uganda's 2025 outbreak. [14]

Health Canada suspended the licence of a Grifols centre on Taylor Avenue in Winnipeg to collect plasma, a part of the blood, Grifols said on Wednesday 23 September. [15] The regulator had concerns about the centre's quality checks after a donor's death last year, the Globe and Mail reported. [15] CBC News had reported that two people died after giving plasma at Grifols clinics in Winnipeg, in October 2025 and January 2026. [15] Grifols, a Spanish drugmaker, says donors and patients were never put at risk. [15]

Why it matters. Grifols says it had already stopped collecting there, retrained staff at all its Canadian centres and is working with the regulator on reopening. [15] It sped up buying the rest of its Canadian plasma business after the regulator found faults at several centres. [15]

Five hospitals in Palm Beach, Florida, all owned by Tenet Healthcare, won a lawsuit against Leapfrog, a nonprofit that grades US hospitals from A to F on safety. [16] The hospitals had skipped Leapfrog's survey, and since 2024 Leapfrog has given the lowest scores in some categories where a hospital's data is missing. [16] After a trial in January, a US federal judge ruled this unfair and deceptive and ordered Leapfrog to stop grading them that way. [16] Leapfrog has appealed, saying its grades are opinions protected by free speech. [16]

Why it matters. The New York Times, Yelp and Consumer Reports back Leapfrog, and news and civil-liberties groups warn the ruling could discourage public speech well beyond hospital grades. [16] Leapfrog was also ordered to pay the hospitals' legal fees, which could top $10.5 million, more than its yearly revenue. [16]