Biotech, in brief

Scientists at the University of Minnesota cooled pig kidneys to -150C, turning them into a glass-like solid, and stored them for days, weeks or months. [1]

One kidney stayed in the freezer for just over a year. [1] After rewarming, it made urine at once on a machine that pumps fluid through it. [1]

Today a donated human kidney must reach its patient within 24 to 36 hours. [1]

Freezing an organ normally grows ice crystals that damage it. [1] The team first fills the kidney with antifreeze chemicals, so it sets like glass instead of ice. [1]

Warming a big organ evenly all the way through is just as hard. [1] The team pumps tiny iron particles through the kidney, then heats them all at once with a magnetic field. [1]

A pig kidney weighs about 100 grams, a rat kidney about one. [1] The same team did this with rat kidneys kept up to 100 days, in work published in 2023. [1]

Rewarmed kidneys were put into pigs and watched for two hours. [1] They turned pink and began making urine within about a minute. [1]

They made only about two-thirds of the normal amount of urine and showed injury. [1] The researchers blame the antifreeze chemicals. [1]

The work is a preprint, posted online before other scientists have checked it. [1]

Greg Fahy, a pioneer of organ freezing, says these tests cannot show whether the kidneys would have kept an animal alive. [1]

Organ banks would give doctors more time to match organs to patients, and possibly to prepare a patient's immune system before surgery. [1]

Next the team plans longer tests in pigs and its first experiments with human kidneys. [1]

Why it matters. Watch whether rewarmed kidneys keep pigs alive for weeks rather than hours, and whether the team's first tests with human kidneys show less injury. [1]

Two Ebola cases have been found in North Ubangi, a province of Congo on its border with the Central African Republic, two health officials told Reuters on Thursday. [2] Congo's government had not yet announced it. [2] The outbreak, declared on 15 May, has caused more than 9,000 cases and 4,441 deaths. [2] Ituri, the worst-hit province, alone has 6,734 cases and 3,177 deaths. [4] It is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, which has no approved vaccine or treatment. [2]

Why it matters. The WHO says about a third of new cases are found only after the person has died outside a clinic, so they were never isolated. [3] North Ubangi lies on the border with the Central African Republic, so the virus now sits at another country's edge. [2]

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the medical charity, says children are being hit hard by Congo's Ebola outbreak. [29] At its treatment centre in Butembo, in North Kivu province, 24 of 30 children died between June and September, most of them under five. [29] In North Kivu, children under five make up 24% of confirmed cases. [29] MSF thinks many caught the virus inside clinics where they were already being treated for other illnesses. [29]

Why it matters. Children are usually left out of vaccine and drug trials until adults have been tested, MSF says, so they wait longest for new tools. [29] Doctors also lack guidance on safe doses of experimental medicines for children. [29]

A US government website showed on Thursday that the US health department, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., had sent a peptides 'interim access policy' to the US president's budget office for review. [7] Peptides are short chains of protein building blocks, injected by some people to build muscle or look younger; most evidence on them is from animals. [7] Two people familiar with the plan say pharmacies would be told they will not be targeted for making some, including BPC-157. [7] The FDA had put BPC-157 on its list of substances too risky for pharmacies to make. [7]

Why it matters. The FDA names contamination, allergic reactions and tumour growth among the possible risks. [7] Hims & Hers and Noom, two online health companies, say they will sell peptides if the US government eases access. [7]

The FDA, the US drug and medical device regulator, warned on Thursday of a possibly high-risk problem with some Edwards Lifesciences delivery systems. [12] The tools place a new mitral heart valve through a thin tube in a blood vessel, instead of open-heart surgery. [12] Edwards received three reports of the tool's balloon bursting while being inflated, linked to one death and one serious injury. [12] The company has asked hospitals to stop using affected devices and send them back. [12]

Why it matters. A burst balloon can block blood vessels or trap the device, which may force surgery on patients usually judged too frail for it. [12] The valve system, SAPIEN M3, was approved in the US only in December 2025. [12]

Africa CDC, the African Union's public health agency, says it cannot trace more than $700 million meant for Congo's Ebola response. [6] Donors say they paid $962 million to the groups running the response. [6] A check with Congo's health authorities could follow only slightly more than $200 million to the work on the ground. [6] Fewer than 30% of those groups came to account for the money, its head, Jean Kaseya, said on 14 October. [6]

Why it matters. The money that cannot be found is more than three times the money that can, in an outbreak that is still spreading. [6] Congo has fought many epidemics, and worries about tracking aid money there are not new. [6]

Europe has had its worst West Nile virus season on record, the ECDC, the EU's disease agency, said on Thursday. [13] EU countries reported 1,715 human cases caught locally and 130 deaths, as of 7 October. [13] The virus passes from birds to people through mosquito bites. [13] Belgium recorded 15 cases, its first ever caught inside the country, and the Netherlands 59. [13] Italy had the most, with 748. [13]

Why it matters. The ECDC expects the virus to keep moving north in the coming years, and there is no vaccine for people. [13] It says cases are rising but severe illness is not. [13]

Scientists in Masaka, a city in southern Uganda, have started a small first trial of a vaccine against the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola. [5] The vaccine was developed at the University of Oxford, and the trial aims to recruit 110 volunteers, each followed for 12 months. [5] A phase 1 trial checks whether a vaccine is safe and whether the body makes an immune response. [5] Congo will start a larger trial this month of Ervebo, a vaccine made for a different Ebola strain. [5]

Why it matters. No vaccine exists yet for the strain driving Congo's outbreak, so this is an early step toward one. [5] Moderna, a US company, is working on a separate mRNA vaccine. [5]

GSK, the British drugmaker, may cut up to 1,217 jobs in Belgium, across research, manufacturing and support staff. [8] Belgium holds three main sites of GSK's vaccine business, and the company employs about 8,500 people there. [8] The cuts are part of a plan, announced in July, to save 1.9 billion pounds a year by 2029. [8] Fierce Biotech, a trade outlet, says one reason is spare capacity in GSK's Belgian vaccine supply chain. [8]

Why it matters. GSK says the savings will go to its most advanced new medicines and vaccines. [8] Belgium is the second country hit, after cuts to support staff in Poland last month. [8]

A final-stage trial of Vanda Pharmaceuticals' pill for social anxiety disorder missed its main goal. [10] In 546 adults, people took one dose of the drug or a dummy pill, then gave a stressful talk to a panel that offered no encouragement. [10] Women on the drug felt no less distress than women on the dummy pill. [10] Vanda judged women only because a smaller earlier trial found a benefit in them but not in everyone. [10] The company has paused the drug. [10]

Why it matters. Vistagen, another company, failed two final-stage social anxiety trials, in December and June. [10] Fierce Biotech, a trade outlet, calls Vanda's result another blow to efforts to treat the condition. [10]

Osivax, a French biotech, said on 15 October that its flu vaccine failed a mid-stage trial in 2,850 healthy adults in Europe. [11] The vaccine, OVX836, protected 24% of people against flu, far below the 50% the trial needed. [11] It aims at a protein inside the flu virus that changes little from year to year. [11] Today's flu vaccines aim at proteins on the outside, which change, so they must be remade each season. [11]

Why it matters. Osivax will now test its vaccine mixed with GC Biopharma's ordinary seasonal flu shot, approved in South Korea. [11] It hopes the mix will widen the protection a yearly flu jab gives. [11]

Drug industry leaders in South Africa called on Wednesday for seizures, arrests and prosecutions over weight-loss products sold without approval. [26] They singled out products sold as retatrutide, an experimental Eli Lilly drug that is available only inside its trials. [26] An official at SAHPRA, the country's medicines regulator, said the rules exist but enforcing them is hard. [26] Its criminal cases depend on prosecutors and other agencies outside the regulator. [26]

Why it matters. Border officials say some medicines arrive declared as cosmetics, and they are looking at training dogs to sniff them out. [26] A Novo Nordisk manager said seeing sellers in the open can make buyers think the products are legal. [26]

About 40% of US high school students said they had binge eaten in the past month, in a large survey by the CDC, the US public health agency. [18] It is the first time the survey, which asks teenagers about risky behaviour, has asked about binge eating. [18] It defined it as eating an unusually large amount quickly while feeling unable to stop. [18] Of nearly 7,000 students, 17% said they had done it in the last three days. [18]

Why it matters. Binge eating was linked to checking social media at least every hour, poor mental health and suicidal thoughts. [18] Questions on eating had been dropped from the survey in 2015 to make room for questions on vaping. [18]

Great Ormond Street Hospital, a children's hospital in London, used a same-day test on samples from 122 critically ill children. [25] The test reads all the genetic material in a sample, so doctors do not have to guess in advance which germ to look for. [25] It found about nine in ten bacteria and viruses, and all fungi. [25] In a quarter of cases the results changed a child's treatment, such as starting, stopping or switching an antibiotic. [25]

Why it matters. It also found 50 germs that routine tests missed, and is being rolled out to about 30 intensive care units across the UK. [25] Stopping antibiotics that will not work helps slow germs becoming resistant to them. [25]

Doctors at the University of Pennsylvania examined the brain of a man who took aducanumab, an Alzheimer's drug, in a trial. [23] The drug clears amyloid, a sticky protein that clumps between brain cells in Alzheimer's. [23] It had cleared amyloid from the ridges of his brain's surface but not from the grooves between them. [23] The cleared ridges had little tau, a second harmful protein, while the grooves had much more tau and more damage. [23] The study is in JAMA. [23]

Why it matters. It is rare evidence from a human brain that removing amyloid may hold back tau. [23] But it is one man, so it cannot prove that the drug is why the two areas differ. [23]

AstraZeneca, the British-Swedish drugmaker, will pay insitro, an AI drug discovery company, $40 million up front to find new targets for medicines. [9] It could pay up to $1.46 billion more if the work passes set steps. [9] insitro's computers search human and cell data for the biology that causes a disease. [9] It will look at a fatty liver disease called MASH and at diseases of the heart muscle. [9]

Why it matters. Gilead, Bristol Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly have all signed earlier deals with insitro. [9] Most of the money arrives only if the work succeeds, so the up-front payment is small next to the headline figure. [9]

Merck and Moderna are preparing to ask for approval of their personal mRNA cancer vaccine, used together with Merck's drug Keytruda. [19] In August they said it delayed melanoma, a skin cancer, coming back after surgery, in a large final-stage trial. [19] At the STAT Summit in Boston on Thursday, Moderna's president and Merck's research chief said they have focused on cancers where Keytruda already works well. [19] Small tests in pancreatic and stomach cancer are under way. [19]

Why it matters. Each vaccine is built from up to 34 changed proteins in one patient's tumour, chosen by a computer program. [19] Moderna says data from several thousand trial patients could help improve that program. [19]

The US Justice Department is making it easier for health companies to report their own fraud, an official said at the STAT Summit on Thursday. [20] Companies will now report to one office at the department instead of a separate process at the US health department. [20] Firms that report misconduct can get benefits such as a cap on what they must pay. [20] Prosecutors will also use data and AI to look for false billing. [20]

Why it matters. Jacob Foster, who oversees the health fraud unit, said fraud steals from Medicare, the US health plan for older people, whose trust fund could run out. [20]

OrbiMed, a large health investment firm, has raised $3 billion for new funds in the US, Europe and Asia. [14] Its Asia fund raised over $1 billion, up from $751 million for the last one. [14] Fierce Biotech says interest in Asian biotech is rising because China has become a major source of new drugs for Western companies. [14] TCGX, another investor, raised $600 million for Asia earlier this month. [14]

Why it matters. OrbiMed's managing partner, Carl Gordon, named China's rise as a biotech powerhouse as one reason to invest now. [14] Its fund for the US and Europe raised over $1.9 billion. [14]

OMass Therapeutics, a drug start-up in Oxford, England, has raised $310 million. [15] It says that is the second-biggest raise by a European biotech this year. [15] Its lead drug, OMS1620, blocks the receptor for ACTH, a hormone that over-drives the adrenal glands in some people. [15] It is aimed at congenital adrenal hyperplasia, an inherited hormone disorder, and at Cushing's syndrome. [15]

Why it matters. The drug has only reached the first single-dose stage of a safety trial in healthy volunteers. [15] Its backers include GV, the venture arm of Google's parent company, and the UK government's British Business Bank. [15]

Lakefront Biotherapeutics, the Belgian company that used to be called Galapagos, has sold its unwanted cancer cell therapies. [16] The buyer, Armed Cell Therapeutics, is a Belgian start-up chaired by Paul Stoffels, a former Galapagos chief. [17] It pays 8 million euros up front and up to $230 million later. [17] The deal includes two 'armed' CAR-T therapies, immune cells engineered to attack cancer, which are close to human testing. [17]

Why it matters. Galapagos had offered the projects to big drugmakers and found no serious interest. [16] Lakefront now works on drugs for autoimmune disease. [17]

MIT scientists have found one way APOE4, the biggest inherited risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer's, may harm the brain's wiring. [24] Nerve fibres are wrapped in a fatty coat called myelin, made by helper cells. [24] In those helper cells, APOE4 turned down a chemical signal called Wnt, and fat piled up as droplets instead of becoming coating. [24] Restoring the signal brought the coating back in lab-grown cells and in mice. [24]

Why it matters. It points to a possible target for drugs, but the evidence comes from cells and mice, not patients. [24] The study is in Cell Stem Cell. [24]

People who often ate after dinner or after bedtime had a 20% to 30% higher risk of liver disease, in a study of nearly 200,000 people. [22] Researchers at Oregon Health and Science University used three long-running US studies of nurses and other health workers. [22] The liver runs on a daily body clock, which may be one reason. [22] The study is in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. [22]

Why it matters. It shows a link, not a cause, and people reported their own eating times. [22] The team is now running a trial that will track meal times directly. [22]

Hospital doctors in Northern Ireland will strike for 24 hours on 20 November and again on 23 November over pay. [27] Resident doctors, who are still training, strike first, then senior doctors. [27] The BMA, the doctors' union, says their pay has fallen by more than 26% over 18 years. [27] Emergency care will continue, but most routine operations will be cancelled. [27]

Why it matters. The Royal College of Nursing is also asking its members whether to strike. [27] All three groups of hospital doctors already struck in June. [27]

A report by a group of UK MPs found 47% of women with endometriosis had lost income because of their symptoms, and 28% had left a job. [28] Endometriosis can cause severe pain, tiredness, heavy bleeding and trouble getting pregnant, and about one in ten women have it. [28] Diagnosis can take years. [28] Fewer than half of employees with the condition had been given changes at work to help them. [28]

Why it matters. One woman in the report paid about 6,000 pounds for private surgery because NHS waits were too long. [28] The UK health department says the condition is a priority in its women's health plan. [28]

Jake Auchincloss, a Democratic member of the US Congress from Massachusetts, plans a bill to speed up early drug trials. [21] It would copy Australia, which lets early trials start without first being checked by its national regulator. [21] He told the STAT Summit on Thursday that the US cannot match China's low trial costs, but should match its speed. [21] He argued against trade barriers aimed at China's biotech industry. [21]

Why it matters. Biotech is a big part of Massachusetts's economy, and the industry's investors share his view. [21] He also called the FDA's fast-review vouchers political. [21]