Know What's Happening in Healthcare
Know What's Happening in Healthcare
FDA approves KRESLADI, first CIRM‑backed gene‑editing therapy
The FDA cleared KRESLADI, a gene‑editing treatment from Rocket Pharmaceuticals for severe leukocyte adhesion deficiency‑I in children, eliminating the need for a bone‑marrow donor. It is the first product directly funded by California’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine to receive approval.
Also developing:
By the numbers: Syneron Bio raises $150M Series B
AI‑enhanced coronary CT angiography (CCTA) now quantifies total and non‑calcified plaque, delivering risk information that calcium scoring alone misses. Large studies show that incorporating AI‑driven plaque metrics reduces heart attack or cardiac death risk by up to 41% and boosts predictive accuracy from 62% to 75%. The technology enables clinicians to tailor cholesterol therapy, lifestyle interventions, and monitoring based on actual plaque burden. Growing insurer acceptance is expanding access to this precision‑prevention tool.
The WHO’s INN proposed list 134, released in early 2026, reveals several late‑stage drug candidates that were previously hidden from public view. Notably, two NLRP3 inhibitors—abdenoflast and parunoflast—appear to map to Eli Lilly’s newly acquired Ventyx assets VTX2735 and VTX3232, both showing promising...
A new JAMA Pediatrics study using PRAMS data from 2012‑2022 examined 380,499 births and found that low‑income mothers experienced a widening gap in low‑birth‑weight infants, rising 2.2 percentage points versus a 0.6‑point increase for higher‑income groups. The analysis revealed that...
Novo Nordisk announced a €432 million ($506 million) investment to expand its Athlone, Ireland facility, increasing capacity for oral products such as the newly launched Wegovy pill. The expansion is intended to secure supply outside the United States and help the company...
I'm excited to announce something new. After 30 years of teaching at UCLA and USC, I've started a newsletter called Health Longevity Secrets. Every week: what medical school gets wrong, how to read your labs, evidence-based longevity strategies. Free: http://robertlufkinmd.substack.com
Pella Corporation opened a wellness center five minutes from its Iowa headquarters, offering primary care, behavioral health, and pharmacy services to its 2,500 employees. The clinic was built in partnership with Premise Health, which designed a high‑touch, high‑tech model that...
Champion Insights has launched a nationwide enrollment to recruit up to 500 elite athletes, military veterans and first responders for a study investigating their elevated risk of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The remote study will collect blood samples and online...
The HAP Foundation and Northwestern University’s EPEC program have launched a 12‑month clinical training initiative aimed at Illinois‑based hospice and palliative care providers serving rural communities. Beginning in April, the curriculum combines monthly virtual video sessions with in‑person kickoff and...
I keep seeing AI-pilled people arguing that AI agents will magically solve patient engagement - but it won’t. If it were that easy, non-Tech solutions would’ve solved it already. At @SeamlessMD, I’ve spent the last 13+ years working with health systems...
The FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research has released the Bioresearch Monitoring Information System (BMIS), a searchable database that catalogs clinical investigators, contract research organizations, and institutional review boards linked to IND submissions since October 1, 2008. The dataset is updated...
Victoria Leeds, owned by Redical, announced that Randox Health will open its first standalone clinic in Yorkshire, occupying a 734 sq ft unit in the Victoria Quarter. The clinic will provide a full suite of blood tests, comprehensive health checks, specialised diagnostics...
Timothy Lesaca, a psychiatrist, stopped accepting pharmaceutical‑sponsored lunches, arguing they blur the line between patient care and industry influence. Recent CMS Open Payments data reveal over 1.1 million industry events in 2024, with 920 000 lunches costing $73 million. Research shows even a...
New research predicts that nearly 3 million Medicare Advantage (MA) enrollees—about 10 % of the market—will be forced out of their plans in 2026 as payment reforms curb historic over‑payments. The exits will hit rural beneficiaries hardest and will deepen the divide...
A standardized ventricular recovery program at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia enabled 26% of pediatric VAD patients to have the device explanted, far exceeding the typical 4‑6% national rate. The protocol, built on four pillars—mindset, goal‑directed medical therapy, standardized surveillance, and...
HIMSS CEO Hal Wolf announced that the AI track at HIMSS26 will move beyond pure deployment discussions. The conference will spotlight AI governance frameworks, the impact on clinical and administrative workflows, and concrete methods for calculating return on investment. By...
CPHI Middle East will return to Riyadh in May 2026, building on the 2024 edition that attracted over 30,000 visitors from more than 100 countries. The event promises expanded networking opportunities, direct market access, and the latest regulatory and innovation...
Researchers published in Nature Electronics a hair‑thin, flexible patch called BISC that places 65,536 micro‑electrodes on the brain’s surface for high‑resolution electrocorticography. The device can address up to 1,024 channels simultaneously and transmits data wirelessly, eliminating percutaneous cables. Animal tests...
Virtual reality is moving from experimental demos to practical tools in ophthalmology, highlighted by the FDA‑cleared Luminopia therapy for amblyopia and patient‑focused IOL simulators such as VirtuaLens and InSightVR. Surgeons are adopting VR for training, with platforms like Eyesi and...
Victoria Leeds, operated by Redical, has secured Randox Health for its first standalone clinic in Yorkshire, occupying a 734 sq ft space in the Victoria Quarter. The new clinic will provide a full suite of preventative health services, including comprehensive blood tests,...
Johnson & Johnson MedTech launched three new stroke devices—Cereglide 42 and Cereglide 57 aspiration catheters and the Innerglide 7 delivery aid—expanding its aspiration‑first portfolio. The catheters feature a multi‑axial shaft, radiopaque tips and hydrophilic coating to improve navigation of distal clots. Innerglide 7 provides...
I used to teach that osteoarthritis was "wear and tear" — lose weight, take painkillers, wait for a knee replacement. A study just published in Cell Metabolism proved that wrong. Semaglutide (Ozempic) didn't just reduce joint pain in osteoarthritis patients — it...
Bioxytran announced positive phase 1b/2a data for its oral antiviral ProLectin‑M in a randomized, double‑blind, placebo‑controlled trial of 39 mild‑to‑moderate COVID‑19 patients in India. The highest dose (16,800 mg/day) achieved viral clearance in 90% of participants by day 5 versus 20% on placebo,...
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters introduces SurgRAW, a multi‑agent, chain‑of‑thought workflow designed for zero‑shot reasoning on robotic surgical video. The system builds on SurgCoTBench, a new benchmark with 14,256 question‑answer pairs and frame‑level annotations across five core surgical tasks. By...
The Center for Innovation & Value Research launched the Rare Disease Patient Engagement (RDPE) Guidance and Checklist, a practical toolkit to embed patient and caregiver input throughout rare‑disease comparative effectiveness research, value assessment, and economic modeling. The resource bundles best‑practice...
The article sketches a typical week for a clinical informaticist, showing how patient care, system design, feedback loops, governance, safety, and evidence assessment intertwine. It highlights that a single day can involve everything from bedside interaction to long‑term technology strategy....
The large‑cap pharmaceutical sector is rebounding in 2026 after a muted 2025, buoyed by strong quarterly results, aggressive M&A, and robust pipeline activity. Zacks ranks the industry at #172, but it posted a 10.8% gain over the past year, outpacing...
The European Union has granted approval for Vueway (gadopiclenol) to be used in neonates, infants, and toddlers, marking a pivotal expansion of pediatric MRI contrast agents. Vueway delivers diagnostic‑grade imaging at half the dose of conventional macrocyclic GBCAs, thanks to...
Biotech Aardvark Therapeutics announced a voluntary pause of the Phase 3 HERO trial for its Prader‑Willi drug ARD‑101 after routine safety monitoring identified reversible cardiac observations in healthy volunteers receiving supratherapeutic doses. The pause affects both the main trial and an...
The Duchenne muscular dystrophy patient & advocacy community keeps a gene therapy and multiple drugs on the US market, stopping the FDA from taking action, despite failed confirmatory clinical trials showing no efficacy and questionable safety. The Huntington's disease patient and...
Merck and Pfizer’s Keytruda‑Padcev doublet delivered a dramatic survival advantage in the Phase 3 EV‑304 study of muscle‑invasive bladder cancer. The regimen cut the risk of disease progression, recurrence or death by 47% compared with gemcitabine‑cisplatin and lowered overall‑mortality risk by...
The GAO report finds that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) administers Sexual Risk Avoidance Education (SRAE) grants but relies mainly on near‑term performance measures focused on program reach rather than youth outcomes. While HHS reviews curricula for...
Tuesday Health has partnered with Buckeye Health Plan to extend its palliative‑care model across Ohio, reaching the plan’s 400,000 Medicaid, Medicare and Marketplace members. The collaboration delivers an interdisciplinary team—including nurses, social workers, NPs and physicians—through in‑person, hybrid and virtual...
A recent open‑access study demonstrates that hydrogen‑deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (HDX‑MS) can reliably map binding sites of extremely weak fragment hits (up to 7 mM KD) against Cyclophilin D. By optimizing protein concentration at 10 µM and testing fragments at 2.5‑10 mM, the...
Alcidion announced that its Miya Precision Concept Detection AI feature has achieved Class 1 medical device registration on Australia’s ARTG (ID 522634) and the UK’s MHRA. The tool parses clinicians’ free‑text notes, proposes SNOMED CT codes and streamlines documentation while requiring clinician validation....
Chinese drugmakers, led by Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals, are emerging as global biotech contenders. Hengrui topped 2024 trial sponsorship, boasts a pipeline of 100 investigational drugs and 400 trials, and secured a $500 million partnership with GSK that could yield $12 billion. Analysts...
Harrison.ai filed a citizen petition asking the FDA to grant optional pre‑market exemption for radiology computer‑aided detection (CAD) devices, allowing manufacturers with an existing cleared product to launch similar tools without a new 510(k). The agency must issue a rapid...
Emma Aston, a former CDC health communicator, details how a 2025 Reduction in Force eliminated roughly a quarter of the agency’s workforce, silencing key public‑health messaging. The cuts halted campaigns on tobacco, HIV, and flu, while new executive orders imposed...
$QURE AMT-130 update: Still blocked The FDA stated that it cannot agree that data from the Phase I/II studies, compared to an external control, are sufficient to provide the primary evidence of effectiveness required to support a marketing application for...
AI of whole slide images for cancer molecular markers is not ready for clinical use due to confounding and biases ("shortcut learning"), supported by multiple examples @natBME https://t.co/zG8uVIxrJf https://t.co/hQ0tjiapIJ
A new mechanism for improved cognitive function from exercise in the Alzheimer's disease model Skeletal muscle EC vesicles interact with the brain and rev up microglia function https://t.co/eZu14YVasY
System consolidation looks efficient—until you count the cost of disruption. Strong view from @Provationmed on why migrating away from purpose-built clinical documentation puts adoption, revenue, and trust at risk. ➡️ https://t.co/WahjLaV8Wl #ClinDoc #CIOInsights #HITSM
Safety concerns spur Aardvark to halt key Prader-Willi drug trial https://t.co/PWkOuDMIvo $AARD - 52% $SLNO
Stanley Plotkin, known as the “godfather of vaccines,” in an interview with @HelenBranswell: “All I can say is that I’m beginning to regret having lived so long — because we’re going downhill.” https://t.co/A2zcoP2Ghd
New @NatureMedicine A randomized trial of antibody vs activin type II receptors with or without semaglutide (Ozempic). The antibody, bimagrumab, promotes muscle growth. Marked weight loss with the combination https://t.co/XUK93GTAmA
Stanley Plotkin had a major hand in the development of a number of vaccines in use today; he designed the rubella vaccine. He remembers the world before widespread use of vaccines & knows what's coming as vaccine policy is rewritten...
Someday we'll be able to track our immune system like we do glucose Today @NatBME https://t.co/HFcFiUeyFg Previously @ScienceMagazine https://t.co/EcgBdwGxcd https://t.co/SpoZ5bLtjx
Who's heard of Flare Therapeutics? #GU26 late-breaker shows promise in hitting "undruggable" PPAR-γ target, with a few major caveats. Via @ApexOnco -> https://t.co/1GepvywtL0
“Nobody wants to feel cornered:" Europe braces for the fallout of Trump's drug pricing plan https://t.co/HZjZH0mdCU
$NTLA drug is off hold but now being restricted by the FDA to the least severe/sick patients, which would logically be those least likely to want/need an experimental gene editing therapy. Existing options will dominate. Target/disease selection is a...
$MRK claims a survival benefit in ovarian cancer irrespective of PD-L1 status, but FDA & EMA say BS. Via @ApexOnco -> https://t.co/Cld1O7Uuvp #ESGO26
