Today's Healthcare Pulse
FDA greenlights durvalumab combo for high‑risk bladder cancer
The FDA approved durvalumab (Imfinzi) combined with Bacillus Calmette‑Guerin for BCG‑naïve, high‑risk non‑muscle invasive bladder cancer. The POTOMAC trial enrolled 1,018 patients and showed a 32% reduction in disease recurrence risk (hazard ratio 0.68, p=0.015). Durvalumab is given at 1,500 mg IV every four weeks for up to 13 cycles.
Also developing:
By the numbers: Apogee Therapeutics raises $1.3B royalty financing
Epic V. Health Gorilla: GuardDog Folds
Epic Systems secured a stipulated judgment and permanent injunction against GuardDog Telehealth in its lawsuit with Health Gorilla. GuardDog admitted its business model involved requesting and summarizing medical records via the Carequality and TEFCA interoperability frameworks under the guise of treatment. The court barred GuardDog from any future use of those networks, ordered deletion of obtained data, and left each party to bear its own costs. The ruling preserves Epic's claims against Health Gorilla and other defendants, setting a strategic foothold for further litigation.
Ketamine Therapy for Chronic Pain and Substance Misuse
Recent peer‑reviewed study of 20 adults with chronic pain and substance misuse found ketamine therapy improved pain, mood, and dependence scores. The integrated treatment was delivered within a coordinated pain program, highlighting benefits of interdisciplinary care. Findings suggest ketamine can...
CRT 2026: Key Takeaways for Interventional Cardiologists
The Cardiovascular Research Technologies (CRT) 2026 meeting showcased a suite of late‑breaking interventional cardiology studies, ranging from long‑term TAVR versus SAVR outcomes to novel radiation‑shielding devices. A seven‑year PARTNER 3 substudy found comparable health‑status results for low‑risk patients after TAVR and...
Money Raised by Biopharma
Researchers at INSERM uncovered hypothalamic tanycytes as a previously unknown tau‑clearing pathway, opening fresh therapeutic avenues for Alzheimer’s and related tauopathies. Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) announced the synthesis and pre‑clinical testing of novel PET tracers that bind α‑synuclein, aiming...
Midlife Joint Pain Signals Systemic Decline, Not Isolated Injury
I’ve been an orthopedic surgeon for nearly 30 years, and a few patterns have become impossible to ignore. One is that many musculoskeletal problems in adults aren’t sudden injuries. They’re the moment when declining capacity and awful metabolic health finally...
ODs Can Bridge Cultures Among Patients with Empathy, Trust
At Vision Expo, optometry leaders highlighted how empathy and cultural competence can close the trust gap for Hispanic, Latino, and African‑American patients with chronic eye diseases. Panelists urged clinicians to acknowledge patients' fears, involve family members, and leverage multilingual tools...
Planned Parenthood Now Offers Botox—What That Means Exactly
Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, the largest affiliate in California and Nevada, announced it will now offer Botox injections and IV hydration packages alongside its traditional reproductive health services. The move is a direct response to severe budget shortfalls caused by the...
Shilpa Biologicals, mAbTree Program Targets Immune Pathway in Rare Blood Cancers
Shilpa Biologicals and mAbTree Biologics received FDA orphan drug designation for an investigational monoclonal antibody that targets an immune‑evasion pathway in essential thrombocythemia and polycythemia vera. The designation validates the novel mechanism and accelerates plans for IND‑enabling studies and first‑in‑human...
FDA Drug Safety Podcasts
The FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research has expanded its Drug Safety Podcast series, delivering concise audio briefings that coincide with official Drug Safety Communications. Recent episodes address serious liver injury linked to Ocaliva, rare hypocalcemia risks with Prolia,...
Food as Medicine X AI: Two Pioneering Founders on the Future of Personalized Nutrition
In this episode of Startup Health Now, host Unity Stokes talks with Richard Bennett, CEO of Epicured, about how the company is turning food into a reimbursable, medically‑tailored service that builds trust and addresses social determinants of health, and with...
Sami
Sami, a Brazil‑based digital health insurer, combines a proprietary platform with a network of family doctors and specialty clinics to deliver affordable primary care for small and medium‑sized enterprises. The company recently closed a R$60 million financing round aimed at scaling...
March 13 Policy Watch: FDA Streamlines Its Process for Approving Biosimilar Drugs
The FDA released draft guidance that lets biosimilar developers use foreign comparator data and, in some cases, replace clinical studies with chemical analysis, potentially cutting development costs by $20 million. Simultaneously, the agency launched the Adverse Event Monitoring System (AEMS), a...
Measles Cases Surge: 92% Unvaccinated, 60% of Last Year
1. #Measles update: The total confirmed cases so far this year has risen to 1362 as of 3/12. Key context: The 2026 total to date is 60% of the 2025 total for the entire year. #CDC reports that among cases with...
Bacteria 4D Simulation, Safer Large Gene Insertion, uniQure Roller Coaster
The J. Craig Venter Institute unveiled a 4D, nanoscale simulation that tracks the entire life cycle of a minimal bacterial cell, marking a milestone for synthetic biology. A new gene‑editing platform designs DNA donors that dodge immune detection, enabling safer,...
Renal Cell Carcinoma Strategic Intelligence Report
The latest ASCO GU strategic intelligence report spotlights renal cell carcinoma (RCC) as a field entering a transformative phase. Analysts highlight emerging biomarkers, novel HIF‑2α inhibitors, and evolving immunotherapy combinations as potential high‑impact developments. While these advances promise to reshape...
BlackDoctor Pro Adds Cultural Fluency for Health Care Providers
BlackDoctor, a Black‑owned health media brand, has launched BlackDoctor Pro, a dual‑platform clinical delivery model that equips providers with culturally fluent data and AI tools. The rollout adds a network of more than 20,000 practitioners, a proprietary AI assistant called WellBot,...
Serotonin Centers Unveils Medical Longevity Model for Fitness Industry
Serotonin Centers announced the Serotonin Partner Program, a medical longevity model for U.S. fitness facilities. The turnkey platform lets gyms add medically supervised services—weight loss, hormone optimization, peptide and NAD+ therapies, IV metabolic support—within dedicated longevity suites. Serotonin funds, staffs,...
Insulet Reports 18 Serious Adverse Events with Recall of Omnipod 5 Insulin Pumps
Insulet announced a recall of select Omnipod 5 insulin patch pumps after discovering a small tear in the internal tubing that can cause insulin to leak inside the pod. The defect has been linked to 18 serious adverse events, including hospitalizations...
China Just Approved Its First Brain Implant for Commercial Use, a World First
China’s National Medical Products Administration has granted the first commercial approval for an invasive brain‑computer interface, developed by Shanghai‑based Neuracle Medical Technology. The coin‑sized, wireless implant sits on the brain’s surface and enables users with partial spinal‑cord injuries to operate...
Jackson Healthcare President Shane Jackson Honored on “Staffing 100” List of Leaders Shaping the Workforce Solutions Industry
Jackson Healthcare president Shane Jackson was named to the 2026 Staffing 100 North America list, marking his ninth consecutive appearance. During his tenure, the company added a dozen acquisitions, broadened its portfolio to include executive search, allied health, nursing, surgical services...
Early Prenatal Care Decreased From 2021 to 2024
CDC data show early prenatal care (first trimester) fell from 78.3% in 2021 to 75.5% in 2024, a 4% drop, while second‑trimester initiation rose 12% and late or no care increased 16% to 7.3%. The shift occurred across age groups...
Why We Need Black Bioethics
A Harvard‑Tuskegee panel called for a distinct Black bioethics to confront persistent health inequities, citing the legacy of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and the COVID‑19 mortality gap. Panelists highlighted that the Belmont Report’s safeguards have not eliminated racial disparities, with...
Federal Drug Price Reforms Are Working, Study Says
A new JAMA Internal Medicine study finds that the Inflation Reduction Act’s 2024 drug‑pricing provisions have reduced cost‑related medication nonadherence among Medicare beneficiaries. Compared with privately insured peers, seniors saw a 4.9‑percentage‑point drop overall and a 7.8‑point decline among those...
Western Alliance Bank Launches Healthcare Industry Specialization, Led by Industry Veteran Jennifer Hwang
Western Alliance Bank announced the launch of a dedicated Healthcare commercial banking team, headed by industry veteran Jennifer Hwang. The new unit will serve subsectors such as specialty pharmaceuticals, medical devices, home health, hospice, and ambulatory surgical centers. Leveraging the...
Gubra Plots Roivant-Like Model as Partnered Obesity Drugs Take Flight
Gubra, a 300‑employee Danish biotech known for its obesity drug partnerships, announced plans to adopt a Roivant‑style incubation model. The strategy will spin out a series of focused biotech companies, each targeting niche therapeutic areas beyond obesity, such as metabolic...
Can A Single Shot Save Your Heart?
Researchers have developed a self‑amplifying RNA injection that directs skeletal muscle to produce the heart‑healing peptide Nppa, dramatically reducing scar formation in pig models of myocardial infarction. The lipid‑nanoparticle‑delivered RNA sustains protein expression for at least four weeks, far outlasting...
Aditxt Acquires Ignite Proteomics to Address a Critical Challenge in Cancer Care: Optimizing Therapy Selection
Aditxt, Inc. announced the acquisition of Ignite Proteomics for $36 million in Series A‑2 convertible preferred stock, adding a CLIA‑certified functional proteomics platform to its oncology portfolio. Ignite’s Reverse Phase Protein Array (RPPA) assay quantifies 32 phospho‑ and total‑protein biomarkers, offering therapy‑selection...
Re: Scarlett McNally: Bone Cement—Relying on Fewer Suppliers May Be Unstable, but Standardisation Is Beneficial Overall
The National Joint Registry (NJR) issued a formal response to a BMJ article that incorrectly claimed the new Zimmer Biomet bone cement had been evaluated using NJR data. The NJR clarified that the cement has not yet been used in the...
Global Diagnostic Imaging Equipment Market Predicted to Reach $82 Billion by 2034
DelveInsight’s new report projects the global diagnostic imaging equipment market to expand from $51.5 billion in 2025 to $82.2 billion by 2034, implying a roughly 5% compound annual growth rate. MRI systems emerge as the largest product segment, while North America retains...
De Novo Enzymes Redefine Peptide Therapeutic Production
Peptide therapeutics are powerful. But making them has always been difficult. Traditional chemical synthesis can involve long routes, poor selectivity, and significant environmental impact, while biological production is often limited by the pathways evolution happened to provide. What if we could design...
New Guardant Health/Harris Poll Survey Shows 92% of All Eligible Americans Believe Colorectal Cancer Blood Tests Should Be Accessible and...
Guardant Health released a Harris Poll showing 92% of Americans aged 45+ support no‑copay coverage for blood‑based colorectal cancer (CRC) screening. The survey highlighted anxiety around colonoscopies and disgust for stool tests as major barriers, while 77% said a FDA‑approved...
Novel Strategies Can Enable Fair Access to Heart Transplantation
The 2018 heart‑allocation reform removed rigid donor service areas, shifting the primary barrier to transplantation from geography to a center’s ability to deploy modern donor‑utilization tools. Advanced preservation technologies and donation‑after‑circulatory‑death (DCD) protocols have expanded the donor pool, but adoption...
High Altitude Survival Gene Mutation Points to Strategy for Repairing Nerve Damage
Researchers identified a high‑altitude Retsat Q247R mutation that enhances myelin formation under hypoxic stress and accelerates remyelination in mouse models. The variant boosts neuronal production of the vitamin‑A‑derived metabolite ATDR, which activates the RXR‑γ pathway in oligodendrocyte progenitors. Administering ATDR...
Immutep's LAG-3 Drug Fails Phase 3 Lung Cancer Study
Immutep’s LAG‑3 fusion protein eftilagimod‑alpha failed to improve overall survival in a Phase 3 randomized study in non‑small cell lung cancer. The trial, enrolling roughly 600 patients, did not meet its primary endpoint and showed no statistically significant benefit versus standard...
Leveraging Analytics to Improve Mental Health Outcomes
Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Services implemented a near‑real‑time analytics platform to anticipate and manage behavioral health issues. The system leverages AI‑driven predictive models that analyze patient data streams, flagging risk factors before crises occur. This proactive approach cut...
Patients Should Drive Aggressive Immunotherapy Post-Remission
Merkel cell carcinoma log, day #594. Yesterday, I was at Dana-Farber for my first infusion of avelumab in more than 3 months. Aside from two botched blood tests — the buzz is the blood tests are being done with recently...
China Biotech Receives FDA Approval for First Cell Therapy Trial
With FDA go ahead, a China #biotech notches a first in cell therapy testing https://t.co/QorwJmou8w by @realJacobBell $XENE $BHVN
Washington Senate Votes to Send Medical Treatment Bill to Governor
The Washington Senate voted 30-19 to approve amendments to S.B. 5847, sending the bill to Governor Bob Ferguson. The legislation lets network providers deviate from Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) coverage decisions and national treatment guidelines when medically appropriate....
Cancer Vaccines Show Promise for Hard-to-Treat Tumors
Cancer vaccines are showing marked efficacy vs refractory cancers and are going to be part of the future Rx armamentarium. Beyond that, ultimately, for prevention in high-risk individuals. A new stellar review @NatureMedicine https://t.co/PhtdZDtSBl https://t.co/okmwCD8AyB
Clinician Trust, Not Dashboards, Drives Sustainable Improvement
Lasting improvement doesn’t come from dashboards or mandates. It comes from clinicians who trust the data and own the change. A great conversation on what really works. 👉 https://t.co/SwV5qc59SV @HealthCatalyst #clinicalimprovement #HITSM
3D Printing Smaller Than a Human Hair: A BMF Deep Dive with John Kawola
Boston Micro Fabrication (BMF) showcased a dual‑resolution 3D printer capable of producing functional parts with tolerances in the tens of microns—smaller than a human hair. CEO John Kawola explained how the machine alternates between macro and micro modes, delivering both...
Adults' Diagnosis Denial Won’t Aid Children’s Care
It is not clear to me how denying diagnosis to adults like me would get children more medical help.
Amyloid Antibody Therapy Triggers 100 Microhemorrhages in APOE4 Patient
100 brain microhemorrhages in a patient with cerebral amyloid angiopathy and 2 copies of APOE4 after amyloid antibody therapy https://t.co/ASpVuijFNW https://t.co/hdtwtv1usq
Military Hospitals, Clinics Resume Billing Civilians Following 3-Year Pause
The Defense Health Agency will resume billing civilians for care at military treatment facilities after a three‑year pause, affecting an estimated 137,000 non‑beneficiary patients who received emergency or trauma services since June 21 2023. A new Military Health System Modified Payment and...
LAG‑3 Checkpoint Suffers Another Trial Setback, Focus Shifts
NEW: Another failure in the clinic in the world of LAG-3, a target once seen as possibly the next major checkpoint inhibitor after PD-1 and CTLA-4. My latest on Immutep's Phase 3 disappointment, as LAG-3 focus now shifts to a...
Seeking NHS Waiting List Insights for Upcoming Piece
@angelazhay - I'd be keen to make contact with you to discuss NHS waiting lists for a piece I'm working on. Could you reach me on laura.donnelly@telegraph.co.uk?
Ultragenyx’s Gene Therapy Hits Key Endpoint in Phase 3 Trial for Blood Ammonia Disease
Ultragenyx announced that its investigational gene therapy for ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC) deficiency met a primary endpoint in a Phase 3 trial involving 37 patients. The study demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in blood ammonia levels, the key marker of disease...
HSV-1 Reactivation Linked to Faster Aging, Dementia
The reactivation of herpes simplex virus (HSV-1, not only herpes zoster) may be tied to accelerated aging and dementia, and account in part for the mechanism of Shingrix vaccine''s protection @WIRED https://t.co/iKF1JcYSu0
Biotech Layoffs Hit Evotec, Vistagen; Immutep Shares Plunge
Evotec, Vistagen lay off staff; Immutep shares collapse on study failure https://t.co/OikmCdJ6sg $EVO $VTGN $IMMP - 81% $RARE $ATRA
Doctors at Irish Hospital Accidentally Operated on Patient’s Wrong Testicle During Surgery
Doctors at three Irish acute hospitals performed four wrong‑site surgeries in the past two years, including an operation on the wrong testicle. The incidents involved a testicle, a leg, oral structures and another genital organ, prompting criticism from patient advocates....