Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Yale Scientists Develop Novel Cancer-Targeting Technique For Therapies
Yale scientists have discovered a "Trojan horse" method for killing cancer, showing promise against a range of tumor types. By sneaking past the cancer's defenses, the mechanism is able to deliver anticancer therapy without damaging healthy tissue. ... Efforts are now underway to advance this treatment for testing in a clinical trial setting. (Dewan, 7/16)
Bayer (BAYGn.DE) said on Wednesday its Nubeqa drug was shown to slow the progression of a certain type of prostate cancer in a late-stage trial, underpinning growth prospects for one of the German drugmaker's key pharmaceutical products. Bayer is developing Nubeqa, also known as darolutamide, jointly with Finland's Orion (ORNBV.HE). The drug is already approved in other prostate cancer treatment settings. (Burger, 7/17)
Roche (ROG.S) said on Wednesday a second drug candidate from its purchase of Carmot Therapeutics yielded positive results in an early-stage trial, as the Swiss drugmaker asserted itself as a late contender in the race to develop obesity drugs. Roche's experimental once-daily pill CT-996 resulted in a placebo-adjusted average weight loss of 6.1% within four weeks in obese patients without diabetes in a Phase I trial, Roche said in a statement. (Laudani and Burger, 7/17)
Two Penn Medicine physicians had an unorthodox idea for reducing the number of patients who develop dangerously high blood pressure in the weeks after giving birth: Stop asking them to come into the doctor’s office for blood pressure screenings. Dangerously high blood pressure, is a leading cause of maternal death and hospital-readmission after birth, and is often preventable with routine screening. But many new parents are too overwhelmed in the first days of their baby’s life to get themselves to extra medical appointments. (Gantz, 7/17)
Faced with widespread skepticism about the value of digital therapies, Swing Therapeutics in early 2022 set out to make the strongest case possible for its app-based treatment for fibromyalgia. (Aguilar, 7/17)
A new prevalence study of the common foodborne bacterium Campylobacter in North Carolina chickens shows it is almost twice as common in backyard flocks than on commercial farms, and isolates are often resistant to antibiotics. The authors say the findings are significant because chicken is the top consumed meat worldwide, and backyard poultry production is increasing in the United States. The results were published in JAC - Antimicrobial Resistance. (Wappes, 7/16)
Also —
Children in Ivory Coast received the first doses of a new, relatively cheap malaria vaccine on Monday, a step that has been hailed as a major milestone in the battle against one of the world’s most deadly diseases. (Ronald, 7/16)