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Ionis Pharmaceuticals lost more than $1 billion in market value on Monday after the company slashed sales projections for a triglyceride-lowering drug the biotech and Wall Street analysts believe is a potential blockbuster.  The firm announced that it expects the drug, Tryngolza, to bring in $50 million in sales by the end of this year, compared to Ionis’ previous forecast of $100 to $110 million. Third quarter sales came in at $9 million, well below Wall Street consensus expectat

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved Bayer’s drug to reduce recurrence of stroke, making available the first in a novel class of medications that hold the promise of preventing blood clots more safely. Many blood thinners aren’t used in this setting due to the increased risk of bleeding. But Bayer’s drug, which will be sold under the brand name Sunharbo, inhibits a protein called XIa, utilizing a mechanism that’s thought to stop the formation of bad

After months of skirmishing, the Trump administration removed WuXi AppTec, a key contract developer and manufacturer for the pharmaceutical industry, from its list of “Chinese military companies” operating in the U.S. The Department of Defense took this step to comply with a court ruling last August, according to a notice with the Federal Register. At the time, a U.S. District Court judge temporarily blocked the administration from pursuing the designation after WuXi filed a law

NEW YORK — If you’re blind, Bill Ackman wants to help you see again. That is the ambitious plan the billionaire is pursuing with the Ackman Oxman Institute, a new institution in New York City that will act as a hub for brain injury research, including brain-computer interfaces that can help people move, speak, and connect to digital devices through brain activity.  It’s a new dream with a tragic backstory.Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

This is the online version of STAT’s weekly email newsletter Health Care Inc. Sign up here. Are you looking to mix up your Spotify? Try Balu Brigada. The band is from New Zealand and has a ton of bops, like “BedHead.” Comments, song recs, and especially your industry news and tips are always welcome: bob.herman@statnews.com. Hospitals ride the blue tsunami Voters overwhelmingly backed Democrats in the midterm elections, relegating Republicans to an afterth

CHICAGO — If one word could describe research presented at this year’s American Heart Association scientific sessions, it might be “neutral.”  The meeting began with two blockbuster disappointments, hinted at in top-line results released weeks or months ago but detailed with unvarnished specificity Saturday morning. The ZEUS trial targeting inflammation showed no difference between the treatment and placebo arms. The HORIZON trial taking aim at lipoprotein(a)

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday warned that GLP-1 drugs carry a potential risk for a rare but serious eye condition and required pharma companies to inform patients and doctors of the risk. The condition, called non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION, is sometimes referred to as an “eye stroke” and is caused by insufficient blood flow to the optic nerve. It typically causes sudden vision loss and, in severe cases, can lead to blindness. There are c

Want to stay on top of the science and politics driving biotech today? Sign up to get our biotech newsletter in your inbox. The tumors possibly connected to pediatric gene therapies make me sad. Babies.  The need-to-know this morning Vir Biotechnology said monthly injections of two experimental medicines reduced hepatitis D virus to undetectable levels in 44% of patients compared to none of the patients who received delayed treatment with the same regimen. The resul

Eli Lilly’s GLP-1 pill Foundayo helped alleviate sleep apnea in two late-stage studies, but it doesn’t appear as effective as Lilly’s injectable drug Zepbound. In a one-year trial of patients who weren’t receiving PAP therapy, a form of ventilation, those on Foundayo saw a reduction of 17.8 “events” per hour on the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), a measure of the number of times breathing stops and becomes restricted while sleeping. That compares with a r

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to another working week. We hope the weekend respite was relaxing and invigorating, because the usual routine of online meetings, phone calls, and deadlines has returned. You knew this would happen, yes? So to cope, we are firing up the trusty kettle and brewing another cuppa stimulation. Our choice today is blueberry hibiscus — with a dollop of bourbon honey. Please feel free to join us. Or grab a bottle of water, if you prefer. Meanwhile, we have asse

Get your daily dose of health and medicine every weekday with STAT’s free newsletter Morning Rounds. Sign up here. Hello and happy Monday! We’ve got a lot in store for you today — a first look at Democrats’ big health plans, some gossip from inside the White House, as told by a MAHA loyalist, and a story about what gets men to open up about their feelings. Thanks for reading. Is ‘Medicare for All’ for real? Democrats made health care a key

CVS Health is one of the largest companies in the U.S. It serves the health care needs of hundreds of millions of Americans annually, has a hand in nearly every part of the drug supply chain, and has more than $400 billion in annual revenue. So when it announced last Wednesday that it will split into two entities, the news made waves. Here’s the thing: Much of the media coverage frames this move as CVS unwinding its vertical integration in response to ongoing regulatory pressure. Th

Liver doctors from around the world have come to agree on a definition for a common and potentially fatal liver complication.  Acute-on-chronic liver failure is what happens when someone with underlying liver disease has their condition exacerbated by an acute injury. In the U.S., that often looks like long-simmering cirrhosis suddenly worsened by alcohol or a viral infection. Read the rest…

WASHINGTON — In the first days following their sweeping midterms victory, Democrats are asking themselves: How far can we go? That question has grown particularly interesting in health care — a policy area that many Democrats argue was critical to their win and remains a top priority for early action. There has been broad agreement among congressional Democrats that they should roll back the historic Medicaid cuts championed by President Trump, and restore the additional Affo

It was mid-morning when Matteo got the phone call. His wife and children were asleep in New York City, and he was at work in Trieste, Italy, a new city in a home country that felt foreign after decades abroad. He knew what his brother was going to say, on the other end of the line: Their ailing father was nearing the end.  Luca left the office and set out to drive the 300 miles separating him from the childhood home where the father he idolized was not going to see another morning. 

CHICAGO — Sudden cardiac arrest statistics are chilling. In the United States, 350,000 people’s heartbeats, breathing, pulse, and blood circulation will all halt outside hospitals this year, seemingly out of the blue. These are not heart attacks. Only 1 in 10 people will survive them.  CPR and defibrillation can save their lives (and brains), but that depends on bystanders and emergency response systems being both nearby and prepared to step in — immediately. Surviva

The next time someone tells you that artificial intelligence, or any other new technology, is going to cure every disease, point them to the effort to fight heart attacks and strokes, which together are the largest killer in the developed world. Because again and again, pharmaceutical researchers have learned the same hard lesson: Technologies that were supposed to speed new medicines to patients have fallen short. Two studies presented Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Heart Ass

CHICAGO — High blood pressure has earned its reputation as the silent killer. If someone has diabetes or has had a stroke, the risk of serious cardiovascular events posed by hypertension climbs even higher.   Three studies presented Saturday at the American Heart Association’s scientific sessions reported on recent attempts to lower blood pressure in people with these challenging medical histories, and how medical care should reach across specialties to treat them. One

CHICAGO — High blood pressure has earned its reputation as the silent killer. If someone has diabetes or has had a stroke, the risk of serious cardiovascular events posed by hypertension climbs even higher.   Three studies presented Saturday at the American Heart Association’s scientific sessions reported on recent attempts to lower blood pressure in people with these challenging medical histories, and how medical care should reach across specialties to treat them. One

WASHINGTON — The Biotechnology Innovation Organization is joining the legal fight against the Trump administration’s pilot program aimed at aligning drug prices in Medicare with prices charged in peer countries.   BIO and two California-based biotech trade groups filed a complaint Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California asserting that the Global Benchmark for Efficient Drug Pricing demonstration, known as GLOBE, oversteps Medicare&#x20