• Researchers at Stanford have developed a novel blood test that analyzes cell-free messenger RNA to detect cancers, monitor treatment resistance and assess tissue injury, offering a non-invasive tool for personalized medicine. ​
• Two early-stage clinical trials have shown that stem cell therapies for Parkinson’s disease appear safe and may improve motor symptoms, marking a promising step toward regenerative treatments for the condition.​
• A new study analyzing health records of over 280,000 older adults found that those who received the shingles vaccine were 20% less likely to develop dementia over the following seven years, suggesting a potential protective effect against cognitive decline.

Recent News

• BD launches surgical monitor with AI-powered blood pressure predictions
  Fierce Biotech – April 22, 2025
  BD is rolling out a new monitoring platform equipped with artificial-intelligence-powered programs that aim to predict potentially life-threatening changes in the patient’s blood pressure during critical procedures. The device can track what BD calls the body’s cerebral autoregulation index—or a measure of the brain’s ability to maintain stable hemodynamic flow despite changes in blood pressure, such as from blood loss—by using a noninvasive oximetry sensor placed on the patient’s forehead, paired with cardiac output data from an arterial line. According to BD, patients may have varying or possibly impaired thresholds for cerebral autoregulation, with the risks of injury and death increasing when blood pressure falls below that limit. Providing an index score—alongside AI predictions of low pressure events and drops in blood oxygen levels—can help clinicians better personalize the therapies given during a surgery.
• Stanford Medicine researchers develop RNA blood test to detect cancers, other clues
  Stanford Medicine – April 21, 2025
  Stanford Medicine researchers have developed a blood test capable of detecting cancers, the ways cancer resists treatments and tissue injury caused by non-cancerous conditions. The new test analyzes RNA molecules in the bloodstream. This type of RNA is called cell-free RNA because the tiny molecules no longer inhabit a cell. There are always fragments of both DNA and RNA floating in blood — byproducts of natural cell death from all types of tissues and organs throughout the body, including cancerous tumors. The researchers spent more than six years developing novel methods to target messenger RNA in blood and then used it to identify the presence of cancers at different stages, to track resistance to cancer treatment, and to monitor severity of injury to healthy tissue.
• FDA clears its first prescription migraine app, from Click Therapeutics
  Fierce Biotech – April 17, 2025
  Click Therapeutics has collected a groundbreaking green light from the FDA for the agency’s first prescription digital therapeutic aimed at preventing migraines. Designed to be used alongside standard drug therapies, a randomized, sham-controlled trial of Click’s smartphone app showed it could significantly reduce an adult’s number of episodic migraine days per month. According to the company, the FDA’s de novo clearance paves the way for future development of the program, dubbed CT-132, as a combined software-enhanced drug therapy. “With this landmark, first-in-class FDA authorization in episodic migraine, Click’s interventions have now demonstrated clinically meaningful benefit across three unique therapeutic areas, including psychiatry, cardiometabolic disease and now neurology,” CEO David Benshoof Klein said in a statement.
• Daily Pill May Work as Well as Ozempic for Weight Loss and Blood Sugar
  The New York Times – April 17, 2025
  A daily pill may be as effective in lowering blood sugar and aiding weight loss in people with Type 2 diabetes as the popular injectable drugs Mounjaro and Ozempic, according to results of a clinical trial announced by Eli Lilly. The drug, orforglipron, is a GLP-1, a class of drugs that have become blockbusters because of their weight-loss effects. But the GLP-1s on the market now are expensive, must be kept refrigerated and must be injected. A pill that produces similar results has the potential to become far more widely used, though it is also expected to be expensive. Lilly said it would seek approval from the Food and Drug Administration later this year to market orforglipron for obesity and early in 2026 for diabetes.
• New research kindles excitement around stem cell therapies for Parkinson’s
  BioPharma Dive – April 16, 2025
  The most effective drug for Parkinson’s disease hasn’t changed in 50 years. But fresh research published in one of the country’s top scientific journals is helping build the case for a more cutting-edge approach that uses stem cells to restore important brain functions. The second most common neurodegenerative illness, Parkinson’s is caused by the loss of certain nerve cells. These cells produce a chemical messenger, dopamine, that plays a crucial role regulating movement. Since the 1970s, a drug called levodopa, which the body converts into dopamine, has been the mainstay treatment for combating the tremors, slowness, stiffness and balance issues that come with Parkinson’s. Levodopa doesn’t stop the disease, however, so scientists have spent decades trying to find a more permanent fix.
• New antibiotic is effective against gonorrhea, could be first new treatment since 1990s, study says
  CNN Health – April 14, 2025
  A new type of antibiotic for treatment of urinary tract infections in women could also work against gonorrhea infections, a new study finds. This could put the medication, called gepotidacin, on track to become the first new antibiotic for gonorrhea since the 1990s. “Gepotidacin is a novel oral antibacterial treatment with the potential to become an alternative option for the treatment of gonococcal infections, supported by an acceptable safety and tolerability profile,” the researchers wrote in the study published in The Lancet, adding that the drug “could mark a meaningful advancement in patient care.” As an antibiotic, gepotidacin works by inhibiting bacteria from replicating in the body.
• Amid tariff turmoil, Swiss drugmaker commits to build $1.1B research hub in San Diego
  The San Diego Union Tribune – April 11, 2025
  Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis announced that it plans to build a $1.1 billion research hub in San Diego as part of its $23 billion investment in U.S. operations over the next five years. The investment will create nearly 1,000 new jobs at Novartis and about 4,000 additional jobs in the U.S. as the company plans to construct seven new facilities, ensuring all “key Novartis medicines for U.S. patients will be made in the United States,” the company said. The news comes as the pharmaceutical industry prepares for potential tariffs on drugs imported into the U.S. So far, President Donald Trump has exempted medicines, but he said pharmaceutical tariffs would be coming “very shortly.” The Novartis deal also marks a significant investment in the local life science sector, where it has become more common to see companies announce layoffs or cutbacks on their research and real estate footprint.
• Amgen pads Imdelltra’s case in tough-to-treat lung cancer subtype with phase 3 survival win
  Fierce Pharma – April 11, 2025
  Nearly a year after winning an accelerated approval for its DLL3-targeting small cell lung cancer (SCLC) therapy Imdelltra, Amgen is further proving the drug’s worth with overall survival data from an interim analysis of a phase 3 study. Topline results proved that Imdelltra use resulted in “statistically significant and clinically meaningful” improvement in overall survival compared with local standard-of-care chemotherapy across patients with SCLC whose disease progressed after one line of platinum-based chemotherapy, Amgen reported. The findings demonstrate “overwhelming clinical benefit for people living with this devastating disease and affirm Imdelltra as standard of care,” Amgen’s Executive Vice President of R&D Jay Bradner, M.D., noted in a statement.
• Shingles Vaccine Can Decrease Risk of Dementia, Study Finds
  The New York Times – April 2, 2025
  Getting vaccinated against shingles can reduce the risk of developing dementia, a large new study finds. The results provide some of the strongest evidence yet that some viral infections can have effects on brain function years later and that preventing them can help stave off cognitive decline. The study, published in the Journal Nature, found that people who received the shingles vaccine were 20 percent less likely to develop dementia in the seven years afterward than those who were not vaccinated. “If you’re reducing the risk of dementia by 20 percent, that’s quite important in a public health context, given that we don’t really have much else at the moment that slows down the onset of dementia,” said Dr. Paul Harrison, a professor of psychiatry at Oxford.