Recent News

• Moderna and Merck cancer vaccine returns ‘landmark’ result in melanom
  Bio Pharma Dive – August 19, 2026
  The promise of cancer vaccines training the immune system to detect and attack cancer cells has attracted billions of dollars into decades of research and development. Yet, that work has largely been unsuccessful. Cancer experts have chalked that failure up to past vaccines’ focus on a single antigen, or mutated protein, on cancer cells, as well as using them on people who are too sick for their bodies to fight off the disease or cancer cells’ own immunosuppressive properties. Moderna, which rose to prominence on its COVID-19 vaccine, had focused heavily on its cancer immunotherapy pipeline before a pandemic that changed its fortunes. Now that work appears to be bearing fruit, as the Massachusetts biotechnology company appears to have learned from past setbacks in its development of intismeran autogene, which has also been known as V940 or MRNA-4157.
• Medicare’s Drug Price Controls Could Actually Raise Prices In The Long Run
  Forbes – August 14, 2026
  Four years ago, on August 16, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law. Lawmakers promised that letting Medicare set drug prices would save taxpayers more than $100 billion over a decade. New research suggests the IRA may accomplish the opposite in the long run. A study by University of Chicago economist Tomas Philipson and his colleagues estimates that the law’s price controls could raise average lifetime prices for the first 25 medicines selected for price-setting by 19%. How is that possible? Competition—or a lack thereof. Cutting the revenue a brand-name drug generates today can make its market less attractive to generic and biosimilar manufacturers tomorrow. Fewer competitors after the brand loses exclusivity can mean higher prices for years to come.
• Biotech initiatives pick up as more regions race to become hubs
  Pharma Voice – August 13, 2026
  As pharma manufacturing investment skyrockets, new state and federal government initiatives have poured into regional biotech hubs eager for a slice of the pie. This year alone, Pennsylvania and New York launched new programs, while Kansas City and Central Virginia won federal funding aimed at strengthening their biotech industries.
• Novo Nordisk and AWS Form Strategic Partnership to Accelerate AI-Driven Drug Discovery
  BioPharm International – August 10, 2026
  Novo Nordisk and Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a strategic partnership to accelerate drug discovery and modernize Novo Nordisk’s operations through agentic artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud technologies. The agreement names AWS as Novo Nordisk’s preferred cloud provider and strategic AI partner, and the companies have opened a co-innovation hub in London where AWS engineers and AI specialists will work alongside Novo Nordisk research and development teams to shorten the path from drug target to first human dose.
• GLP-1 pill could curb heavy drinking, CU Anschutz study finds
  Axios – August 10, 2026
  A daily pill containing the active ingredient in Ozempic could help people cut back on drinking, according to a new University of Colorado Anschutz study. Why it matters: The findings add to growing evidence that GLP-1 drugs could have uses well beyond diabetes and weight loss, potentially paving another path for treating alcohol use disorder (AUD) — a leading cause of preventable death in the U.S. No new medication for the disorder has been approved by the FDA since 2006. What they found: People who took oral semaglutide — the main ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy — had significantly fewer heavy-drinking days, consumed less when they did drink and reported weaker alcohol cravings than those taking a placebo. Among participants who used cannabis, those taking semaglutide also reported fewer days of use.
• Psychedelics on the cusp of market breakthrough as clinical, policy support grow
  BioSpace– August 10, 2026
  While there are several FDA-approved psychiatric medicines on the market, many patients still struggle to achieve lasting symptom relief. Psychedelics could help fill this gap. The psychedelics space is “at the cusp” of hitting it big, according to Graig Suvannavejh, as clinical evidence and policy support mount. The industry is waiting with “rational exuberance” for psychedelics to hit primetime, the Mizuho Securities managing director and senior biotech and biopharma analyst told BioSpace in an email interview. “With each year, excitement for the class only continues to grow,” Suvannavejh said. Despite outstanding concerns about safety and abuse risk, doctors and patients are eager for new psychiatric treatment options that are more effective and faster-acting than current drugs.
• Testing is underway on vaccines to intercept brewing colon cancer before it takes root
  CNN – August 9, 2026
  Dr. Stacy Norton was only 7 years old when her mother died of colon cancer, one of several family members struck by aggressive tumors at unusually young ages. Decades later, Norton rolled up her sleeve to help test if a new kind of vaccine might protect her and her own children from cancer. The Houston doctor is among an estimated 1 million Americans who have Lynch syndrome, a faulty gene passed from a parent that puts them at extremely high risk of colorectal cancer and more vulnerable to certain other cancers, too. They’re often urged to get yearly colonoscopies — far more often than usual — that can spot and remove precancerous growths called polyps.
• FDA Approves First mRNA Flu Vaccine
  Respiratory Therapy – August 7, 2026
  The USFDA has approved Moderna’s mFlusiva, a new vaccine for seasonal influenza in adults 50 years and older, according to the company. The approval follows a unanimous recommendation from the FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee. The decision marks the first time an mRNA-based influenza vaccine has been approved in the US, according to Moderna. “The FDA approval of mFlusiva, our fourth approved product in the United States and the first mRNA-based flu vaccine, demonstrates the continued strength and versatility of our mRNA platform,” said Stéphane Bancel, chief executive officer of Moderna, in a news release. “Flu remains a significant public health challenge, and mFlusiva provides an important new option for America’s seniors.”
• Takeda gains FDA nod for first-in-class narcolepsy treatment Orzeyful
  Fierce Pharma – August 6, 2026
  After coming up short in trials with two orexin type 2 receptor (OX2R) selective agonists, Takeda has scored with oveporexton, gaining FDA approval for the first-in-class, twice-daily tablet as a treatment for adults with narcolepsy type 1 (NT1). Rather than addressing the symptoms of narcolepsy, Orzeyful—as it will be known commercially—becomes the first medicine to address its root cause, doing so by mimicking the body’s orexin cycle. Orexin is a neuropeptide lacking in patients with narcolepsy that helps regulate waking, wakefulness, appetite and energy. “The FDA approval of Orzeyful marks a new chapter for the narcolepsy type 1 community, as we introduce an entirely new class of medicine that will potentially redefine how this disease is managed and how people feel on treatment,” Takeda CEO Julie Kim said in a statement.
• Vaccine Development Gets a Boost with AI
  The Scientist – August 6, 2026
  In the early 2000s, immunologist Bali Pulendran started his lab at Emory University to explore the mechanisms underlying vaccine-mediated immunity. To uncover these processes, he focused on the yellow fever vaccine because it induced long-term immunity, sometimes for decades or even a lifetime. When he started digging into what was known about the underlying protective mechanisms, he found that “the truthful answer to this question was not a whole lot.” So, he and his team set out to uncover the immune mechanism behind the protective responses from the yellow fever vaccine. They started with finding out how the vaccine activated dendritic cells, since these sentinel cells are important bridges between innate and adaptive immune responses.