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Guardant doubles down on screening -- buys MetaSight and lifts 2026 guidance

February 20, 2026

Guardant Health disclosed strategic expansion of its cancer‑screening business, acquiring MCED startup MetaSight Diagnostics for $59 million upfront plus contingent payments and forecasting...

Novartis to divest India branded generics arm — keeps R&D and commercial footprint

February 20, 2026

Novartis confirmed plans to sell its 70.68% stake in Novartis India Limited to a private‑equity consortium for about $159 million while retaining separate commercial and R&D operations in the...

Korsana raises $175M to chase Alzheimer’s brain‑shuttle antibodies

February 20, 2026

Korsana Biosciences emerged from stealth with $175 million to advance KRSA‑028 and other CNS antibody programs designed to penetrate the blood‑brain barrier using a shuttle strategy. The...

Pepyrus improves HLA peptide detection with custom peptide libraries

February 20, 2026

Researchers unveiled Pepyrus, a platform that uses user‑defined peptide libraries produced in Escherichia coli to enhance mass‑spectrometry detection of HLA‑bound tumor peptides, improving...

AI ‘prompt‑to‑drug’ and lab‑in‑loop evolution push autonomous discovery

February 20, 2026

Researchers from Insilico Medicine and Eli Lilly published a vision for a fully autonomous “prompt‑to‑drug” R&D pipeline that stitches together generative AI, automated synthesis and iterative...

Plasma p‑tau217 ‘clocks’ estimate timing of Alzheimer’s symptom onset

February 20, 2026

Researchers developed plasma p‑tau217‑based clock models that predict the age of symptomatic Alzheimer’s onset within a three‑ to four‑year margin of error by correlating blood p‑tau217 dynamics...

Alpibectir combination shows proof‑of‑concept against drug‑resistant TB

February 20, 2026

Bioversys reported first clinical proof‑of‑concept data for alpibectir (BVL‑GSK098) combined with ethionamide in pulmonary tuberculosis, publishing phase IIa early bactericidal activity results in...

Insilico and Lilly Outline 'Prompt‑to‑Drug' Vision: Autonomous AI for drug discovery

February 20, 2026

Researchers from Insilico Medicine and Eli Lilly published a framework in ACS Central Science proposing a fully autonomous “prompt‑to‑drug” pipeline that links generative AI, automated synthesis,...

Element Debuts Vitari: $100 30X Genome, High‑Throughput Sequencing Push

February 20, 2026

Element Biosciences unveiled Vitari, a high‑throughput sequencing platform the company says can generate 3 terabytes per paired‑end 150 bp run in 36 hours and sequence a 30X human genome for $100....

Guardant Eyes Screening Ramp, Buys MetaSight to Expand MCED Portfolio

February 20, 2026

Guardant Health guided to substantial screening growth in 2026 for its Shield colorectal cancer screening test and disclosed an acquisition of early cancer detection startup MetaSight Diagnostics....

Grail's Galleri Fails Primary Goal in NHS Trial — Stock Collapses

February 20, 2026

Grail reported that its large UK NHS‑Galleri multicancer early detection (MCED) trial did not meet the primary endpoint of a statistically significant reduction in Stage III–IV cancers. The...

FDA Reverses Refusal, Will Review Moderna's mRNA Flu Shot

February 20, 2026

After initially issuing a Refusal to File over comparator and study‑design concerns, the FDA reversed course and agreed to review Moderna’s seasonal influenza BLA for mRNA‑1010. Moderna said it...

FDA Formalizes One‑Pivotal‑Trial Default: NEJM Perspective Sparks Debate

February 20, 2026

FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and CBER Director Vinay Prasad published a New England Journal of Medicine perspective stating that one well‑controlled pivotal trial should be the agency’s default...

Novartis Plugs $1.8B Into Macrocyclic Peptides — Unnatural Products Partnership

February 20, 2026

Novartis launched a research and licensing collaboration with Unnatural Products to apply UNP’s AI‑guided macrocyclic peptide discovery platform to cardiovascular targets. The deal includes up to...

Electronic 'Cyborg' Mesh Drives Islet Cell Maturation — Diabetes Implications

February 20, 2026

Teams at the Perelman School of Medicine (Penn) and Harvard reported in Science that an ultrathin, flexible electronic mesh implanted within developing pancreatic tissue records and delivers...

M‑PACT: Methylation Classifier Identifies Pediatric Brain Tumors from CSF

February 20, 2026

An international collaboration led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and Hopp Children's Cancer Center published M‑PACT, a methylation‑based machine‑learning algorithm that classifies...

Altesa Raises $75M to Reposition Vapendavir for COPD Exacerbations

February 20, 2026

Altesa BioSciences closed a $75 million Series B led by Forbion with participation from Sanofi and others to advance vapendavir, an oral rhinovirus antiviral, into a Phase 2b study enrolling COPD...

Grail’s Galleri test fails UK endpoint — shares tumble

February 20, 2026

Grail reported that the large NHS‑Galleri multicancer early detection trial did not meet its primary endpoint of a statistically significant reduction in Stage III–IV cancers. The company released...

FDA reverses course — Moderna mRNA flu shot accepted for review

February 20, 2026

The FDA reversed a recent refuse‑to‑file (RTF) decision and agreed to review Moderna’s mRNA influenza vaccine mRNA‑1010, assigning a PDUFA date and reopening a regulatory pathway after a Type A...

FDA makes one pivotal trial the default — NEJM perspective

February 20, 2026

Top FDA leaders argued in The New England Journal of Medicine that a single well‑controlled clinical trial should be the new default basis for drug approvals, replacing the long‑standing...