Get the Daily Brief
Latest Biotech News
AstraZeneca’s synthetic‑lethal program falters; bets $100M on pan‑KRAS
AstraZeneca reported a phase 3 failure for ceralasertib in lung cancer, missing the study’s primary endpoint and undermining a synthetic‑lethal strategy meant to overcome immuno‑oncology...
FDA clears Cytokinetics’ heart drug — challenger to Bristol Myers
The FDA approved Cytokinetics’ Myqorzo, marking the company’s first marketed therapy and placing it in direct commercial competition with Bristol Myers Squibb’s Camzyos in hypertrophic...
Samsung Biologics buys GSK U.S. plant for $280 million
Samsung Biologics agreed to acquire a U.S. drug production facility from GlaxoSmithKline for $280 million, a deal that expands the CDMO’s manufacturing footprint in North America. The transaction...
U.S. funding freeze and vaccine schedule overhaul — researchers raise alarms
The U.S. government’s 2025 actions froze major research functions at the NIH and canceled more than $1.5 billion in grants, creating uncertainty for clinical trials, early‑career scientists, and...
Biohacking trial: Unlimited Bio to inject healthy volunteers with gene therapies
Unlimited Bio announced plans to inject a small cohort of healthy volunteers with two experimental gene therapies aimed at boosting muscle blood supply and growth, and ultimately pursuing...
Antisense oligonucleotide rescues SMA organoids — developmental defects reversed
Researchers reported in Nature Communications that targeted antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) therapy reversed developmental defects in spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) organoid models. The lead...
Engineered metabolism converts CO₂ into biological building blocks
Synthetic biologists at Northwestern and Stanford engineered an artificial metabolic pathway that converts waste CO₂ into useful biological precursors. The lead finding: the team designed a...
Researchers engineer microbes to break down microplastics
A team reported engineering microbial strains capable of digesting microplastics, outlining enzymatic pathways and biodegradation routes for plastic polymers. The lead sentence: engineered...
Fruquintinib plus sintilimab shows activity in advanced endometrial cancer
A multicenter Phase Ib/II trial reported that the anti‑angiogenic tyrosine kinase inhibitor fruquintinib combined with the PD‑1 inhibitor sintilimab produced clinical responses in patients with...
Graph‑attention network improves drug‑synergy prediction
Researchers unveiled KGLGANSynergy, a knowledge‑graph and local/global attention network that increases accuracy in predicting drug synergy across compound pairs. The lead sentence: the model...
FDA on edge: leadership churn threatens agency stability
The Food and Drug Administration is facing an acute personnel crisis that has left the agency operationally fragile heading into 2026. STAT reports that the FDA has cycled through five leaders of...
U.S. vaccine schedule overhaul: federal plan to drop several childhood shots
U.S. officials are reportedly preparing to overhaul the childhood immunization schedule to more closely match Denmark, a move that would drop or change recommendations for multiple routine...
Cytokinetics wins FDA nod — Myqorzo enters hypertrophic cardiomyopathy market
The FDA approved Cytokinetics’ Myqorzo, marking the first regulatory clearance in the company’s history and creating a direct market confrontation with Bristol Myers Squibb’s Camzyos. Coverage...
Samsung Biologics expands U.S. CDMO capacity with GSK plant buy
Samsung Biologics agreed to acquire a U.S. drug production facility from GSK for $280 million, a deal that expands the contract development and manufacturing organization’s footprint in North...
Federal research freezes cost $1.5B — NIH grants halted in 2025
Federal actions in 2025 froze multiple NIH operations and canceled more than $1.5 billion in grants, according to reporting collated from affected researchers and agencies. The Trump...
Fruquintinib plus sintilimab shows activity in advanced endometrial cancer
A multicenter Phase Ib/II trial reported that the VEGFR inhibitor fruquintinib combined with the PD-1 inhibitor sintilimab produced clinical activity in advanced, mismatch-repair proficient...
Antisense oligonucleotide rescues SMA developmental defects in organoids
Researchers reported in Nature Communications that targeted antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) therapy reversed developmental defects in spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) organoid models. The study...
Antivirals cut post-COVID cardiovascular risk — target trial emulation finds benefit
A large target trial emulation published in Nature Communications found that outpatient antiviral treatments—nirmatrelvir/ritonavir (Paxlovid) and molnupiravir—were associated with reduced...
KGLGANSynergy: graph attention model predicts drug synergy
Researchers unveiled KGLGANSynergy, a knowledge-graph and attention-network framework that predicts drug synergy with improved accuracy over prior models. The method integrates local and global...
Biotech IPOs may return in 2026 — VC predicts as sector stocks recover
Atlas Venture partner Bruce Booth predicted on STAT’s podcast that biotech IPO activity will rebound in 2026 after a two-year drought, forecasting a wave of public listings as market appetite...