InnovationRx: Trump Win Brings Uncertainty to Healthcare
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Donald Trump is now the second person in American history to win two non-consecutive terms as President, proudly claiming victory in last night’s race. Here are a few first thoughts on what that could mean for the health care industry.
Other M&A activities: Although Trump’s first term had a stronger lack of trust than a typical Republican administration, Wall Street expects Trump’s second term to be more favorable for buying. “This should lift whatever is in place from the current system that seeks to prevent large takeovers by pharmaceutical firms, which should increase M&A activity,” Niels Peetz-Larsen, partner at HighVista Strategies , he said in the letter.
Potential Reduction in Biotech Investments: Trump’s victory led to an increase in bond yields and the value of the dollar, which is an indication that investors expect higher deficits and debt in the second Trump Administration. It’s bad for biotech stocks, Peetz-Larsen said, because “they tend to care about interest rates based on their ongoing financing needs.” (This performance probably wouldn’t be seen in big pharma stocks, however, according to a note from Jefferies.)
Fees Can Raise Drug Prices: One of Trump’s most consistent promises is a broad-based tariff, which would make everything more expensive. It is a group that includes medicine. In 2023, the US imported about 180 billion drugs last year, according to the United Nations. The rise in prices will result in higher profits, which could make matters worse for biotech investments.
Unknown Role of RFK, Jr.: Last week, Trump promised to allow Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “emerging” with health in his system. It’s not clear what role that will play, but Kennedy is a well-known advocate of false scientific claims against vaccination, the use of antidepressants and fluoride in drinking water.
“It would be a serious matter for RFK to hold any federally appointed office that oversees medical and public health issues,” Centivax vaccine CEO Jacob Glanville said in an email. , noting that Kennedy’s health claims are “outside the expert opinion of most medical institutions.”
This AI model could prevent thousands of cancer patients from receiving unnecessary treatment
Ataraxis
One of the challenges of treating cancer is that they are not created equal. Some are fast and aggressive, others are slow with low risk. It is often difficult to tell which is which, which is a challenge to guide treatment and lead to treatments whose risks outweigh the risks of cancer. There are lab tests that can help, but it can take days or weeks to get results, and their usefulness is sometimes limited to patients with certain genetic mutations.
Jan Witowski wants to change this. His company, Ataraxis, has developed a powerful AI diagnostic test, Ataraxis Breast, that can accurately assess whether breast cancer is benign or malignant, giving doctors insight into whether a patient needs aggressive treatment. In a recent study, the company said that its system can be 30% more accurate than the current care system used in many hospitals today.
“If you don’t benefit from chemotherapy, you want to avoid it,” said CEO Witowski. “And we’re showing in the study and at large that we’re able to avoid unnecessary chemotherapy for tens of thousands of breast cancer patients every year.”
Read the whole story
Pipeline & Deal Updates
Thickness: Novo Nordisk has received an exclusive license from Ascendis Pharma for the use of its TransCon platform to develop drugs for obesity and other metabolic disorders, such as the company’s lead GLP-1 drug program only need to be taken every month. Ascendis will be eligible for up to $285 million plus royalties, and other payments for each additional program.
Breast cancer: AI mammography company CureMetrix has entered into an agreement with SimonMed Imaging to add its AI software cmAgnio, an FDA-cleared program capable of reading mammograms.
Inflammatory diseases: Evommune, which is developing treatments against chronic inflammatory diseases, announced that it has raised a series C of $115 million aimed at moving its drug patients through the clinical pipeline.
The AI system will make it easier to understand your dental X-ray
CONFIRMED
Sometimes at the end of the dental appointment, the dentist shows you the X-ray, points out the abnormal area on it and explains why it means you need a procedure. And most of us just believe in our heads, with zero idea of what, well, we’re looking at.
This is one of the reasons, to suggest the Director of Overjet Wardah Inam, why patients leave recommended dental procedures more than half the time. He said: “Patients don’t accept them because they don’t understand what the dentist is saying.
His company hopes to change this with the commercialization of its smart imaging system, Iris. The system uses the company’s AI platform, trained on millions of dental images, to sharpen blurry X-ray images and add color and other visuals to highlight potential health issues. teeth.
“We see these as intelligent thinking,” said Inam, 37. “It doesn’t just take pictures, it understands the pictures it’s taking and uses AI results accordingly.”
Read more here.
Other Health Issues
John Jumper of Google DeepMind on winning the Nobel Prize and the Future of AlphaFold
Ampa Ballot Results: Florida and Nebraska Reject New Protections, Montana Passes Abortion Rights Amendment
Bright Light Therapy May Help Treat Depression: A Study
Health Worker Crisis Is Easing, But Doctor’s Offices Are Collapsing
Promising Schizophrenia Drug, Cobenfy, May Face Challenges
CVS Health’s New CEO Shakes Up Management, Commits to Integrated Model
Through Forbes
Other Things We Read
These 7 watchdogs scan scientific papers for problems — and often find them (Stat)
Why is the director of the NIH dental center gone for 6 months? (Science)
Misinformation really spreads like a virus, Epidemiology Shows (Scientific American)
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