STAT Plus: Liquid biopsy startup Grail files for an IPO
Liquid biopsy company Grail has filed for a $100 million initial public offering, according to…
Category: Biotech
STAT Plus: Pharmalittle: AstraZeneca pauses its Covid-19 vaccine trial; FDA sticking with its vaccine approval guidelines
Rise and shine, everyone, another busy day is on the way. Our first clue is…
Opinion: Believers need to be as prepared for a Covid-19 vaccine as anti-vaxxers are against it
In the fractious public dialogue about Covid-19, one point of unity stands out: An effective…
Opinion: Coming to terms with the real bioterrorist behind Covid-19: nature
In 2001, not long after the 9/11 attacks, a mysterious spate of anthrax attacks by…
STAT Plus: Can AI improve cancer diagnosis in real patients? Google has enlisted the U.S. military to find out
Google has published plenty of papers demonstrating the potential of artificial intelligence to detect cancer…
A Senate race in Kansas between two doctors sets the stage for an election hyper-focused on health policy — and on Covid-19
A Democratic doctor campaigning for Senate in Kansas is betting she can leverage her health…
U.S. needs 193 million Covid-19 tests per month to reopen schools and keep up with pandemic, new report says
The U.S. may need up to 193 million coronavirus tests each month in order to…
AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine study put on hold due to suspected adverse reaction in participant in the U.K.
A large, Phase 3 study testing a Covid-19 vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca and the…
STAT Plus: Drug and device makers paid teaching hospitals $832 million in 2018, creating potential for conflicts of interest
Amid ongoing concern that drug and device makers may influence medical practice and research, a…
STAT Plus: Dan Trigub, head of Uber Health, is leaving to launch a health care startup
Dan Trigub, who for the last two years has led Uber Health, is leaving the…
STAT Plus: Pharmalittle: Covid-19 vaccine makers pledge to prioritize safety and efficacy; is Operation Warp Speed working?
Good morning, everyone, and nice to see you again after a long holiday break on…
STAT Plus: Merck chronic cough drug shows mixed results in late-stage clinical trials, raising questions about its future
An experimental pill from Merck reduced the frequency of chronic coughing enough to achieve the…
Amid broad mistrust of FDA and Trump administration, drug companies seek to reassure public about Covid-19 vaccine safety
WASHINGTON — A group of nine leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies pledged on Tuesday to…
Opinion: Health care conferences should embrace patients as collaborators
Health care conferences like the North American Cystic Fibrosis Conference are as much professional events…
Slime, tornadoes, and static electricity: How the host of ‘Emily’s Wonder Lab’ wants to teach kids about science
When Emily Calandrelli started sketching out plans for her new Netflix science show, she knew…
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STAT Plus: ‘An unchartered situation for all of us’: From shipping containers to security concerns, a Covid-19 vaccine supply chain takes shape
For the past few months, Joachim Kuhn has scrambled to rework his factories and rapidly…
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Operation Warp Speed promised to do the impossible. How far has it come?
It’s called Operation Warp Speed. And — regardless of one’s politics, one’s level of concern…
STAT Plus: Plasma giant Grifols to buy Silicon Valley startup targeting blood proteins for age-related diseases
The giant blood plasma processing company Grifols on Monday said it has agreed to buy…
Pharma drew a line in the sand over Covid-19 vaccine readiness — because someone had to
Talk about a rebuke. President Trump may want a Covid-19 vaccine to ship in time…
STAT Plus: Blueprint Medicines wins U.S. approval for genetically targeted lung cancer drug
The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved a new drug from Blueprint Medicines for…
Fauci warns that Labor Day celebrations could drive Covid-19 spikes
Memorial Day and Independence Day celebrations this year spurred big spikes in coronavirus cases —…
STAT Plus: A second U.S. agency will review if Moderna disclosed federal funding in vaccine patents
A second U.S. government agency is now reviewing whether Moderna (MRNA) properly disclosed millions of…
The U.S. must do some heavy lifting to prepare for heritable genome editing
Countries contemplating giving the green light to heritable genome editing received specific guidance from an…
STAT Plus: ‘The race is on’: China’s I-Mab gets boost from AbbVie to develop a new cancer immunotherapy
HONG KONG — In November 2014, a little less than six years ago, Chinese scientist…
STAT Plus: Pharmalittle: Slaoui vows to quit OWS if politics trumps vaccine science; do we have enough freezers?
Good morning. Elizabeth Cooney here, taking the wheel from Ed Silverman today as we ponder…
Opinion: Instead of eliminating drug rebates, use average sales price to set co-insurance levels
Changing key elements of the U.S. health care system can be effective and in the…
Opinion: Go national to solve the country’s looming nursing shortage
Nurses need our support now more than ever as they manage the frontlines in the…
STAT Plus: Oncorus and three other startups got venture funding a year ago. Did it help them do what they said it would?
Most biotech startups are free to tell the world as little or as much as…
‘Carnage’ in a lab dish shows how the coronavirus may damage the heart
Maybe we should think of Covid-19 as a heart disease. When SARS-CoV-2 virus was added…
FDA intrigue, Covid-19 vaccine timelines, and editing elected officials
Should the FDA commissioner resign? How fast can vaccine trials move? And what do Chelsea…
STAT Plus: Biofourmis raises $100 million for remote patient monitoring tools
Biofourmis, a Boston startup that makes technology to remotely monitor patients with chronic conditions and…
Opinion: Covid-19 is accelerating the Medicare trust fund’s dive toward insolvency
The Covid-19 pandemic has claimed another victim: Medicare’s trust fund. The Congressional Budget Office released…
Members named to panel probing WHO’s pandemic response
LONDON — An independent panel appointed by the World Health Organization to review its coordination…
STAT Health Tech: Google’s government contract to use AI in cancer diagnosis & new data on virtual diabetes coaching
A version of this digest first appeared in the weekly STAT Health Tech newsletter. To…
STAT Plus: Amarin loses appeal over heart drug patent, dashing its commercial hopes
Amarin failed to convince a federal appeals court to revive key patents covering its heart…
We’re not ready for more ‘CRISPR babies,’ expert panel warns, but it outlines steps before future attempts
Nearly two years after the birth of the first “CRISPR babies” stunned the world, an…
STAT Plus: Pharmalittle: States asked to speed Covid-19 vaccine distribution sites; NIH panel contradicts FDA on plasma
Good morning, everyone, and how are you today? We are doing just fine, thank you….
Prominent biotech leaders release Covid-19 guidelines calling for FDA independence, data transparency
WASHINGTON — A group of prominent biotech CEOs are calling on their peers and the…
Opinion: Placebo arms aren’t needed for challenge trials of Covid-19 vaccines
To control the Covid-19 pandemic, we need an effective vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that…
STAT Plus: How Trump could use a rare regulatory maneuver to lower drug prices before Election Day, and how it could backfire
WASHINGTON — The final two months before a presidential election don’t typically feature much policymaking,…
Millions of Americans carry the sickle cell trait, many without knowing it. Could they be at risk for severe Covid-19?
Sickle cell disease, which causes Covid-like symptoms — clotting, strokes, and severe oxygen deprivation — …
Sanofi and GSK move Covid-19 vaccine into human trials
Vaccine giants Sanofi and GSK are joining the ranks of Covid-19 vaccine makers testing their…
Experimental drug for ALS, dreamed up in a dorm room, offers patients glimmer of hope
An experimental drug for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, slowed the neurological decline…
Opinion: A landmark for STAT
Today marks a milestone for us at STAT. We published the 2,000th First Opinion, our…
Inexpensive steroids reduce deaths of hospitalized Covid-19 patients, WHO analysis confirms
Use of inexpensive, readily available steroid drugs to treat people hospitalized with Covid-19 reduced the…
STAT Plus: Pharmalittle: U.S. won’t join WHO Covid-19 vaccine program; experts say a vaccine is possible this fall
Top of the morning to you, and a fine one it is. Despite the gray…
STAT Plus: You had questions about precision medicine. Stanford’s Lloyd Minor has answers
Precision medicine is seen by many as the next frontier in health care. Stanford Medicine,…
STAT Plus: What we learned about the business of telemedicine from Amwell and GoodRx’s IPO filings
Last week, two virtual care providers filed paperwork to go public — offering an unprecedented…
Opinion: During the Vietnam War, these physician-scientists were called ‘yellow berets.’ They are what we need to fight Covid-19
As we face off against Covid-19, we urgently need physician-scientists who can quickly translate observations…
Experts see a chance for a Covid-19 vaccine approval this fall — if it’s done right
There is growing concern that the Food and Drug Administration, under political pressure, could approve…