Coverage
82 stories on the Health beat — every filing on this desk, newest first.
A federal health research agency is committing $62.7 million to develop artificial intelligence systems designed to help manage heart failure, where heart failure means the heart muscle can no longer pump enough blood to meet the body's…
When physician credentials, artificial intelligence in the exam room, and surrogacy generated enough reader mail to warrant a public reply, STAT published the letters. The health and life sciences publ
A late-stage trial for an experimental Angelman syndrome drug came back negative this week, dealing a major blow to patients and to the company behind it. Late-stage, in clinical testing, means the final ro
A closely watched drug for a common heart disease risk factor has failed in its biggest test. Pelacarsen, developed by Novartis, targets Lp(a), a particle made from lipids and proteins whose elevated concentrations in the blood raise the…
A network split is forcing some cancer patients in Boston to choose between their doctor and their insurance coverage. A network, in plain terms, is the list of hospitals and specialists an insurer has agreed to pay for directly. Starting…
Two people who received genetically engineered pig kidneys have now gone on to receive human donor organs, a result that suggests a temporary animal transplant does not block a conventional one later. A xenograft, the medical term for a…
Some medical devices that use artificial intelligence to make care decisions can now reach patients before their makers have received marketing authorization, the formal federal clearance that normally must precede any commercial sale of a…
Vaccination guidance for the coming winter respiratory season is now available for both medical professionals and their patients. The short version: a coalition of professional organizations representing pediatricians, family physicians…
Voluntary drug pricing agreements between the White House and midsize biotechnology companies are unlikely to change what most Americans pay for their prescriptions, at least in the near term, analysts say. The agreements follow a…
An internal review, meaning an investigation the organization runs into its own conduct using a committee it appoints, has cleared the American Diabetes Association of censoring five members ejected from its scientific conference in New…
A class of prescription medications known as GLP-1 drugs is upending how employers pay for their workers' health coverage. STAT's Health Care Inc. newsletter, written by reporter Bob Herman, describes
Buying a patent application, a government filing that claims rights to an invention before the patent is officially issued, may be enough to cross the line into anticompetitive behavior. That question sits at the center of a federal…
Boston-area researchers have found that roughly one in four NFL players in their study sample had CTE at the time of death. CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, is a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated concussions and the…
A treatment for ATTR-CM, a heart condition, failed its clinical trial on Friday, and the fallout reached beyond the company that ran the test. AstraZeneca disclosed that its drug Wainua did not
A new weekly injection for polycythemia vera, a rare chronic blood cancer that causes the body to overproduce red blood cells and thicken the blood, won Food and Drug Administration approval on Friday. The drug is called rusfertide…
A drug designed to interrupt a specific inflammation signal in the body reduced measurable signs of that inflammation in a midstage clinical trial. Biomarkers, the proteins used to track whether inflammation is active inside a patient…
Two unvaccinated people in Pennsylvania died from measles-associated causes, and the federal response began with a phone call. Federal assistance is when the national government steps in with resources or coordination to help a state…
The Food and Drug Administration approved a life-extending treatment for advanced pancreatic cancer on Wednesday, the first drug designed to block a genetic driver of the disease. A genetic dri
Two new trials point to a potential tiebreaker for patients caught in the gray zone on heart disease risk. A coronary artery calcium scan, meaning a low-dose CT image that detects calcified plaque inside the arteries near the heart, can…
A newer shingles vaccine has been linked to reduced rates of heart attacks, strokes, and heart failure in research the study team describes as a natural experiment, meaning it draws on real-world vaccination patterns rather than randomly…
A chief medical officer is the executive who decides how a drug company designs its clinical trials, interprets the data that comes back, and makes the medical case to regulators. Spruce Biosciences has filled that seat, hiring Adrian…
The federal government has taken a formal step toward reconsidering how children's vaccines are recommended in the United States, though no existing recommendations have changed. That step is a request for information
A gene therapy has received clearance for use in American patients, one of at least two approvals the Food and Drug Administration processed in a short stretch this week. Gene therapy, in p
Hospitals and health systems are deploying chatbots powered by large language models to search and summarize patient medical records, a technology shift driven by how bloated those records have become. A large language model is software…
Fearmongering (spreading exaggerated alarm to shift behavior, rather than to inform a decision) is what some federal leaders are doing on childhood vaccines, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics now argues. The AAP is the…
Federal regulators are looking at whether the nation's largest electronic health records company violated competition law. Antitrust law, which bars dominant companies from using their market position to lock out rivals, is the framework…
Multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, now has a new oral treatment approved by U.S. regulators. The Food and Drug Administration cleared Zenbexus, made by Bristol Myers Squibb, as the first drug in a new class called CELMoDs and the first drug…
Georg Schett, the German scientist who spent five years demonstrating that CAR-T therapy, a treatment that engineers a patient's own immune cells to target and eliminate the source of disease, can reset the immune system in autoimmune…
Separating the MMR vaccine into individual shots is likely to produce more missed doses and more sick kids. The MMR is a single injection covering measles, mumps, and rubella. It is now the target of a White House executive order
A manufacturing problem flagged by U.S. regulators has halted a radiopharmaceutical, a cancer therapy that works by delivering radioactive isotopes directly to tumor cells. The drug's maker, ITM Isotope Technologies Munich SE, had already…
People covered by Medicaid, the joint federal-state health insurance program for low-income individuals, face new enrollment rules that take effect in 2027. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 introduced those changes on what the law…
A major federal science agency is moving to restrict one of its most sought-after early-career grants, called a K99/R00 award, which is a two-part fellowship that funds postdoctoral training and then a researcher's first years running an…
Two medicines used to treat Pompe disease, a rare inherited muscle disorder caused by the abnormal buildup of glycogen in the body's cells, are running short across the United States and Europe. Sanofi, which manufactures both drugs, has…
A chief medical officer (the executive who owns a company's clinical strategy and translates scientific findings into decisions the broader organization can act on) has taken a new position. Teresa Nunes, who held that title at Allucent…
A Senate committee voted last week to hold Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress after he invoked the Fifth Amendment, the constitutional protection against self-incrimination, during hearin
A cancer treatment rejected twice by federal regulators has now won approval. The Food and Drug Administration granted accelerated approval to Tudriqev, a drug made by the biotech company Replimune, for patients with advanced melanoma…
Personalized CRISPR therapies, gene-editing treatments built around one patient's specific mutation rather than a disease shared by millions, just lost one of their early backers. Aurora Therapeutics has scrapped its lead program and laid…
Pharmaceutical companies do not owe patients a legal duty to speed up development of a safer drug simply because a less safe version is already on the market. That concept, called a "duty to innovate," was at the center of a case brought…
A federal law requires pharmaceutical manufacturers to sell discounted medicines to specific hospitals and clinics. That discount mechanism, the foundation of the 340B Drug Pricing Program, is now being reshaped. The Trump administration…
A Senate committee vote, meaning a panel decision that sends nominees to the full chamber for final confirmation, moved two of President Trump's public health choices forward on Thursday. Erica Schwartz, nominated to lead the Centers for…
Five researchers were removed from a major diabetes organization's annual scientific conference, a once-a-year gathering where clinicians present new findings and debate the direction of clinical practice, in New Orleans last month. More…
Prescription drug spending is rising, and the pharmaceutical industry's main lobbying organization is running a campaign to change how reporters describe it. Lobbying, at its most basic, means paid outreach
The person who sets a drug company's clinical strategy and oversees how patient trials are designed is called the chief medical officer. Rigel Pharmaceuticals has filled that seat, hiring Alison Hannah as executive vice president and chief…
An FDA advisory panel voted Friday to allow compounding pharmacies to produce epitalon while narrowly recommending against the same permission for emideltide. Compounding pharmacies, for those unfamiliar with the term, are facilities…
The FDA is currently investigating six separate cyclospora outbreaks, and only one has so far been linked to a specific food: shredded iceberg lettuce. Cyclospora is a pathogen that causes cyclosporiasis, an intestinal illness that reached…
The question of who can legally obtain testosterone, a hormone medication prescribed for a range of medical conditions, surfaced this week in STAT's Morning Rounds, a free daily newsletter covering health and medicine. The newsletter…
A lawsuit filed by a former health-system employee claims she lost her job after raising concerns about how artificial intelligence was being used in patient care. The legal term for that kind of case is a whistleblower
The price of selling a branded medicine in Germany may soon rise sharply for drug companies. German lawmakers passed a bill that would increase the mandatory rebate, the fixed discount manufacturers must return to the country's public…
The Food and Drug Administration, the federal agency that approves new prescription drugs, medical devices, and food safety standards before they reach consumers, is close to getting a new leader. The White House has received a short list…
A federal compensation process for Covid-19 vaccine injuries is about to get easier to access. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is set to begin compiling a formal list of conditions the government would presume were caused by Covid…
Vertex Pharmaceuticals announced Monday it will acquire Crinetics Pharmaceuticals for $10 billion, or roughly $85 per share, adding a commercial rare-disease therapy and additional pipeline candidates to its portfolio. The deal centers on…
At VidCon — the largest annual social video creator conference, held this year in Anaheim, California — a striking share of programming was devoted to the mental health of content creators themselves, not the audiences scrolling past their…
A federal judge has blocked the Colorado Prescription Drug Affordability Board from enforcing a first-in-the-nation upper payment limit on a blockbuster drug sold by Amgen, ruling that the
A federal judge has temporarily blocked Colorado from capping the price of Amgen's Enbrel, dealing a setback to state-level drug affordability efforts. Separately, a new Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services program will make obesity…
A Roche drug has established a new treatment standard for KRAS-driven lung cancer, STAT+ reported, marking a significant moment in an oncology target that has long resisted effective therapy. The news lands as the broader biotech sector's…
The pharmaceutical industry is losing one of Capitol Hill's more informed Democratic voices. Democratic lawmaker DeGette has lost her seat, and STAT News's D.C. Diagnosis newsletter — which covers the politics and policy of health and…
Protillion Biosciences has hired Robert Hollingsworth as its chief scientific officer, according to the STAT+ executive-tracking column "Up and Down the Ladder." Hollingsworth previously held the same title at Shoreline Therapeutics and…
Elevance Health has sued the U.S. government, alleging that federal regulators recalculated its Medicare Advantage quality ratings in a manner inconsistent with a recent court ruling — a me
A bipartisan group of Congressional lawmakers has written to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., pressing the Trump administration to compel Eli Lilly to restore federally mandated price breaks to hospitals enrolled…
Medicare has proposed paying hospitals average sales price minus 33.4% for drugs acquired through the 340B discount program, a sharp retreat from the current reimbursement rate of average sales price plus 6%. The proposal, released…
Anthropic has released Claude Science, a version of its large language model configured specifically for scientific laboratories and pharmaceutical research operations, becoming the first large artif
Anthropic, the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company behind the Claude family of models, announced Tuesday that it will enter drug development — a significant step that tests whether AI systems can do genuine scientific work…
Anthropic has released Claude Science, an application that optimizes the company's artificial intelligence model for use in scientific laboratories, with pharmaceutical research operations as its primary commercial target. The San…
Vijay Kumar, the acting director of the Food and Drug Administration's Office of Therapeutic Products — the unit that reviews cell and gene therapies for safety and approval — is leaving his post, according to an internal email obtained by…
AstraZeneca agreed to pay $34 million to settle allegations brought by the Texas attorney general that the pharmaceutical company paid kickbacks to improperly influence prescriptions covered by Texas Medicaid. The settlement resolves…
An Australian musician who broke her back while on tour in the United States spent nearly two weeks in an American hospital, then published an account of the experience. Her dispatch was described as surprisingly heartwarming — the medical…
Edison Scientific, an artificial-intelligence drug-discovery company spun out of the nonprofit FutureHouse in late 2025 with $70 million in venture funding, has been engaged by the team behind Metsera to create new biotechnology companies…
The Trump administration is moving to restart the specialized LGBTQ+ option within the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, the federal crisis intervention hotline, but The Trevor Project — the nonprofit that helped pioneer the service for…
BIO 2026, one of the largest annual gatherings of biotechnology companies and investors, brought delegations from dozens of countries to San Diego and delivered something the industry had not felt at several comparable events in the prior…
Delphia Therapeutics has appointed David Kerstein as its chief medical officer. Kerstein arrives with direct experience in the role, having previously served as CMO at both IDRx and Theseus Pharmaceuticals — a track record that matters in…
The Food and Drug Administration and Eli Lilly have permitted a single individual to receive retatrutide — Lilly's highly anticipated obesity drug candidate — through the FDA's compassionate use program, according to a scoop by STAT News…
The annual international BIO conference in San Diego brought biotech and startup executives face-to-face with two forces reshaping the global drug industry: China's deepening capabilities in drug development and the early competitive…
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has published a revised governing charter for its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the expert panel that shapes how vaccines are recommended for use across the United States. The…
Vaccine manufacturers at the BIO international conference in San Diego this week acknowledged a series of once-unthinkable policy shifts under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — including the cancellation of major mRNA vaccine…
A clinical trial set to begin next week in the Democratic Republic of the Congo will test Gilead Sciences' antiviral drug remdesivir and MappBio's monoclonal antibody MBP-134 against the Bundibugyo ebolavirus, the World Health Organization…
A federal judge in Manhattan has temporarily blocked federal prosecutors based in Texas from obtaining the medical records of transgender patients treated at New York hospitals, ruling the
A federal judge ruled Monday that the U.S. government does not have the authority to prevent recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — the nation's largest food aid program — from using their benefits to buy candy…
The scramble to compete in the GLP-1 weight loss drug market is intensifying. Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Amgen are developing products to take on Novo Nordisk's Wegovy and Eli Lilly's Zepbound
A class of super-potent synthetic opioids called nitazenes is spreading across the United States, adding a new and potentially more lethal layer to a drug crisis that has already devastated families
Eli Lilly has begun eliminating mandated price breaks for a few dozen hospitals enrolled in the federal 340B drug discount program, making good on a threat it issued earlier this month after those facilities failed to provide comprehensive…
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has recalculated the quality star ratings for 2026 Medicare Advantage plans, a new government memo shows, after the health insurance industry filed yet another legal challenge targeting its…
A UCLA-co-led international study presented May 31 at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago reported that pancreatic cancer patients treated with daraxonrasib survived an average of 13.2 months — nearly double…