Biotech & Life Sciences

The Sonoran Desert toad is in decline. So Weizmann Institute researchers put its psychedelic chemistry into tobacco instead — and used AlphaFold3 to make it actually work.

The first human received partial epigenetic reprogramming in March 2026. The science is real. The patients have no other options.

The FDA cleared the first human trial of partial epigenetic reprogramming. Life Biosciences, a tiny Boston startup co-founded by David Sinclair, beat $3B-backed Altos Labs to the clinic. A 30-year theory of aging is on the line.

The FDA just approved a cancer drug using efficacy data from human tumor organoids alone — no animal testing. That matters because 95 percent of cancer drugs fail in human trials despite passing animal studies.

The waivers have no sunset clause. They don't automatically end in 2029—there's nothing in the policy that forces them to.

The FDA demanded a placebo-controlled trial to approve updated COVID vaccines for healthy 50-64 year olds. 80% of people who wanted to join failed screening. Now the regulator who wrote that policy is leaving before the data could arrive.

Canada handed $127M to a Vancouver biotech. What the press release did not say: Novo Nordisk transferred its own technology back to that company, leaving Canadian taxpayers to fund the manufacturing infrastructure a global pharma giant decided was too risky to build itself.

In a reversal that hospital groups call a threat to safety-net care, the DOJ sided with pharma in a fight over a federal drug discount program that has long united these parties against each other.

Each company has data showing their pill wins. Novo Nordisk cites ORION. Eli Lilly cites ACHIEVE-3. Neither trial compared the two drugs against each other directly. The head-to-head that would settle it does not exist.

Lipocine is betting that a post hoc subgroup of 54 responders is enough to win FDA approval for its oral PPD drug, even though the full trial failed. Whether regulators agree will decide whether the drug ever reaches patients.

Lilly's orforglipron won FDA approval in 50 days under a controversial voucher deal, launching at $25/month for insured patients. Novo Nordisk says its oral Wegovy has better data. The real answer won't come from clinical trials.