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Good morning, let’s get straight into the news today — including one story I’ve been spending some time on.
The need-to-know this morning
- SpringWorks Therapeutics hasn’t been acquired — yet. The drugmaker reported fourth-quarter earnings but canceled a previously scheduled conference call. No reason for the cancellation was offered, but it suggests that an acquisition by the German pharma company Merck KGaA is still under consideration.
- BridgeBio reported that 1,028 prescriptions have been written for its newly approved heart drug Attruby, exceeding investors’ expectations. The biotech’s stock rose 6% in pre-market trading.
The race for more weight loss is reaching risky territory
I recently spoke with participants in ongoing trials of Eli Lilly’s next-gen obesity treatment retatrutide. They all said the drug has been life-changing, but they also think they’ve lost too much weight too quickly. One woman had to have her dose reduced and still decided on her own to skip every other dose. Another participant experienced a kidney stone, and a third patient has been making himself eat caloric foods like peanut butter to avoid losing more weight.
This is all part of what I call the pharma industry’s “race to the bottom” — an intense competition to develop treatments that can deliver greater and greater top-line weight loss. And the market is incentivizing this race.
In one of the most dramatic examples: Novo in December reported that its next-gen treatment CagriSema led to 20% weight loss in a large trial. While investors would have cheered that results three years ago, these days, they see it as disappointing. Novo’s stock plunged 20% in one day.
Seeing all this play out led me to write a story that’s out today. It’s about this hyper-focus on weight loss, partially initiated by the drug industry and then amplified by investors, and how this focus may not be in patients’ best interests.
Experts noted that rapid and extreme weight loss can introduce unique risks, such as a weakened immune system and malnourishment, as well as potentially too much muscle loss. They’re also concerned that if patients suddenly have to go off treatment and regain weight, the dramatic weight fluctuation could be harmful.
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“How much is too much weight loss is unknown, and we really need additional data and need studies to look at that,” one doctor told me. “We need to be mindful of how much to push. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.”
Medical device industry pushes back on Trump cuts
We previously reported that the Trump administration’s cuts to FDA staff last week hit the agency’s medical device center particularly hard. AdvaMed, the medical device lobby, has now pushed back.
AdvaMed CEO Scott Whitaker sent a letter this week to administrators at HHS, urging them to consider the potential ramifications on patient health and medical device innovation. In a call with reporters, Whitaker noted many of the roles that were cut were funded, at least in part, by fees paid by device makers to help speed the review of their products. Device companies have already noticed delays, he said.
Outside sources had told STAT that approximately 200 device center employees were cut, representing 10% of the center’s 2,000 employees.
Read more from STAT’s Lizzy Lawrence.
NIH turmoil prompts universities to cut acceptances
Universities are exercising caution with their graduate and postdoc programs amid uncertainty over NIH funding. Some are freezing positions and not taking new applications, or accepting fewer students than normal, leaving many future researchers at the start of their scientific journey in limbo.
At the University of Southern California, for example, faculty in some departments were told last week to pause admissions, and not formalize offers to students — even those who had visited and been given verbal acceptances.
Read more from my colleagues who are doggedly tracking the effects of Trump’s policies on scientific research.
Dr. Oz to sell stakes in insurance, pharma companies
New disclosures from Mehmet Oz, President Trump’s pick to oversee the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, show that he owns stock in the country’s biggest private health insurer, UnitedHealth Group, the biggest hospital chain, HCA Healthcare, as well as drugmakers Eli Lilly and AbbVie.
He has pledged to sell off his holdings in these companies, which do business with the agencies he’ll oversee, if confirmed.
UnitedHealth insures more people under Medicare Advantage plans than any other insurer, and Oz has repeatedly used his public platform to tout those plans.
Read more from STAT’s Tara Bannow.