STAT

STAT's Matthew Herper asks Eli Lilly and Company's Daniel Skovronsky about hiring Peter Marks and the revolving door of talent at the FDA.  #STATSummit

At the #STATSummit, former NIH National Human Genome Research Institute director Eric Green talks to STAT’s Anil Oza about the cuts at the NIH. “There’s no reason to think we’ve bottomed out,” he said. “We can’t rebuild until we know what we even have left.” Read more about Green’s ouster from the NIH earlier this year: https://lnkd.in/eUrm3Nmp

Are you a SAMHSA employee who has been RIF-ed? Or are you part of the skeleton crew still left at the agency? I want to talk with you for a story about what's going on. STAT DM me or contact me securely on Signal at rosebroderick.11.

The US is currently a biotech leader, but the inconsistency at the FDA will make it hard to make new medicines, two CEOs said at #STATSummit. “I think this is going to kill drug development,” Replimune CEO Sushil Patel told Adam Feuerstein at the #STATSummit. Earlier this year, STAT reported that a top cancer drug regulator was involved in pushing to deny Replimune’s application for a skin cancer drug, against the wishes of the drugs’ scientific reviewers. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eB-PpqK6

Capricor CEO Linda Marbán talks with Adam Feuerstein about Peter Marks and the new FDA. “The fact, Adam, that you even just had to allude to pissing somebody off in order to potentially impact the approval of your drug is a little scary, right? It should be based on the data.” Read more about Capricor’s drug for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, rejected earlier this year amid tensions within the FDA: https://lnkd.in/dNE2uv2f

The CEO of GSK said the company has had a minimal role in the FDA's effort to approve a long-shelved drug for a condition often associated with autism. https://trib.al/p5sh1Ls

A Lilly experimental weight loss pill showed superior blood sugar control in diabetic patients across two late-stage clinical trials https://trib.al/YRJFkcm

Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Dina Katabi has developed a technology to detect movement biomarkers using wifi signals. At the #STATSummit, reporter Katie Palmer tests out the tech and learns how it’s useful for detecting and tracking disease.

Immunotherapy researcher Miriam Merad from Icahn Mount Sinai says the reason that cancer research has slowed is because of funding issues, which is something taxpayers don’t have to accept. “We fight for patients, we fight for science, and we have to fight for progress.” #STATSummit 

The U.S. pharmaceutical industry is at a “Sputnik moment,” says Alnylam Pharmaceuticals founder John Maraganore.  “We need to think about the cost of our research and development activities and how to do it cheaper. We have to be competitive with what China is doing.”