Medicine
fromFast Company
1 day agoThe AI drug revolution is real but the hype around it isn't
AI may revolutionize drug discovery, but it cannot simplify the complexities of human biology or guarantee successful treatments.
Incyte tops this list due to its rare combination of commercial scale, cash generation, and pipeline depth. The company posted FY2025 revenue of $5.14 billion, up 21.2% YoY, anchored by Jakafi generating $828.2 million in Q4 2025 alone (+7% YoY) and Opzelura delivering $207.3 million (+28% YoY). With $3.58 billion in cash and 14 pivotal clinical trials underway, Incyte offers an acquirer immediate revenue, margin expansion potential, and a deep oncology pipeline spanning KRASG12D, CDK2 inhibition, and mutCALR.
On that sunny March morning, in a small health center in Lobamba, a rural area of Eswatini, this 32-year-old sex worker has just become one of the first people in the world to receive lenacapavir, a drug that, administered twice a year, offers nearly 100% protection against HIV.
Kelly Chibale describes the drug discovery process as a fairy-tale quest, stating, 'It doesn't mean that there aren't surprises or miracles. They do happen, but you have to kiss many frogs before you meet the prince.' This metaphor illustrates the challenges and unpredictability in finding effective medicines.
RBC Capital analyst Luca Issi upgraded the stock to Outperform from Sector Perform with a price target of $35, up from $11. Wells Fargo also upgraded uniQure to Overweight from Equal Weight with a $60 price target. The catalyst: the departure of Vinay Prasad from the FDA. RBC views this as a positive for uniQure, noting it is "not inconceivable" that the FDA reverts to its prior stance, and believes Prasad's departure is likely to open up a more balanced discussion on risk/reward for Huntington's disease.
A report last year found unnecessary surgeries were carried out, cancers were missed and poor standards of care were delivered at the University Hospital of North Durham and Darlington Memorial Hospital. CDDTF said it wanted to support the patients it had let down, including by offering access to psychological support, and to ensure they knew how to make a claim or raise concerns with police.
According to the patent, a specific crystalline form of the drug known as polymorph C may be more effective than other versions because it is absorbed more efficiently by the body. The patent also notes that laboratory studies showed the drug reduced tumor growth and helped mice with brain tumors live longer, prompting early clinical trials to test whether the treatment is safe and effective in humans.
X4 Pharmaceuticals drew a fresh initiation from Guggenheim, which assigned a Buy rating and $12 price target, framing the company as a "differentiated hematology play" with significant upside in the next 18 months. The firm's thesis centers on mavorixafor, a potential first-in-class oral CXCR4 antagonist already approved for WHIM syndrome and currently in Phase 3 development for primary chronic neutropenia.
Martschenko's argument is largely that genetic research and data have almost always been used thus far as a justification to further entrench extant social inequalities. But we know the solutions to many of the injustices in our world-trying to lift people out of poverty, for example-and we certainly don't need more genetic research to implement them. Trejo's point is largely that more information is generally better than less.
Before treatment began, participants underwent neuroimaging. Instead of relying on a single modality, the researchers fused structural connectivity (how regions are physically wired) with functional connectivity (how regions co-activate at rest). The goal was not to throw every possible feature at a black box, but to learn a constrained pattern-what the authors call structure-function "covariation"-that carries the most predictive signal for outcome. In other words, the model tries to find the smallest set of connections that meaningfully forecasts symptom change.
Public health consultant Dr Ross Keat said supporting people earlier to make small preventative changes would make "a big difference later on". Some 3,500 people in the north of the island within that age bracket are eligible for the checks. The checks will be carried out by two pre-existing nurses that support GP staff and would not replace GP appointments, Keat explained, adding that the cost would be minimal and absorbed by Ramsey Group Practice.
When generic drug manufacturers have issues like contamination, it is difficult for those who take the medications to know if they are affected. There is no standardized way to look up the data for where the pills in your bottle came from. ProPublica made an app that makes the lookup more straightforward. Even though generic drugs make up 90% of prescriptions dispensed in the U.S., the FDA only provides piecemeal information about them.
Now, researchers have created an artificial-intelligence system that vastly simplifies and accelerates the process of chemical synthesis. The system, which is called MOSAIC and is described in a study published in Nature on 19 January, recommended conditions that researchers were able to use to generate 35 compounds with the potential to become products like pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals or cosmetics without needing to do any further trawling or tweaking.
Laboratories turned to a smart workaround when COVID‑19 testing kits became scarce in 2020. They mixed samples from several patients and ran a single test. If the test came back negative, everyone in it was cleared at once. If it was positive, follow-up tests would zero in on who was infected. That strategy, known as group testing, saved valuable time, money, and resources.
We provide thought partnership. When a company is developing a drug, there's a lot of work involved, such as understanding the science, designing a study and generating good data. We come in and explain what the standard of care looks like today for their patient population, and what we think it will look like in five to eight years or whenever they plan to launch their therapy.
EMPAVELI is the first and only approved treatment for C3G and IC-MPGN across pediatric patients 12+, adults, and post-transplant recurrence. That's roughly 5,000 patients in the U.S., with EMPAVELI holding exclusive approval for about two-thirds. Add the European CHMP positive opinion in December 2025, and you have a rare disease franchise with global expansion potential and pricing power that typically commands gross margins north of 90%.
The Food and Drug Administration commissioner's effort to drastically shorten the review of drugs favored by President Donald Trump's administration is causing alarm across the agency, stoking worries that the plan may run afoul of legal, ethical, and scientific standards long used to vet the safety and effectiveness of new medicines. Marty Makary's program is causing new anxiety and confusion among staff already rocked by layoffs, buyouts, and leadership upheavals, according to seven current or recently departed staffers.
Mucopolysaccharidosis type II (MPS II), or Hunter syndrome, is a rare genetic disorder primarily affecting boys, caused by a deficiency in the enzyme needed to break down sugar molecules. This harmful buildup in cells and tissues impacts multiple body systems, causing frequent infections, organ enlargement and developmental disabilities. Management involves supportive care and enzyme replacement therapy, as there is currently no cure,
But these studies typically require large numbers of patients, huge amounts of data, and thorough follow-ups, none of which comes easy or free. The upshot is fewer investigations into scenarios that are clinically important but unlikely to yield a profit for the firms funding them. Accordingly, researchers have been developing an option that uses real-world data from insurers to save patients from falling through the cracks.
Eduardo Vilar-Sanchez has spent more than 10 years pursuing a goal that seemed very distant, but which he now sees as a little closer: to develop a preventive vaccine against cancer. The physician and researcher is leading a study that presented the first promising results of a colon cancer vaccine in a small group of patients suffering from a rare disease that makes them 17 times more likely to develop colon cancer than the general population.
For families living with neurodegenerative disease, the hardest part is not always the diagnosis. It is the slow erosion that follows: memory fading, personality shifting, independence shrinking. It unfolds quietly. First, forgotten appointments. Then repeated questions. Then moments when a familiar face no longer feels familiar. The illness does not isolate itself to one body. It rearranges the lives around it.