An obesity drug from Boehringer Ingelheim and Zealand Pharma helped patients with diabetes shed as much as 13.1% of their weight, a disappointing result, Bloomberg News tells us. Boehringer has pitched the medicine as a way to help patients lose fat while preserving muscle, but without an edge, the drug becomes just one more contender in an increasingly crowded market dominated by Eli Lilly and Novo. Boehringer pushed back at the idea that the drug might only be a niche product, saying that upcoming studies in heart and liver health will more clearly show its potential.
Major Senate committees face changes
The upcoming midterm elections are setting the stage for unusually significant changes to key Senate committees that play an important role in health care, STAT explains. Both the finance and health committees could undergo major changes, though for different reasons. Of course, if Democrats take control of the Senate, they would get to run the committees, though the GOP membership changes could still influence the panels’ directions. Specifically, five or more of the Senate Finance Committee’s 14 Republicans are set to leave. And the outlook for the Senate’s Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, or HELP, is even more difficult to predict with the departure of chairman Bill Cassidy.
Novartis expands its RNA portfolio
Novartis signed a licensing deal worth about $7.8 billion with Chinese biotech company Abogen to advance RNA-based therapy, Reuters says. Novartis will gain exclusive rights to Abogen’s experimental drug, ABO2203, and options to license other therapies based on Abogen’s RNA technology. It will also have the option to license additional experimental medicines developed using Abogen’s RNA platform. The drug is designed to treat autoimmune diseases by targeting B cells, a type of immune cell that causes disease in conditions like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
