🫀 Health Futures #30

Happy Monday 👋

Major themes this week included developments surrounding targeted chronic disease management, AI, and genomics.  Doctors raised concerns over the increment of weight-loss drug misuse. Eli Lilly experimental drug trizepatiude enhanced the use of GLP-1 beyond treating diabetes and obesity, including that North Carolina health experts proposed HHS negotiate in order to produce lower-cost alternatives. AI is rapidly integrating into healthcare, Simplify Healthcare partners with Innova Solutions intended to provide AI health payer solutions, while J&J secured FDA approval for surgical robotics systems that are active in spinal procedures. The pharmaceutical industry faces setbacks with terminated partnerships, BMS handed its rights to a TIGIT drug team up with Agenus ending its $1.56B partnership. Abbvie acquired Cerevel Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical firm, in a $8.7B deal.

🎯Targeted Chronic Disease Management

⚠️ Doctors warned about the risks of unprescribed weight-loss pills. Doctors raised concerns over the increasing use of weight-loss drugs like semaglutide by people without proper medical supervision or prescription, highlighting the potential side effects.

🫀 Eli Lilly reported experimental drug tirzepatide reduced the risk of worsening heart disease. The experimental drug tirzepatide reduced the risk of heart failure in obese patients in a phase 3 clinical trial. This expands the potential use of GLP-1 agnoists beyond diabetes and obesity to inculde cardiovascular diseases.

💊 North Carolina seeked lower-cost obesity drug alternatives. North Carolina officials are urging the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate licenses with obesity drug manufacturers in order to make lower-cost alternatives available. This is in the context of a abtuptly canceling Roche trial and low venture capital funding for biotech companies.

🤖 AI in Health

🔬Indica Labs launched AI-powered macrodissection tool. Indica Labs, a provider of AI-powered digital pathology solutions, launched Lung Macrodissect AI, a tool that aimed to better slide macrodissection and molecular pathology workflows.

🤝Simplify Healthcare partners with Innova Solutions for AI-driven health payer solutions. Simplify Healthcare, a provider of SaaS solutions for health insurance companies, announced a partnership with Innova Solutions, signaling the interest of insurance providers to incoporate AI into their practices.

🤖Johnson & Johnson secured FDA approval for surgical robotics system. Johnson & Johnson's MedTech division DePuy Synthes received FDA clearance for their surgical robotics system VELYS active, which is used in spinal procedures.

🧬 Genomics

💉 SK pharmteco partners with Rznomics for RNA Gene Therapy Development. SK Pharmteco, a pharmaceutical company, entered into an MOU agreement with Rznomics, a South Korean biotech firm, to collaborate on the development and production of RNA-based gene therapies.

💔 BMS ended a $1.56B TIGIT cancer therapy deal with Agenus. Bristol Myers Squibb ended its $1.56B alliance with Agenus to develop TIGIT immuno-oncology cancer therapies, handing back rights to an Agenus drug candidate that was licensed in 2021.

🧬 Sangamo partners with Genentech to develop genomic medicines for neurodegenerative diseases. Sangamo Therapeutics and Genentech entered into a license agreement to develop novel genomic medicines using epigenetic regulation and capsid delivery technologies for neurodegenerative diseases.

💰 Deals of the Week

💊 AbbVie, a major pharmaceutical company, acquired Cerevel Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical firm, in a $8.7B deal. Through this acquisition Abbvie will strengthen its neuroscience portfolio by adding combined assets through Cerevel’s pipeline.

💉 Symbiotic Capital, a CA-based life science credit firm, secured with more than $600M in capital committed. The company intends to use funds will structure and originate credit solutions to established life science companies to support scientific innovation.

🪙 CooperSurgical acquired obp Surgical, a US-based medical-based medical device company, in a deal valued at $100M. This acquisition will further expand CooperSurgical’s portfolio with single-use surgical devices.

👑 Red Queen Therapeutics, a Cambridge, MA-based clinical-stage biotechnology company, raised $55M in Series A funding. The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts.

🗺️ Guidehealth, an AI-enabled value-based care provider for health systems, announced it closed a $14M seed funding round. Gudehealth intends to use the funds to enhance its datasets and services.

Thank you for reading. Have a great week ahead!
Have some feedback or suggestions? Let us know at hello@holoniq.com