The industry’s retreat from the UK reflects a deeper shift about how Beijing is rewriting the rules of innovation When Merck abruptly scrapped its billion-pound London research hub last week, critics blamed Britain’s lacklustre support for life sciences and a Scrooge-like grip on NHS drug prices. But one important factor may have been missed. That Merck, which is also cutting jobs elsewhere – 6,000 globally – is recalibrating not just in response to the UK or the US, but to China. Merck’s cash cow is pembrolizumab (brand name Keytruda), an…
Tag: Medical research
Brainless bodies and pig organs: does science back up Putin and Xi’s longevity claims?
Perhaps it was the extravagant display of deadly weaponry that prompted Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin to mull on mortality at this week’s military parade in Beijing. It was more banter than serious discussion, but with both aged 72, the Chinese president and his Russian counterpart may feel the cold hand on the shoulder more than Kim Jong-un, the 41-year-old North Korean leader who strolled beside them. Speaking through a interpreter, Xi told Putin that 70 is considered young today, prompting Putin to claim that human organs can now be…
Healthy living, science and an army of doctors: Putin’s pursuit of longevity
It was the stuff of Bond villains. Two ageing autocrats, their younger ally in tow, ambled down a red-carpeted ramp before a military parade in Beijing when a hot mic picked up a question that seemed to be on their minds: how long could they keep going – and, between the lines, might science allow them to rule for ever? With advances in technology, Russia’s Vladimir Putin assured Xi Jinping via his translator that “human organs can be constantly transplanted, to the extent that people can get younger, perhaps even…
Swarms of tiny nose robots could clear infected sinuses, researchers say
Swarms of tiny robots, each no larger than a speck of dust, could be deployed to cure stubborn infected sinuses before being blown out through the nose into a tissue, researchers have claimed. The micro-robots are a fraction of the width of a human hair and have been inserted successfully into animal sinuses in pre-clinical trials by researchers at universities in China and Hong Kong. Swarms are injected into the sinus cavity via a duct threaded through the nostril and guided to their target by electromagnetism, where they can be…
New daily weight-loss pill shows success at clinical trial
A significant trial of a daily weight-loss pill has found that it helped people to shed the pounds and reduce their blood sugar levels, making it a contender to join the new wave of drugs that combat obesity and diabetes. People who took a 36mg pill of orforglipron lost an average of 7.3kg (16lbs) over nine months, according to results from a phase 3 clinical trial reported by the drug’s manufacturer, Eli Lilly, on Thursday. The trial, which enrolled 559 obese people with type 2 diabetes from the US, China,…
AstraZeneca buys Chinese cancer therapy firm Gracell for $1.2bn
AstraZeneca has struck a deal to buy a Chinese cancer therapy company for up to $1.2bn (£950m), as Britain’s biggest drugmaker expands its footprint in its second-largest market. The Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical firm announced on Tuesday it would acquire Gracell Biotechnologies, which is focused on a type of cancer therapy known as CAR-T that modifies a patient’s cells to fight the disease. The deal marks a further investment in cancer research and treatment, which accounts for about one-third of AstraZeneca’s business, as well as its continued push to expand in China.…
China fuels global surge in mpox cases as LGBTQ+ stigma hampers response
China is fuelling a global surge in mpox cases, accounting for the majority of new cases reported in September, according to the World Health Organization. The number of weekly cases reported globally increased by 328% in the week to 10 September, data shows. Most of that rise came from China, where more than 500 new cases were reported in August. The WHO said China was experiencing “sustained community transmission” of the virus, which was first detected as an imported case in September last year. Mpox was previously known as Monkeypox…
Air pollution spikes linked to irregular heartbeats, study finds
Spikes in air pollution increase the risk of cardiac arrhythmias, a large study has found. The research, based on nearly 200,000 hospital admissions in China, found a significant increase in risk of arrhythmias in the first few hours after an increase in air pollution levels. Heart arrhythmias can increase the risk of heart disease and sudden cardiac death. “We found that acute exposure to ambient air pollution was associated with increased risk of symptomatic arrhythmia,” said Dr Renjie Chen of Fudan University in Shanghai. “The risks occurred during the first…
Newly released Chinese Covid data points to infected animals in Wuhan
Newly released data from early in the Covid-19 pandemic has offered a crucial insight into the outbreak’s origins, suggesting that Covid-infected animals were present at a market in Wuhan and could have been a “potential source of human infections”. A pre-print report on Monday by a team of international researchers fleshed out analysis of previously unseen genomic samples collected by Chinese scientists at the Huanan market in Wuhan in the early days of the pandemic. Initially leaked last week after a meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO) committee studying…
How seriously should we take the US DoE’s Covid lab leak theory?
What has the US energy department said about the origin of the Covid outbreak? According to the Wall Street Journal, an updated and classified 2021 US energy department report has concluded that the coronavirus behind the recent pandemic most likely emerged from a laboratory leak but not as part of a weapons programme. Does this report mean it is more likely Covid came from a lab? Not necessarily. The report’s conclusion runs counter to that from several scientific studies as well as reports by a number of other US intelligence…