Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
AbbVie Accuses BeiGene Of Trade Secret Theft In Cancer Therapy Suit
Reuters: AbbVie Sues Rival BeiGene Over Alleged Theft Of Cancer Therapy Secrets
Pharmaceutical giant AbbVie has sued cancer treatment maker BeiGene in Chicago federal court, accusing it of stealing trade secrets to develop a competing cancer-fighting therapy after hiring away a former longtime senior AbbVie scientist. (Scarcella, 9/9)
Stat: Merck Exec Plays Down Impact Of New Lung Cancer Drug Data On Keytruda
With strong data released over the weekend, an experimental Chinese drug showed it could one day become an important therapy for lung cancer patients. But that doesn’t necessarily threaten the market dominance of Keytruda, a top Merck executive said — and some analysts agree. (Feuerstein, 9/9)
Stat: Atsena's Gene Therapy For Rare Congenital Blindness Improved Vision
Seven years after the FDA approved Luxterna, scientists have yet to bring another congenital blindness treatment to the market. A team of researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania aims to change this. The group recently published a study in The Lancet documenting their success using gene therapy to treat an inherited retinal blindness that affects as many as 100,000 people globally. (Broderick, 9/10)
The Atlantic: A Food-Allergy Fix Hiding In Plain Sight
Tami McGraw used to be so allergic to red meat that even fumes from cooking might send her into anaphylactic shock. She couldn’t fry sausages for her family. She couldn’t go to cookouts with friends. Once, she passed out driving home with her son after accidentally inhaling fumes while volunteering at the school cafeteria. “That’s the closest I came to dying,” she told me. ... The episode in the school cafeteria rattled McGraw so much that she brought up with her allergist a then-unorthodox therapy called Xolair. (Zhang, 9/9)
In tech news —
NBC News: Apple Will Start Selling AirPods With Built-In Hearing Aids
Apple said Monday that a version of its latest AirPods earbuds will come with built-in hearing aids, which it says would help more than 1 billion people globally. The feature on the AirPods Pro, which Apple describes as equivalent to an over-the-counter hearing aid, is designed for users with mild to moderate hearing loss. After users take hearing tests on iPhones or iPads running iOS 18, their AirPods will make "personalized dynamic adjustments" to allow them to properly hear their immediate listening environments, with sounds boosted to prescribed levels in real time. (Wile and Yang, 9/9)
