The current treatment strategies for neurodegenerative diseases focus on targeting Aβ in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), α-synuclein aggregates in Parkinson’s disease (PD) and anti-tau therapies, which are primarily used in AD but are also being explored for PD. At the 2025 International Conference of Alzheimer’s & Parkinson’s Disease and Related Neurological Disorders, Aditya Iyer, senior RD scientist from Amyl Therapeutics Srl, presented data on an option which could potentially serve as a pan-amyloid therapeutic.
Compared to other forms of prevention, a unique issue for pandemic preparedness is that it is forever unclear what pathogen, exactly, the world needs to be prepared for. There are an estimated 300,000 viruses that infect mammals; add in birds, and the estimate grows to more than half a million. Some of those viruses are much greater threats than others.
Neurodegenerative pathologies, once primarily associated with protein alterations, should be revisited in the context of lipidopathies, researchers argued at the 2025 International Conference of Alzheimer’s & Parkinson’s Disease and Related Neurological Disorders (AD/PD 2025).
“Men in general have been playing golf for a longer time – in those old boy networks we still haven’t tapped into.” It may seem far-fetched, but that is put forward as a reason for underinvestment in women’s health companies. The argument goes that women heading women’s health startups find it hard to raise money because their networks are weaker, making it harder to tap into investment networks.
“The nation’s scientific enterprise is being decimated.” That statement in an open letter “to the American people” signed by 1,800 members of the U.S. National Academies, is made concrete in a list of 709 NIH grants – and counting – that have been axed since President Donald Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20. A grant tracker, based on information published by the Department of Health and Human Sciences, and self-reported terminations from scientists, includes 88 vaccine-related projects, 45 cancer research grants and 231 awards made for HIV research.
At the recently launched Alzheimer’s & Parkinson’s Diseases Conference held in Vienna, Lotte Bjerre Knudsen from Novo Nordisk A/S, who has extensive experience in glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) research, delivered a plenary lecture focused on the role of GLP-1 receptor agonists, such as semaglutide, in attenuating neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration.
Transplanting an animal organ into a human is now a closer reality following the successful xenotransplantation of a genetically modified pig liver into a patient diagnosed with brain death in China. The operation was intended to evaluate organ function over a 10-day period. This is a complex experimental trial that did not involve removing the patient's liver and still requires further study. However, the positive preclinical results suggest this strategy could save the lives of those waiting for a human organ, at least in certain cases.
The obesity market is driving pharma’s return on investment (ROI) upward, with the projected return rising to 5.9% overall in 2024, but only reaching 3.8% if GLP-1 assets are excluded. At the same time, the average cost of developing a drug continues to rise and now stands at $2.23 billion, compared to $2.12 billion in 2023, according to Deloitte’s 15th annual analysis of the ROI from pharmaceutical innovation.
Eight months after announcing the $18.5 million first tranche of its series A, Augustine Therapeutics has closed the oversubscribed round at $85 million and is now ready to begin clinical development of its novel histone deacetylase-6 (HDAC6) inhibitors.
Science ministers from 13 countries in Europe are calling on the European Union to offer a home to researchers affected by the Trump Administration’s cuts. They have written to EU research and innovation commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva asking her to organize a welcome “for brilliant talents from abroad who might suffer from research interference and ill-motivated and brutal funding cuts.”
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