In a deal worth up to $1.8 billion for oral macrocyclic peptide developer Unnatural Products Inc., Novartis AG has signed a research collaboration and licensing agreement for an undisclosed program.
Med-tech companies with an AI component in their solutions will certainly find investors willing to back them. AI after all, is being used to develop more effective, smarter technologies. However, investors will only deploy capital into innovations that address genuine clinical needs. The aging population is driving interest in devices targeting cardiovascular and musculoskeletal disorders, and other solutions geared toward neurological conditions, women’s health and diagnostics are also attracting investor attention.
China Pharmaceutical University has prepared and tested sphingomyelin phosphodiesterase (SMPD1; aSMase) inhibitors potentially useful for the treatment of cancer, autoimmune disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), Alzheimer’s disease, depression, diabetes, hepatic steatosis and stroke, among others.
More than a decade after it was first proposed, the U.S. Precision Medicine Initiative that grew into the NIH’s All of Us dataset has reached its target of collecting genetic and health-related data from 1 million Americans representative of the diversity across the country.
Vascular cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID) and cerebral small vessel disease are among the leading causes of dementia, where inflammation is known to play a crucial role. Researchers from Augusta University in the U.S. hypothesized that inhibiting the NLRP3 inflammasome with MCC-950 may improve cognitive decline and cerebral blood flow in a murine model of VCID.
Viking Therapeutics Inc. said after-market hours Feb. 11 that it plans to advance its oral dual GLP-1/GIP receptor, VK-2735, into a phase III trial for obesity in the third quarter of 2026. VK-2735 is a novel dual glucagon-like peptide-1 and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GLP-1/GIP) receptor agonist.
At the recent International Stroke Conference, researchers from VST Bio Corp. and Yale University presented preclinical data regarding VB-001, a monoclonal antibody that targets syndecan 2 (SDC2) and is also known as VST-002.
Citing an increase in safety events and evidence of futility, the U.S. NIH stopped an investigational low-dose rivaroxaban arm of its Comparison of Anticoagulation and Antiplatelet Therapies for Intracranial Vascular Atherostenosis (CAPTIVA) trial.
Boston Scientific Corp. recently reported new four-year data on its Farapulse pulsed field ablation platform, which demonstrated that patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation achieved better long-term success than those treated with thermal ablation. The data come as sales of the Farapulse system in the U.S. have begun to slow amid rising competition from other PFA technologies, particularly Medtronic plc’s Affera platform.
The malfunction of lymphatic drainage that occurs in lymphedema leads to excessive cholesterol accumulation in the affected skin and lymphatic vessels, causing inflammation and fibrosis. However, surgery and the chemical reduction of accumulated cholesterol with cyclodextrin reduce inflammation and regenerate lymphatic vessels. Cholesterol is a potential therapeutic target for treating lymphedema, according to this study published on Feb. 11, 2026, in Nature by Veronique Angeli and her colleagues.
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