The U.K. Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency reported the winners of the second phase of the AI Airlock challenge, which includes the Tortus AI, a medical scribe system developed by physicians in the U.K. National Health Service.

The U.S. FDA approved 17 drugs in September 2025, following 18 approvals in August and 17 in July. That brings the year-to-date total to 160 approvals for the first three quarters, making it the second-highest total on record for this period, behind 183 approvals logged during the same timeframe in 2024.

The U.S. FDA named the first nine recipients of the recently unveiled commissioner’s national priority voucher (CNPV) program aimed at addressing unmet public health needs by shortening regulatory review times to as little as one to two months. For one of those firms, Disc Medicine Inc., which submitted an NDA for bitopertin for rare genetic disorder erythropoietic protoporphyria in September, that could mean a potential approval before the end of 2025.

Sweeping “radical” changes in both the U.S. FDA and China’s drug development landscape are keeping the global life science industry on its toes in assessing what’s temporary and what’s not, speakers said at the Bioplus Interphex (BIX) Korea 2025 conference in Seoul, South Korea, on Oct. 15.

Tr1x Inc. has obtained IND clearance from the FDA for TRX-319, paving the way for initiation of a phase I/IIa study in progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) early next year. TRX-319 is designed to combine targeted B-cell control with active anti-inflammatory signaling and T-cell regulation, with the goal of restoring immune balance.

Corventum Inc. has gained IND clearance from the FDA for CVT-130 for the prevention of anthracycline-related cardiotoxicity. In cancer patients, the use of anthracyclines as chemotherapy is effective but limited by cumulative heart damage. Protecting against this chemotherapy-induced cardiac injury could enable retreatment for patients with recurrent cancer.

Digital mental health tools are popping up with some regularity lately, but both Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration and the U.S. FDA have enough concerns about these products that they are taking a closer look at their risks and benefits.

Revir Therapeutics Inc.’s RTX-117 has been awarded orphan drug designation by the FDA for Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. RTX-117 is a small-molecule therapy designed to activate eIF2B to restore translation of cap-dependent mRNAs to normalize protein expression.