Whether Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK) advances in his quest to become the top health care voice in the Trump administration could come down to one vote – that of Sen. Bill Cassidy. The Louisiana doctor is one of 14 Republican members of the Senate Finance Committee, which is scheduled to vote Feb. 4 on whether to send Kennedy’s nomination as Health and Human Services secretary to the full Senate for confirmation. If all 13 Democrats on the committee vote against it, one no vote from a Republican could stop the process.

Major strides for the company on two fronts – psychedelic therapies and treatment-resistant depression (TRD) – came in the form of Dublin-based GH Research plc’s phase IIb data with GH-001, an inhalable mebufotenin (5-MeO-DMT) activator of serotonin 5-HT2A and 5-HT1A receptors that met not only its primary endpoint but all secondary goals in the TRD experiment. Shares of GH (NASDAQ:GHRS) closed Feb. 3 at $17.99, up $7.39, or 69.7%, on word that the fast-acting, short-duration compound led to a significant reduction from baseline of -15.2 points in Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale total score on the eighth day of treatment compared with +0.3 points in the placebo group (a difference of -15.5 points, p<0.0001).

Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh have tested a broadly neutralizing antibody that binds the stem of a protein against H5N1 avian influenza, which prevented severe disease in nonhuman primates and was effective for at least 8 weeks. The scientists remark on the potential of the design developed by Astrazeneca plc against a possible outbreak of the influenza A virus.