Today's Big News Sep 20, 2022 After a nine-month FDA hold, Merck finally has the go-ahead to resume trials of islatravir as long as it pursues a low dose. The company is resuming trials for the drug as an HIV treatment, but it has ditched plans to explore the candidate as a preventive therapy. AstraZeneca is partnering with Jeff Bridges, plus actor Kumail Nanjiani and his wife and Hollywood writer, Emily V. Gordon, to spread the word about its COVID antibody Evusheld. Specifically, the “Up The Antibodies” campaign aims to share information about challenges faced by people living with immunocompromised systems. In a blow to the Biden administration's healthcare antitrust efforts, a judge is allowing UnitedHealth's acquisition of Change Healthcare to proceed. Previously, the Department of Justice said the deal could give UnitedHealth an anticompetitive advantage in the market. - Eric Sagonowsky Featured By James Waldron A path forward for Merck & Co.’s struggling HIV strategy has opened up, with the FDA releasing a nine-month clinical hold on trials of the Big Pharma’s drug islatravir as long as low doses are used. However, the company has also decided to ditch its plans to use the drug as a preventive treatment. Top Stories By Jacqueline Renfrow Actor Kumail Nanjiani and his wife and Hollywood writer, Emily V. Gordon, along with Crystal King, a kidney transplant recipient, and Dorry Segev, M.D., Ph.D., a transplant surgeon, met on stage in September to launch a campaign geared at the awareness of the immunocompromised community during COVID-19. By Andrea Park Nearly a year into its U.S. rollout, the latest version of Insulet’s diabetes management system is heading across the pond. By Nick Paul Taylor Rocket Pharmaceuticals is set to snap up gene therapy startup Renovacor, inking an all-stock merger that will give it control of a preclinical heart disease candidate and add $38 million to its cash reserves. By Andrea Park Abbott’s FreeStyle Libre glucose sensor has already been proven to help people with both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes better manage their blood sugar levels, and a new study demonstrates just how helpful those improvements can be for Type 2 diabetes in particular. By Nick Paul Taylor Alzheon has released one-year data from a phase 2 study of its Alzheimer’s disease candidate ALZ-801, linking the oral beta amyloid blocker to a reduction in a marker of neuronal stress and brain injury. By Andrea Park Pfizer isn’t yet done applying CytoReason’s artificial-intelligence-powered platform and disease models to its own drug discovery and development work. By Nick Paul Taylor Clover Biopharmaceuticals is fighting to establish a toehold in the COVID-19 vaccine space. Having missed a string of regulatory filing targets, the Chinese biotech is pitching its first-generation adjuvanted protein vaccine as a “universal booster”—and touting antibody levels against the omicron BA.5 subvariant to make its case. By Andrea Park The latest study results for the BackBeat cardiac neuromodulation therapy device are music to Orchestra BioMed’s ears. Resources Improve your congress competitive intelligence and cut down costs by 50% Sponsored by: Ferma.AI, a Product of ZoomRx How a new app brings the power of CRM to a leading lab instruments provider’s field service engineers Sponsored by: Cognizant Supporting your product development programme through experience, expertise, and efficiency. Sponsored by: Almac Pharma Services Advanced research requires advanced tools. 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