STAT's Embedded Bias Investigation. Plus, an exclusive on Novartis, Summit Therapeutics vs. Merck, the next obesity target, and more.

We’re back! Did you miss us??

Happy Friday, happy September, and happy return of “Weekly Update!” We’re happy to be back from our summer break. We have some truly incredible stories to share with you, so let’s hop to it…?

A STAT Exclusive on Novartis?

诺华 is opening a new manufacturing facility in California and expanding an existing production site in its bid to dominate the booming radiopharmaceuticals field amid burgeoning competition.

The pharmaceutical giant will spend more than $200 million to construct the new facility in Carlsbad, Calif., and expand its site in Indianapolis, representatives told STAT exclusively. Our colleague Allison DeAngelis tells more.?

STAT’s Embedded Bias investigation?

This week, our colleagues Katie Palmer and Usha Lee McFarling published a new series revealing how race-based clinical algorithms pervade medicine and why it's so difficult to change them.

Part 1 of the series looks at the facts - race-based algorithms are still widely used across medicine , on millions of patients a year. But growing numbers of clinicians, researchers, and health care leaders argue that it is wrong to consider people of different races as biologically different, and to incorporate those outdated notions into clinical tools.?

Watch this video to better understand why clinicians are reconsidering race-based algorithms.

Part 2 examines how race became ubiquitous in medical decision-making tools and why researchers developing these algorithms uncritically accepted faulty ideas about racial differences that date back to America’s slavery era.?

Part 3 goes inside the years-long battle to change a kidney algorithm used to administer care . Nearly all of the nation’s clinical labs have stopped using race in kidney function equations, but it took a long time to get there. Kidney specialists recognize that millions of Black patients may have gone undertreated or even denied transplants because of one test.?

The issue of who deserves credit for removing this test has remained a point of contention in the medical field.?

Finally, Part 4, which was published today, looks at why cardiologists are now using ZIP codes , not race, to predict heart risk. Stay tuned for Parts 5, 6, and 7 publishing next week .?

Summit Therapeutics vs. Merck

Adam Feuerstein looks at an experimental immunotherapy drug that threatens to chip away at the dominance of Keytruda.?

( Summit Therapeutics, Inc. & 默克 )

The next big obesity target

Can amylin drugs best Wegovy and Zepbound? Drugmakers say targeting amylin receptors for future weight loss drugs could result in less nausea and vomiting, side effects that afflict the GLP-1 class.

Humana cutting Medicare Advantage plans

Roughly 10% of people enrolled in Humana ’s private Medicare plans will have to find new coverage for next year as the company trims its offerings in what’s become a turbulent corner of the industry.?

Tara Bannow has more.?

Former CDC directors pen a First Opinion

Eight former directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collectively wrote a First Opinion expressing their deep concern that recent recommendations to pare back funding to the agency would cost lives and damage the economy.

The writers argue that the agency’s “core mission” isn’t infectious disease — it’s the nation’s health.

See-through mice?

In the coolest news of the week, (at least in Ryan’s opinion) scientists discovered that when a dye called tartrazine is mixed with a little water and dabbed on the skin of mice, it makes their skin nearly transparent .?

What’s the importance? It may lead them to better understand the inner workings of large organs or how diseases change the body. That story comes from STAT’s new Sharon Begley Science Reporting Fellow, Anil Oza .?

When to get your vaccines??

Trying to time your vaccines just right? There are no easy answers, but here are some factors to consider:

Experts offer guidance on when to get shots to protect against influenza, Covid-19, and RSV.?