Young life scientists head for the money, reproductive health, Covid, biotech, and much more!
It’s been two days — did you miss us? Ryan Fitzgerald and Alexander Bois-Spinelli here, back again this week (which has felt like a month) with our regularly scheduled “Weekly Update” for you! We have much to tell you so let’s hop to it…?
Young life scientists head for the money?
There’s a tectonic shift happening in academia, and the data are loud and clear: young life science researchers are leaving academia at unprecedented levels for lucrative jobs in the private sector. Jonathan Wosen, PhD spoke with Ph.D. students, postdoctoral researchers, graduate program directors, labor economists, and hiring managers in the biopharma industry about the major shift.?
Reproductive health?
If you want to understand the fickleness of pregnancy and the American laws that regulate it, one place to start would be a gas station in Iowa City. Eric Boodman tells the story of one 31-year-old woman’s pregnancy and how abortion bans make gestational age even less precise.
Tuesday marked the first major test of public sentiment after the Dobbs decision – and voters in a handful of key states chose to defend abortion rights. Sarah Owermohle reports that Kentucky shot down a proposal that would have explicitly denied abortion as a right in its constitution and details the measures approved in Michigan, California, and Vermont.?
What’s new with Covid?
The third Covid winter is coming, and the country is without tools that were relied upon at previous points in the pandemic. Andrew Joseph and Jason Mast tell us that free at-home tests are no longer at people’s doorsteps, states report outbreak data less frequently, testing programs have been curtailed, and new variants are undercutting the power of the remaining antibody therapies.
Meanwhile, Jason also reports that a new drug for patients hospitalized with #Covid is not getting a recommendation from an #FDA advisory panel. Read the debate around sabizabulin.
Your weekly dose of biotech
There’s a shift happening at Sage…Sage Therapeutics that is. Longtime executive Jeff Jonas is leaving the biotech company to launch a biotech incubator with global investment giant CBC Group.
And shares of Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, a shuttered drug company with no employees or any active research programs, more than doubled Wednesday. Why? Adam Feuerstein can tell you.?
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Our Alzheimer’s coverage en espa?ol
An exciting part about this newsletter is it gives us opportunities to highlight things beyond our weekly news flow. Back in late September, reporter Usha Lee McFarling wrote two stories on how #Alzheimers disease is having a major impact on the Hispanic population in the Rio Grande Valley.
Now, thanks to the work of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Translation Center, we offer these same stories in Spanish. Please pass these along to anyone who might appreciate the chance to read these now.?
A powerful opinion piece
Don’t miss the First Opinion pieces published in STAT daily – they’re powerful essays on important topics. This week, emergency physician Jay Baruch recounts how writing his resignation letter had a surprising and paradoxical effect.?
“For all the burnout studies and headlines about physicians leaving the field, there’s less attention on those of us searching for reasons to stay,” he writes.
That’s it for this week — we promise! Join us next Thursday for another edition of “Weekly Update.”?
As always, if you enjoyed this news roundup, we suggest you subscribe to our flagship newsletter, Morning Rounds, which arrives in inboxes every weekday at 6 a.m. ET. You can also sign up for any and all of STAT’s other free newsletters here: https://www.statnews.com/signup/
— Ryan and Alexander