In parts of the U.S., a push to protect and expand access to IVF
In Tennessee, state law codifies the right to IVF and other fertility treatments beginning Tuesday. In Virginia, a new measure directs a health insurance commission to consider coverage plans for infertility. And in California, a law that would have taken effect Tuesday before being delayed will move the state toward requiring some group health plans to cover fertility treatments, including IVF.
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4 minutes ago
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Shares of Brazil's Fleury jump on reports of talks with Rede D'Or
SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Shares of Brazilian medical diagnostics company Fleury jumped on Monday after reports of a potential acquisition by hospital chain Rede D'Or, which analysts said could generate synergies. Fleury's shares rose more than 15% in trading in Sao Paulo, making it the biggest gainer on benchmark stock index Bovespa, which was up 0.6%. Rede D'Or, meanwhile, gained 1.2%. Multiple local media outlets said on Sunday that Rede D'Or was in talks with Fleury on a deal that could combine Brazil's largest integrated healthcare network with a leading medical lab chain. Brazil Journal reported, citing sources, that Rede D'Or was working on an offer that could include both a cash payment and share swap. Fleury counts lender Bradesco as one of its main shareholders. Rede D'Or said on Monday it continuously evaluates opportunities to expand, including potential acquisitions or business combinations, but that no decision or proposal had been made for a potential deal with Fleury. In a separate statement, Fleury said it regularly analyzes market conditions but also noted that no decision had been reached on a potential transaction with Rede D'Or. Goldman Sachs analysts said Fleury could benefit under Rede D'Or's management from better procurement terms, especially on materials, in which there would be some overlap, and a leaner general and administrative structure. Fleury has a market capitalization of 6.91 billion reais ($1.24 billion), while Rede D'Or's market cap stands at 75.29 billion reais, according to LSEG data. Rede D'Or in 2022 acquired insurer SulAmerica in a deal worth 13 billion reais, part of a trend for consolidation in Brazil's healthcare sector that saw the hospital chain as one of the most active companies in recent years. Analysts at Santander said a deal between Fleury and Rede D'Or would make sense from a strategic point of view. "Main synergies could be related to higher scale, and therefore more bargaining power to buy materials at Fleury and G&A savings," they said. ($1 = 5.5704 reais) Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
4 minutes ago
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Could cancer drugs be the future of Alzheimer's treatment?
With few treatments available to stop or reverse Alzheimer's disease, scientists have turned to cancer drugs as a potential means of walking back cognitive decline. Alzheimer's cases are rising in the United States and worldwide due to an aging population, but there is no cure for the disease. Attempts to develop new treatments that slow the disease's progress, rather than lessen symptoms, have frequently failed. Only two drugs — the antibody therapies Leqembi and Kisunla — are currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration to slow the progression of early Alzheimer's, and scientists say their benefits are limited. Some pharmaceutical companies have halted or abandoned their Alzheimer's drug development programs because of unsuccessful trials. Others are trying to use existing medications, including popular weight loss drugs, to combat Alzheimer's. With that in mind, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco conducted a broad search for drugs that could be repurposed to treat the condition — in theory, reducing the time in which the drugs could be made available to patients. They scoured a database of more than 1,300 drugs of various classes, including antipsychotics, antibiotics, antifungals and chemotherapy drugs. Then, they looked at how those drugs affected gene expression. Their new study, published Monday in the journal Cell, identified two cancer drugs as the best candidates to lower Alzheimer's risk in patients. When combined, the drugs seemed to slow or reverse Alzheimer's symptoms in mice. One of the drugs is normally used to treat breast cancer, while the other is effective against colon and lung cancer. Alzheimer's disease is associated with significant changes in the way genes are expressed in the brain, leading to the increased production of certain proteins and the decreased production of others. These imbalances may disrupt brain function and contribute to symptoms like memory loss. Fewer than 90 drugs in the researchers' database reversed the expression of signature Alzheimer's-related genes in human brain cells. And five drugs in particular seemed to lower the risk of Alzheimer's in actual patients, based on electronic medical records. The authors ultimately selected two of those drugs, both approved by the FDA to treat cancer, to test in mice. 'We didn't expect cancer drugs to come up' as the most promising, said Marina Sirota, a co-author of the study and interim director of the UCSF Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute. The authors said the breast cancer drug letrozole seemed to change gene expression in nerve cells. And the colon and lung cancer drug irinotecan seemed to change gene expression in glial cells, which support the nervous system. Alzheimer's can destroy nerve cells and cause glial cells to proliferate, creating inflammation in the brain. In a 2020 study, breast cancer patients who received letrozole were less likely to develop Alzheimer's than patients who did not receive the drug. Colorectal cancer survivors treated with irinotecan also had a decreased Alzheimer's risk, according to a 2021 study. After testing the drugs in mice, the study authors found that the two-drug combo reversed brain degeneration and improved memory in mice that had developed hallmarks of Alzheimer's as they aged. Because results in mice often don't translate to humans, the researchers hope to test the drugs in a clinical trial with Alzheimer's patients. 'Developing a new drug can take hundreds of millions, or even billions, of dollars, on average take more than 10 years. For this repurposed drug, usually it just takes two or three years, and then you can go to the clinical trial and the cost is much, much lower,' said Dr. Yadong Huang, a co-author of the study and professor of neurology at UCSF. 'We still haven't generated or produced any very effective drugs that can really slow dramatically the cognitive decline,' he added. Part of the difficulty in developing drugs for Alzheimer's is the complexity of the disease. Its exact cause is largely unknown. For now, the authors said, it's unclear exactly why the cancer drugs seem to work against Alzheimer's. One theory is that the breast cancer drug blocks the production of estrogen, a hormone that controls the expression of a large number of genes. The colon and lung cancer drug may also block inflammation in the brain by preventing the proliferation of glial cells — though Huang said there are other possibilities. Dr. Melanie McReynolds, an assistant professor of biochemistry at Pennsylvania State University, who was not involved in the study, offered another theory. Her research has suggested that a different type of cancer drug could help treat Alzheimer's by regulating glucose metabolism, the process by which cells make energy. McReynolds said the process is necessary for various brain cells to communicate with each other. 'With aging, with stress, with diseases, that line of communication is disrupted,' she said. McReynolds said the drug combo tested in the new study might reverse metabolic decline — what she called 'the secret for contributing to better outcomes with Alzheimer's.' But assessing how Alzheimer's patients tolerate the combination of cancer drugs will be important. Letrozole can cause hot flashes and irinotecan can cause severe diarrhea. Both drugs can lead to nausea and vomiting. 'These drugs have huge side effects, so you need to always balance and figure out whether those types of side effects would be amenable to somebody with Alzheimer's,' Sirota said. 'It's not that it's a slam dunk.' This article was originally published on Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
34 minutes ago
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Sarepta Stock Keeps Sliding as Company Rejects FDA Call to Withdraw Drug
Key Takeaways Sarepta Therapeutics rejected the Food and Drug Administration's call to stop shipments of its muscular dystrophy drug. The FDA request came after a third patient in a Phase 1 study died while taking a similar treatment. Shares of the biopharma firm slid Monday, extending last week's Therapeutics (SRPT) shares continued to slide Monday after the biopharmaceutical firm refused a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) request to stop distributing its Elevidys treatment for muscular dystrophy. The FDA called for the halt after a third patient suffering from a form of muscular dystrophy taking a similar gene therapy to Elevidys in a Phase 1 study died of liver failure, possibly related to the drug. The news of the patient death sent shares of Sarepta plunging Friday. Elevidys has already been approved to treat both ambulatory and non-ambulatory patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Sarepta voluntarily stopped shipments for non-ambulatory patients last month following a second death during the study to gauge the efficacy of the drug for Limb-Girdle muscular dystrophy. The company noted the third patient who died suffered from non-ambulant Limb-Girdle muscular dystrophy. However, Sarepta said that because its comprehensive scientific interpretation of the data 'shows no new or changed safety signals in the ambulant patient population, we will continue to ship ELEVIDYS to the ambulant population.' Sarepta said it's looking to 'continued discussions and sharing of information with FDA in order to advance our shared purpose of protecting patient safety and informed access to care." Shares of Sarepta were down about 3% in recent trading. They've lost nearly 90% of their value since the start of the year. Read the original article on Investopedia Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
