In this edition
Monday: NHS Mounjaro; newborn genomes; EU-China devices; Trump drug prices
Tuesday: industrial strategy; Datroway approval; Novo exits Hims
Wednesday: Revolution Medicines funding; Amgen MariTide; FDA probes Elevidys
Thursday: US pulls Gavi funding; RSV-dementia link; Gilead-Kymera deal
Monday 23 June
The NHS began funding tirzepatide, sold as Mounjaro, through GP surgeries in England.
From 23 June, NHS England requires integrated care boards to pay for the drug in primary care under NICE technology appraisal TA1026. The rollout starts with the highest clinical need: people with a body mass index of 40 or more and at least four weight-related conditions, among them hypertension, obstructive sleep apnoea and type 2 diabetes.
NHS England’s interim commissioning guidance identifies an eligible group of about 220,000 people over the first three years, phased by cohort. It moves tirzepatide out of specialist weight-management services and into routine general practice. Tirzepatide is made by Eli Lilly.
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The government said the NHS would sequence the whole genome of every baby born in England within a decade.
Health secretary Wes Streeting set out plans to offer whole genome sequencing to every newborn, testing a blood sample, usually taken from the umbilical cord, for more than 200 rare but treatable conditions. The programme sits within a wider genomics commitment reported at around £650 million.
Streeting said genomics offered the chance to “leapfrog” disease by identifying risk early enough to act on it, part of a shift from treating illness toward predicting and preventing it. The announcement trailed the government’s forthcoming 10-year health plan for the NHS.
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The European Commission blocked Chinese companies from competing for public medical device contracts across the EU, the first activation of a trade instrument adopted in 2022 to enforce reciprocal market access.
The measure covers contracts in a market worth more than €60 billion a year. The Commission concluded that EU firms face systematic exclusion from China’s equivalent procurement market for medical devices, and Chinese companies will receive a scoring penalty in EU procurement procedures for the sector.
The International Procurement Instrument was set up in 2022 to give Brussels leverage when EU firms are shut out of foreign public procurement markets. This is the first time it has been used.
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Industry figures warned that European health systems face higher drug prices or slower access to new medicines as the Trump administration presses the pharmaceutical industry to cut costs in the US.
Those in the industry told the Financial Times that both the administration and drugmakers would seek to raise prices in Europe to offset lower US revenues. Systems that resist face the alternative: delayed or denied access to newer treatments as companies deprioritise markets unwilling to close the pricing gap.
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Tuesday 24 June
Britain named life sciences one of eight priority growth sectors in its Modern Industrial Strategy.
The strategy, published on 23 June, is a 10-year plan to raise business investment across the economy. It lists life sciences alongside advanced manufacturing, clean energy, creative industries, defence, digital and technologies, financial services, and professional and business services, and says each sector will get its own dedicated plan.
The document states the government’s ambition for the UK to become a world-leading life sciences economy, with the specific commitments, funding and targets left to a separate Life Sciences Sector Plan to follow.
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US regulators approved AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo’s Datroway for a form of advanced lung cancer.
The FDA granted accelerated approval on 23 June for datopotamab deruxtecan in adults with EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer who have already had EGFR-directed therapy and chemotherapy. It is the first TROP2-directed medicine cleared in the US for lung cancer. Datroway is an antibody-drug conjugate, which carries a toxic payload to cancer cells while sparing healthy tissue. Across a pooled group of 114 patients, it produced a confirmed response rate of 45%, with a median duration of response of 6.5 months.
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Datroway approved in the US as first TROP2-directed therapy for previously treated EGFR-mutated NSCLC - Daiichi Sankyo
Novo Nordisk ended its collaboration with the telehealth company Hims & Hers, weeks after it began.
Novo accused the platform of illegally mass-compounding copies of its semaglutide drug Wegovy and marketing them deceptively. It said compounding is not lawful once a drug is no longer in shortage, which the FDA had confirmed for Wegovy. Authentic Wegovy is no longer sold through Hims & Hers, and shares in both companies fell after the announcement.
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Wednesday 25 June
Revolution Medicines secured up to $2 billion from Royalty Pharma to fund its cancer pipeline.
The agreement, announced on 24 June, combines a synthetic royalty of up to $1.25 billion on future sales of daraxonrasib with a senior secured term loan of up to $750 million tied to commercial milestones. Revolution receives a first $250 million at closing, with a second royalty tranche linked to a positive readout of the RASolute 302 trial.
Revolution keeps full control of the development and commercialisation of its RAS(ON) inhibitor portfolio. Daraxonrasib is in Phase 3 for previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer and for non-small cell lung cancer.
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Revolution Medicines enters into $2 billion flexible funding agreement with Royalty Pharma - Revolution Medicines
Amgen reported Phase 2 results for its monthly obesity injection MariTide.
In people with obesity but not type 2 diabetes, MariTide produced up to about 20% average weight loss at 52 weeks, against 2.6% on placebo. In those who also had type 2 diabetes, weight loss reached up to about 17%. The most common adverse events were gastrointestinal, mainly nausea and vomiting. The data were presented at the American Diabetes Association’s scientific sessions on 23 June and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, and Amgen has started a Phase 3 programme that uses a dose-escalation schedule.
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The US Food and Drug Administration said it was investigating the deaths of two patients treated with Sarepta Therapeutics’ Duchenne muscular dystrophy gene therapy Elevidys.
Both were non-ambulatory boys who died of acute liver failure, a recognised risk of the therapy; each had raised liver enzymes and was hospitalised within two months of treatment. The agency said the deaths appeared related to the therapy and that it was weighing further regulatory action, and Sarepta shares fell sharply on the disclosure.
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Thursday 26 June
The United States said it would stop funding Gavi, the alliance that buys vaccines for the world’s poorest children.
US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr announced the withdrawal of future US contributions in a recorded message to the Global Summit on immunisation in Brussels on 25 June, citing vaccine-safety concerns that included the whole-cell pertussis vaccine. Gavi rejected the claim that it ignores safety data, saying its portfolio decisions follow the recommendations of the World Health Organization’s independent expert group, SAGE. The United States had been one of Gavi’s largest donors.
At the same summit, the UK committed £1.25 billion to Gavi for 2026 to 2030, the largest pledge by any single government. The summit raised more than $9 billion against a target of $11.9 billion for Gavi’s 2026 to 2030 period.
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Gavi statement in response to comments by the US HHS Secretary - Gavi
UK partners with Gavi to help save up to eight million lives by 2030 - gov.uk
An Oxford-led study linked GSK’s RSV vaccine Arexvy to a lower rate of dementia diagnoses.
The analysis of more than 430,000 people aged 60 and over in a US health-records network found a 29% lower rate of dementia diagnoses within 18 months of RSV vaccination. The authors attribute the effect to the AS01 adjuvant, also used in GSK’s shingles vaccine Shingrix, rather than to the RSV component. Published in npj Vaccines on 25 June, the findings are observational, and the authors say a controlled trial is needed to confirm them.
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How do vaccines reduce the risk of dementia? - University of Oxford
Gilead Sciences agreed to pay Kymera Therapeutics up to $750 million for access to a cancer drug programme.
The exclusive option and licence deal covers molecular glue degraders that target CDK2, a driver of tumour growth, with $85 million upfront and in option payments plus tiered royalties. Kymera leads the research until Gilead exercises its option. It continues Gilead’s run of oncology deals as it builds a pipeline beyond its virology base.
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Gilead Sciences and Kymera Therapeutics enter exclusive option and license agreement for CDK2 degraders - Kymera Therapeutics
Friday 27 June
Novartis signed a four-year drug-discovery partnership with ProFound Therapeutics in heart disease.
Under the deal, announced on 26 June, ProFound receives $25 million in upfront and near-term milestone payments, with up to $750 million per selected target in later milestones plus tiered royalties. ProFound will apply its ProFoundry platform, which searches an expanded set of proteins for new drug targets, alongside Novartis’s cardiovascular development work.
Most of the headline value is tied to per-target milestones rather than the upfront payment.
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ProFound Therapeutics announces multi-year strategic collaboration with Novartis for cardiovascular disease - ProFound Therapeutics
A US vaccine advisory panel recommended that seasonal flu shots be free of the preservative thimerosal.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, newly appointed by Robert F Kennedy Jr after he removed its previous members, voted on 26 June to recommend that children, pregnant women and adults receive only single-dose influenza vaccines that contain no thimerosal. Each of the three votes was 5 to 1.
Thimerosal is a mercury-based preservative used in some multi-dose vials. About 96% of US flu vaccines given in the 2024-2025 season already contained none.
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