The Readout Loud

This week: New hope for people living with Huntington’s disease, and a report card on RFK Jr.’s effort to remake health in America. 

The Food and Drug Administration reversed its opposition to a closely watched gene therapy for Huntington’s disease, clearing a path for its maker, the biotech company UniQure, to file for U.S. approval. Joining us to discuss this new development and what it means for the Huntington’s community is Lauren Holder, a Huntington’s disease advocate who is living with the early stages of the disease. 

A pledge to “Make America Healthy Again” earned Robert F. Kennedy Jr. his job as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. He entered the role with a long to-do list, and a goal of delivering measurable improvements within two years. How has he fared? Isabella Cueto, STAT’s chronic disease reporter, has been closely tracking Kennedy and the MAHA movement’s actions, and joins us to discuss.

Can any of the new obesity medications in development stand out from the pack? Which company just broke records with its IPO? And will the Food and Drug Administration allow greater access to experimental peptides?

We discuss all that and more on this week’s episode of “The Readout LOUD,” STAT’s biotech podcast.[2:37 PM]Undark’s Sara Talpos joins the podcast to discuss her reporting on the peptide BPC-157, and how its jumped from a Croatian lab to bodybuilding forums on Reddit to the FDA. (STAT co-published Talpos articles; the second piece was was supported by the Pulitzer Center).

We also discuss the latest news in the life sciences, including obesity data from the American Diabetes Association meeting and a record-breaking IPO.

Why did oncologists give a standing ovation to a data presentation on Revolution Medicines' pancreatic cancer drug, daraxonrasib? Why did biotech stocks perform so badly this week? And are concrete beaches better than normal beaches?

We discuss all that and more on this week's episode of “The Readout LOUD,” STAT's biotech podcast.

We bring on Leanna Stokes, who was diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer in 2023. She discusses how participating in RevMed's trial for daraxonrasib has affected her disease and life, and what the drug means for patients and the field.

We also chat about other data presented during last week's meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the market reaction to Abivax's ulcerative colitis data, and the upcoming meeting of the American Diabetes Association.

On this week’s episode of “The Readout LOUD,” we chat with longtime biotech executive Jeremy Levin about his new book, “Biotech in the Balance: Saving a Strategic Industry in an Age of Distrust.” That sounds alarmist, and it is in some respects, but as Levin explains, the book is also a roadmap to a brighter future for the biotech industry.

On this week’s episode of “The Readout LOUD,” the hosts discuss STAT's Breakthrough Summit West, where powerful leaders from health care and science rubbed shoulders. They share some of the juicy conversations and insights, including BridgeBio CEO Neil Kumar's comments that the company is publishing “not the right structures” in their research publications.

Listeners also will hear Allison's interview with Joe Betts-LaCroix, CEO of the Sam Altman-backed longevity company Retro Biosciences. Retro is preparing for its first clinical data readout and examining just how much impact AI can have in drug development.

The hosts also discuss colleague Damian Garde's article on how China is tearing biotech apart and one self-appointed spokesperson’s strategy.