Caring beyond Prescriptions:
Aflac Duck ! known as the My Special Aflac Duck® is a cuddly soft companion for children undergoing cancer or sickle cell treatments. The duck is designed for children 3-10 years old. This adorable collaboration between Sproutel and Aflac provides a stuffed robotic Aflac Duck to kiddos along with medical play items, such as a toy stethoscope. The Aflac Duck also has smart sensors, calming heartbeat and vibrations, soundscapes, and comes with emoji discs that when tapped on the duck’s chest prompt the duck to emulate the emotion.
In recent clinical trials out of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory University School of Medicine the adorable robotic duck reduced anxiety and distress in children undergoing cancer treatments. Over 17,000 ducks have been distributed to over 450 hospitals and care organizations. Learn more about Aflac’s mission here: My Duck - The Aflac Childhood Cancer Campaign™
Spilling the Tea:
AbbVie acquired Cerevel surprises us all! A recent Phase 3 Parkinson's study finds tavapadon makes a real difference to patients with dyskinesias, or involuntary movements/twitches. Patients on tavapadon saw an average of 1.7 hours without involuntary movements as opposed to patients on placebo who saw an average of .6 hour without involuntary movements! Read more here: Cerevel, in ‘major surprise,’ finds success in late-stage Parkinson’s study | BioPharma Dive
Vertex plans to submit a non-opioid painkiller known as suzetrigine, to the FDA this June. Suzetrigine treats moderate to severe acute pain. Vertex inches closer to acute pain market as FDA accepts VX-548 (fiercebiotech.com)
23andMe CEO, Anne Wojcicki, contemplates publicly taking the company private. After a few failed attempts to increase profitability, such as subscription service (you really only need to know once) and its acquisition of Lemonaid Health (a real lemon of a deal) 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki eyes taking DNA-testing company private (msn.com)
The Seattle Hub for Synthetic Biology, an initiative launched by the Allen Institute and Chan Zuckerberg’s UW, is creating a new DNA technique. Imagine each cell in your body has a unique barcode, just like the ones you see on items in a store. This barcode isn't just random; it actually tells us what the cell is up to—like whether it's resting, growing, or doing something special. Now, scientists can put a special kind of "tape" made of DNA into the very first cell (like a master cell that all other cells come from). As this master cell creates new cells, the tape gets little marks on it at different spots. Each mark is like a timestamp, telling us when something happened in the cell's life. So, by looking at the marks on the DNA tape, scientists can figure out the order of events that happened as the cells grew and changed. It's like reading a story of the cell's life history typed out on a typewriter… In fact, the lead scientific director, Jay Shendure, has coined this, DNA Typwriter technique. Learn more here: A time-resolved, multi-symbol molecular recorder via sequential genome editing | Nature and here: Chan Zuckerberg Initiative - Building a Future for Everyone
And finally, our Hall of Shame for April 2024:
Aurobindo Pharma is in the spotlight again for very bad reasons. The FDA recently ended an inspection on Eugia Steriles. According to a company statement released Oct 2023, Eugia Steriles is a 100 percent subsidiary of Eugia Pharma Specialities and a step-down arm of Aurobindo Pharma. This unit will manufacture general injectables and is expected to supply them globally in phases. This injectable facility is located in Andhra Pradesh, and the FDA inspection closed on April 5th with three observations, labeled as “procedural in nature.”
Following the inspection on April 6th an accident occurred in the area of Unit 6, which resulted in one casualty. As you may have concluded, share prices have since fallen. Read more about these unfortunate events:
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