from AXIOS:

 Escalating bird flu is ravaging the nation’s egg supply, leading to increased prices and presenting a challenge for the Trump administration. (Axios)

 The FDA approved a Johnson & Johnson nasal spray as a stand-alone therapy for treatment-resistant depression. (CNBC)

 Trump’s pick to lead the VA hinted at an expanded health care delivery system after years of pressure to bring down costs and lower wait times. (The Hill)

 Experts urged tackling dementia by repurposing antibiotics, antivirals and vaccines developed for other conditions. (The Guardian)

from STAT:

gene editingChinese biotech says it will start first in vivo beta-thalassemia trialFrom my colleague Jason Mast: Leading U.S. gene-editing biotechs are racing to develop the first treatment that can cure sickle cell disease with a simple IV infusion. Such an in vivo approach could be far safer and more scalable than Casgevy, Vertex’s CRISPR-based treatment, which requires patients’ blood cells to be removed, edited in a lab, and then re-infused. Toxic chemotherapy is required to clear out old cells.Yesterday, Chinese biotech YolTech Therapeutics announced it would start what appears to be the first trial testing such a treatment. It will focus first on beta-thalassemia, a related blood disorder, but both conditions can be treated with the same approach. Beta-thalassemia is more common in China than sickle cell disease.YolTech’s announcement comes amid growing anxieties among U.S. drug developers over competition from China, where cheaper talent and materials and a different regulatory regime can accelerate development. U.S. companies — including Editas Medicine, Tessera Therapeutics, and Beam Therapeutics — have been vague about when they expect to start in vivo sickle cell trials.Most, including YolTech, are effectively using iterations of the same approach, trying to target lipid nanoparticles, loaded with CRISPR enzymes, to blood stem cells in the bone marrow. The challenge has been reaching and correcting a sub-group of particularly long-lived cells that will keep pumping out new healthy cells for years to come.But if they can solve it, there’s a huge market: Only two U.S. patients are known to have received Vertex’s therapy in its first year after approval, partly because of the conditioning required, and the treatment isn’t available in any part of Africa or India, where most of the world’s sickle cell patients live. first opinionThe duty of clinicians if ICE enters the hospitalThis week, the Trump administration revoked longstanding protections that barred Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers from conducting raids in “sensitive” areas including hospitals and medical clinics. In a new First Opinion essay, clinician and anthropologist Eric Reinhart argues that this decision is not just cruel, “it is a public health catastrophe in the making.”Health care workers must be prepared to protect their patients and uphold their own ethical obligations, Reinhart writes. This involves developing clear protocols for responding to ICE. Read more on how Reinhart believes health care workers should respond to the change.biotechTris Pharma, looking to compete with Vertex, reports acute pain trial successFrom my colleague Jonathan Wosen: For decades, pain has been a graveyard for drug developers. But in yet another sign that the field’s fortunes might be improving, Tris Pharma yesterday reported that its experimental drug helped tamp down the pain of patients who underwent abdominoplasty, or “tummy tuck” surgery.The Phase 3 trial, ALLEVIATE-1, recruited around 300 patients, half of whom were randomly assigned to take a placebo and the other half to take cebranopadol, Tris’ drug. Patients then reported their pain levels on a standard rating scale from 0 (no pain) to 10 (the worst pain imaginable). Those taking cebranopadol once a day for two days reported less pain than the placebo group, with a 1.34-point lower pain level on average across multiple time points, the company announced in a press release. The firm also noted that the drug was generally safe and well-tolerated, with nausea as the most common adverse event.Tris, a privately held specialty pharma company, is soon planning to announce results from a separate trial of the drug in patients getting bunion surgery. The New Jersey firm, which is looking to show its drug can treat moderate-to-severe acute pain, plans to apply for regulatory approval later this year. If that strategy sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Vertex ran trials of its own therapy, suzetrigine, in these same patient populations before applying for approval to treat acute pain; an FDA decision on that drug is now just a week away. Tris is also exploring whether cebranopadol can help treat people with substance use disorders and chronic pain.

from 1440 News:

Bipolar Disorder Decoded

An international team of researchers has pinpointed 36 genes linked to bipolar disorder in the largest study conducted to date on the biological mechanisms underlying the condition. The findings could potentially help doctors intervene early and better diagnose and treat individuals at risk.  Bipolar disorder (watch overview) is largely genetic, with an estimated heritability of around 80%, meaning there is a significant genetic predisposition to developing the chronic mental health condition. The disorder is characterized by intense mood swings between manic and depressive episodes, which can alter a person’s energy levels, behavior, thinking patterns, and ability to function in daily life. Around 40 million to 50 million people worldwide experience bipolar disorder. The findings also identified 298 genomic regions—specific locations in our DNA sequence—associated with bipolar disorder, of which 267 are newly discovered. Roughly 158,000 individuals with bipolar disorder and 2.8 million healthy individuals worldwide participated in the study. Learn more about genes here and DNA here.