| | | | |  | | By Erin Schumaker, Carmen Paun, Daniel Payne and Ruth Reader | | | | |  Mayo Clinic researchers have an ambitious plan to improve care for digestive diseases. | AFP via Getty Images | Thanks to an award from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, researchers at the Mayo Clinic are hard at work on a new treatment for inflammatory bowel disease. The clinic is using $42.8 million in ARPA-H funding for a project called "Engage Assess SecretE," or EASE, which aims to develop a “cell factory,” i.e., an implantable bioelectric device that would trigger genetically engineered cells to create monoclonal antibodies that treat the disease. Why it matters: IBD, an autoimmune disorder which includes diseases like Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, is an inflammatory digestive condition with symptoms that can include diarrhea, stomach cramps, rectal bleeding, fatigue and weight loss. There’s no cure for the disorder, which ranges in severity from mild to life-threatening. An estimated 2.4 to 3.1 million Americans have IBD. They’re heavy users of health care resources; in 2018, IBD-related costs were about $8.5 billion , according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Standard care involves monoclonal antibody treatments, which target specific proteins to reduce inflammation and help manage symptoms. But the therapy is time-consuming, requiring patients to visit a clinic for infusions every two to eight weeks over a year. Many miss doses, which can lead to relapse, poor response to treatment and drug resistance, according to Mayo Clinic experts. What’s next? Researchers plan to build the implantable device in the lab and test it in preclinical studies. Their goal: to move to human clinical trials within six years. If the device works, they’ll test it on other autoimmune diseases, like rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis.
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City Island, N.Y. | Erin Schumaker/POLITICO | This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. An AI model trained by virologists from Australia and China has found 70,000 new viruses, Fierce Biotech reports. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com, Daniel Payne at dpayne@politico.com , Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com, or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp.
| | | |  Children in Madagascar are among those at risk from malnutrition, UNICEF says. | AP | Nearly 2 million starving children could die over the next few months because the countries they live in and humanitarian organizations have run out of money to provide the food that could save them, UNICEF said Tuesday. The warning comes as severe malnutrition in children under 5 years old remains high in at least a dozen countries due to conflict, economic shocks and climate crises, according to UNICEF, the U.N. body in charge of protecting children globally. Why it matters: Children with severe malnutrition are very thin, with weak immune systems, making them less likely to grow and develop and, if nothing is done, more likely to die. Malnutrition also can have lifelong consequences for children and the countries where they live, according to a recent report by the Gates Foundation. People who suffered from malnutrition as children tend to complete fewer years of schooling than their properly nourished peers and are 33 percent less likely to escape poverty, the report said. Their countries can lose up to 16 percent of their gross domestic product as a result. Severe malnutrition is treated with ready-to-use therapeutic food, a paste combining peanuts, sugar, milk powder, oil, vitamins and minerals. Children eat it for six to eight weeks and receive other medical care to recover. But a lack of money has caused a shortage in Mali and Nigeria. Chad and Niger are expected to run out of therapeutic food this month, while Cameroon is projected to run out in December. Seven other countries, including Pakistan, Sudan and Madagascar, will likely run out by June, according to UNICEF. What’s next? The U.S. recently said it would contribute $100 million, but UNICEF says it needs another $165 million.
| | |  New weight-loss drugs could help Britons get back to work, an official said. | Novo Nordisk/AP | Obese people are more likely to struggle finding work, studies have found. That’s good reason to give them free weight-loss drugs, says British Health Secretary Wes Streeting of the ruling Labour Party, our European colleagues report. Streeting estimates it would jump-start the British economy and save on health care costs in the long run. “Our widening waistbands are placing significant burden on our health service,” he wrote in an opinion piece for The Telegraph. He suggested that weight-loss injections, like Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro, could be “life-changing” for many people and reduce the more than $14 billion the country’s National Health Service spends on obesity-related illness each year — more than what it spends on conditions caused by smoking. State of play: Britain’s NHS is under financial strain , though unemployed obese people might not be the cause. Just 4 percent of workers in the U.K. want a job but can’t find one — a rate typically considered to be at or close to full employment. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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