As pediatricians who take care of children in the inpatient, emergency, and primary care settings, we are alarmed by the recent trend of families having to go without basic medications to control their child’s asthma. At least seven children have died due to uncontrolled asthma this year in the Philadelphia region, a dramatic increase from prior years....

A plan to use new genetic techniques to treat non-genetic forms of ALS failed in an early study, Ionis and Biogen announced Thursday. The companies said they would discontinue the program. In the randomized, 99-person trial, the companies tested a drug designed to silence a gene called ATXN2. Over the last decade, numerous drugs have been built to...

The need-to-know this morning Biogen and Ionis Pharmaceuticals are ending their development of an experimental drug for ALS based on results of a Phase 1/2 trial. Johnson & Johnson said it will acquire Proteologix, a privately-held biotech focused on immune-mediated diseases, for $850 million with potential for additional milestone payments....

Eli Lilly reported Thursday that its experimental weekly insulin worked as well as daily basal insulin products in two late-stage studies, paving the way for the drug to compete with a similar weekly insulin developed by Novo Nordisk. In a 52-week trial of type 2 diabetes patients using insulin for the first time, those on the weekly insulin, called...

LONDON — Roche on Thursday said its recently acquired experimental obesity medication helped people lose a significant amount of weight in an early trial, sending its shares up in early trading.  The drug, a once-weekly injection known as CT-388, resulted in an average placebo-adjusted weight loss of 18.8% after 24 weeks, the company said. The study...

There are so few Indigenous physicians in the United States — just 0.3% of doctors — that their numbers barely show up in charts and graphs depicting the diversity of the medical workforce. But as of Thursday, there will be at least nine more. Thursday is graduation day for the first class of the nation’s only tribally affiliated medical school, the...