Biotech, Pharma, and Health Breakthroughs You Missed on August 17–18, 2025

New Drug Approvals & Clinical Trial Results

• Fibromyalgia Drug Breaks 15-Year Drought: The FDA approved Tonix Pharmaceuticals’ Tonmya (cyclobenzaprine) as the first new fibromyalgia treatment in over 15 years reuters.com. Taken at bedtime, this non-opioid pill improves sleep quality and reduces pain in fibromyalgia patients reuters.com. “This is the first time that a drug has been developed to target the non-restorative sleep, which we think plays an important role in fibromyalgia,” said Tonix CEO Seth Lederman reuters.com, highlighting the drug’s novel approach. Experts say more options are sorely needed for fibromyalgia’s millions of sufferers reuters.com.
• Wegovy Wins Accelerated Approval for Liver Disease: Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster weight-loss injection Wegovy gained FDA accelerated approval to treat MASH (metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis), a serious fatty liver disease reuters.com. Wegovy becomes the first GLP-1 therapy cleared for MASH, which affects ~5% of U.S. adults reuters.com. The decision, based on early trial data showing improved liver health, makes Wegovy only the second approved MASH treatment (after Madrigal’s 2024 drug) reuters.com reuters.com. “There really have not been good treatments in this space… we really need better medications that can prevent progression of the disease,” noted Jason Brett, Novo Nordisk’s U.S. medical lead reuters.com. Novo is also seeking approval of Wegovy for MASH in Europe and Japan reuters.com.
• Pfizer’s Sickle Cell Bet Stumbles: Pfizer disclosed that inclacumab, an experimental antibody for sickle cell disease, failed to meet its primary goal in a Phase 3 trial reuters.com. The drug did not significantly reduce painful vaso-occlusive crises versus placebo reuters.com. This marks the second setback from Pfizer’s $5.4 billion 2022 acquisition of Global Blood Therapeutics: last year Pfizer withdrew GBT’s Oxbryta from the market due to safety issues reuters.com. “Pfizer’s acquisition of Global Blood has proven disappointing with inclacumab’s failure coming after Oxbryta’s 2024 withdrawal,” said BMO analyst Evan Seigerman, who now doubts the deal’s projected $3B in revenue will materialize reuters.com. Pfizer said it remains committed to supporting the sickle cell community with other therapies reuters.com.

Mergers, Acquisitions & Partnerships

• Lilly’s $1.3B AI Obesity Drug Deal: Eli Lilly announced a $1.3 billion partnership with startup Superluminal to discover next-generation obesity and cardiometabolic drugs using AI reuters.com. Lilly will invest and pay milestones for exclusive rights to Superluminal’s AI platform, which designs small-molecule drugs targeting GPCR receptors involved in metabolism reuters.com. Lilly already dominates the booming obesity market (estimated $150B by 2030) and is bolstering its pipeline through tech partnerships reuters.com. “GPCRs have established themselves as very important targets in the obesity… landscape, but we’re at the very early stages of exploration,” noted Superluminal CEO Cony D’Cruz reuters.com. The deal follows Novo Nordisk’s $2.2 billion AI alliance with Septerna in May to develop oral obesity drugs via GPCR targeting reuters.com, underscoring a trend of pharma tapping AI for drug discovery.

(No other major M&A deals were announced during Aug 17–18, but this Lilly-Superluminal alliance highlights the continued investment in AI-driven R&D.)

Regulatory & Policy Updates

• White House Health Report Spares Pesticides: A draft report from President Trump’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) Commission – chaired by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – suggests the administration will not pursue new restrictions on agricultural pesticides in its strategy to improve children’s health reuters.com. Instead, the draft focuses on promoting healthier diets and investigating vaccine and prescription drug safety, avoiding the pesticide crackdown that farm groups feared reuters.com reuters.com. The Environmental Protection Agency would mainly increase transparency about its pesticide review process and encourage “precision application” of chemicals rather than banning them reuters.com reuters.com. This approach reflects a balancing act between the MAHA movement’s calls for curbing chemicals and the concerns of farmers, a key Trump constituency reuters.com. (More than 250 agriculture organizations had lobbied the administration on the issue reuters.com.) The draft also asks the FTC to consider limits on marketing junk foods to kids and calls for improving nutrition in hospitals and prisons reuters.com, but notably sidesteps any new pesticide guardrails.
• Junk Food Bans in Food Stamps Program: The Trump administration is backing state-level experiments to restrict sugary drinks and snacks in the SNAP food assistance program. HHS Secretary RFK Jr., FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary, and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins approved waivers for 6 more states to bar certain “junk foods” from being purchased with SNAP, bringing the total to 12 states piloting these restrictions abcnews.go.com abcnews.go.com. Most of the 12 states will prohibit soda purchases with SNAP benefits, and at least 8 will also ban candy (some states are even targeting energy drinks or sugary fruit drinks) abcnews.go.com. “For years, SNAP has used taxpayer dollars to fund soda and candy – products that fuel America’s diabetes and chronic disease epidemics,” Secretary Kennedy said, arguing the waivers put “real food” at the center of the program abcnews.go.com abcnews.go.com. The new rules, set to take effect in 2026, aim to improve nutrition for low-income families. However, not everyone is sold: “There’s no evidence that taking away access to soda will actually fight these conditions,” cautioned ABC News medical correspondent Dr. Darien Sutton, noting the policy may not meaningfully reduce obesity or diabetes by itself abcnews.go.com. Public health experts are watching closely to see if these measures lead to better health outcomes or simply spark controversy over food choice and personal responsibility.

Public Health & Epidemiology

• Measles Outbreak Surges in the Americas: Health officials warn that measles is making a dangerous comeback in the Western Hemisphere. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) reported 10,139 measles cases and 18 deaths across 10 countries in the Americas as of Aug 8 – a 34-fold increase from the same period last year reuters.com. Hardest hit is North America: Mexico has seen 14 measles deaths, the U.S. 3, and Canada 1 so far reuters.com. Most fatalities in Mexico occurred among Indigenous communities, and over 70% of all cases are in unvaccinated individuals reuters.com reuters.com. “Measles is preventable with two doses of a vaccine… To stop these outbreaks, countries must urgently strengthen routine immunization and conduct targeted vaccination campaigns in high-risk communities,” urged Dr. Daniel Salas, PAHO’s immunization chief reuters.com. Declining child vaccination rates are partly to blame – in the U.S., CDC data show kindergarten vaccination coverage for measles and other diseases dipped again in the 2024–25 school year compared to the prior year reuters.com. Health agencies across the Americas are racing to close immunization gaps and contain measles before it regains a foothold. The resurgence is a stark reminder that even eliminated diseases can return if vaccine complacency sets in.

(No major new COVID-19 variant or pandemic threat emerged over the weekend, but health officials continue to monitor familiar foes like measles, polio, and others as vaccination lapses threaten to reverse public health gains.)

Scientific & Medical Breakthroughs

• ‘Trojan Horse’ Bacteria Fight Cancer with Viruses: Researchers at Columbia University unveiled a groundbreaking bioengineered therapy that uses bacteria to smuggle cancer-killing viruses into tumors sciencedaily.com. In a new Nature Biomedical Engineering study, the team describes loading an oncolytic (cancer-killing) virus inside tumor-homing bacteria, which then deliver the virus directly into the cancer’s core. The bacteria act like an “invisibility cloak,” hiding the virus from the immune system and ferrying it to where it is needed without being neutralized sciencedaily.com. Once inside the tumor, the bacteria self-destruct to release the virus, which spreads among cancer cells but is engineered not to replicate elsewhere in the body (it depends on a molecule only the bacteria can provide) sciencedaily.com. This two-organism system – nicknamed CAPPSID – showed potent results in mice, representing the first example of a cooperative bacteria-virus therapy against cancer sciencedaily.com sciencedaily.com. “By bridging bacterial engineering with synthetic virology, our goal is to open a path toward multi-organism therapies that can accomplish far more than any single microbe could achieve alone,” said co-lead author Zakary Singer sciencedaily.com. With built-in safeguards to prevent off-target viral spread, the approach could overcome major hurdles in delivering oncolytic viruses. The scientists are now advancing this “Trojan horse” strategy toward clinical trials, hopeful it might one day treat therapy-resistant solid tumors sciencedaily.com sciencedaily.com.
• 15-Minute Test Detects Multiple Diseases for $2: In diagnostic news, engineers at Arizona State University have developed a cheap, ultra-sensitive blood test – called NasRED – that can detect deadly infections (like COVID-19, Ebola, HIV, and Lyme disease) within 15 minutes sciencedaily.com. The test uses gold nanoparticles to hunt for tiny traces of viral or bacterial proteins in a single drop of blood, and it delivers results on the spot using a simple electronic reader sciencedaily.com sciencedaily.com. In early studies (published in ACS Nano), NasRED was 100,000 times more sensitive than standard lab tests, yet requires no lab infrastructure – it’s portable and each test costs only about $2 sciencedaily.com sciencedaily.com. “We have the speed and ease of use of a rapid antigen test with sensitivity that’s even better than lab-based tests,” said Dr. Chao Wang, the lead author sciencedaily.com. The device combines the convenience of at-home rapid kits with near-PCR accuracy by exploiting plasmonic gold nanotech to detect mere hundreds of target molecules sciencedaily.com sciencedaily.com. Such a tool could be a game-changer for early detection and outbreak control in low-resource settings, allowing health workers to screen and catch infections early that would otherwise go undiagnosed sciencedaily.com sciencedaily.com. The ASU team is now working to miniaturize the reader and pursue real-world pilots, envisioning NasRED as a versatile platform for fast, point-of-care diagnostics worldwide.

(Additional notable research: Other studies this week reported that a simple walking gait adjustment can ease knee arthritis as much as medication, and Mayo Clinic scientists identified an “immune cell fountain of youth” in some seniors – underscoring the diverse advances in medical science.)

Notable Startup Funding Rounds

• Ambience Healthcare Hits $1.25B Valuation: In one of 2025’s biggest digital health financings, Ambience Healthcare raised $243 million (Series C) to expand its AI-powered clinical documentation platform fiercehealthcare.com. The round, led by Oak HC/FT and Andreessen Horowitz, vaults the company’s valuation to $1.25 billion fiercehealthcare.com. Ambience’s ambient AI listens to doctor-patient visits and automatically generates medical notes and coding, aiming to cut administrative burdens and costs fiercehealthcare.com fiercehealthcare.com. Its technology – already deployed at major health systems like Cleveland Clinic and UCSF – can reduce physician charting time by nearly 50%, the company claims fiercehealthcare.com fiercehealthcare.com. The new funding will help Ambience integrate its “AI scribe” across more hospitals and specialties, and develop new features. “Documentation has long been a source of friction… Ambience is turning it into a source of strength,” CEO Mike Ng said, as the startup sets out to prove that AI assistants can streamline healthcare without sacrificing quality fiercehealthcare.com fiercehealthcare.com.
• Biotech AI Startup Lands $70M: Tapping into the synergy of AI and drug discovery, Chai Discovery – a San Francisco biotech – secured $70 million in Series A funding to advance its AI-driven molecular design platform techstartups.com. The round was co-led by Menlo Ventures’ new AI fund (in partnership with Anthropic) and included the OpenAI Startup Fund, Thrive Capital, and other top VCs techstartups.com techstartups.com. Founded just last year, Chai has built frontier AI models (Chai-1 and 2) that can predict protein structures and generate novel antibodies with unprecedented speed techstartups.com. The fresh capital (which brings total funding to ~$100M) will fuel Chai’s mission to design therapies for “undruggable” disease targets and compress the timelines of drug R&D techstartups.com techstartups.com. The investment highlights VC enthusiasm for AI in biotech, following on the heels of other mega-rounds in the space. Chai’s CEO Joshua Meier, an alum of OpenAI, says the goal is to “dramatically accelerate the discovery of new medicines” using generative AI models that can invent drug molecules from scratch. With pharma partnerships on the horizon, Chai exemplifies how next-gen startups are blending AI and biology – and attracting hefty funding – to potentially transform how new cures are created.
• More Funding Bites: Other health-tech startups also saw influxes: Texas-based Arintra raised $21M (Series A) for its medical coding automation platform m.economictimes.com, and senior-care platform August Health closed a $29M Series B to digitize nursing home operations. These investments, while smaller, reflect a broader trend of capital flowing into niches like healthcare admin automation and aging-in-place technology. Despite a cooler overall venture market in 2025, health and biotech deals remain a bright spot, especially for companies harnessing AI to address pressing healthcare challenges.

Sources: Key information and quotes in this report are sourced from recent Reuters news dispatches, official press releases, and expert commentary in credible outlets. For full details and further reading, please see the linked sources reuters.com reuters.com reuters.com reuters.com abcnews.go.com abcnews.go.com reuters.com reuters.com sciencedaily.com sciencedaily.com fiercehealthcare.com techstartups.com, among others. Each link corresponds to the original announcement or publication reporting the development in question. This roundup captures the major biotech, pharmaceutical, medical, and health news from August 17–18, 2025, highlighting the continuing innovations and challenges in the health sciences world. Let’s stay tuned as these stories evolve.