#7: Mental Health for Soldiers, Safer Medicines, and Needle-Free Glucose Monitoring

This week in healthcare: From boosting mental health support for soldiers to revolutionising drug safety with AI and making TB detection faster, this week’s healthcare news highlights breakthroughs in affordability, accessibility, and innovation. 🚀

• 🫀 Man with a metal heart! An Aussie survived 100 days with a titanium artificial heart before getting a transplant. This tech could help millions in India where donor shortages persist, but making it affordable and accessible remains the next big challenge. (IE)

• 🏥 IndiaAI Mission and the Gates Foundation are collaborating to drive AI-led innovations, to enhance disease prediction, improve diagnostics, and accelerate vaccine research and predictive analytics. (ehealth)

• ⏱️ At just 14, Siddharth Nandyala has built ‘CircadiaV,’ an AI-powered app that spots heart issues in 7 seconds with 96% accuracy! Tested on thousands, and supported by the government, it’s a potential game-changer. (IT)

• 🫁 Tech vs. TB: The battle just got serious! HaystackAnalytics just dropped ‘TB One,’ a cutting-edge genomic sequencing kit that rapidly detects drug resistance—no fancy lab setup needed. Meanwhile, ICMR is stepping up with AI-powered chest X-rays and portable scanners under the TB Mukt Bharat campaign, making TB detection faster, smarter, and more accessible than ever! (BioS) (BioS)

• 🩸 Can there be a way to check blood glucose levels without drawing your blood? Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, have developed photoacoustic sensing, a laser-based technology that checks blood glucose levels painlessly! (IE)

• 🧠 A new study shows that older adults with strong cardiovascular health have lower levels of brain degeneration biomarkers, reducing dementia and Alzheimer’s risk. Time to get moving and eat heart-smart! (NM)

• 🧫 UC Santa Cruz researchers have created tiny lab-grown embryo models using CRISPR tech. These programmable models replicate early embryonic development, allowing precise genetic studies that could improve fertility treatments and developmental research. (NM)

• 🔬 NicheCompass, a deep-learning, AI-powered neural network is shaking up cancer treatment! It can scan millions of patient cells in one hour, predicting molecular changes with precision—bringing us closer to truly personalised cancer care. (NM)

• 🧬 Cellogen Therapeutics has secured a patent for India’s first bi-specific CAR T-cell therapy—think of it as a precision-guided missile for cancer, hitting two tumor antigens at once! Notably, it could slash treatment costs by over 90%, making it more accessible. (EH)

• 💊 Zydus Lifesciences gets USFDA approval to produce Apalutamide, a prostate cancer treatment, at its Ahmedabad plant. With a $1.1B US market, this drug strengthens Zydus’ global oncology portfolio. (ET)

• 🚨 Smarter drug safety with AI! Tech Mahindra and NVIDIA have collaborated to build a revolutionary AI-driven solution for pharmacovigilance (PV) to enhance drug safety. The solution streamlines the PV process by reducing turnaround times by 40% and cutting operational costs by 25%. (PB)

• 🏋️‍♂️ Pharma’s new frontier: weight loss! As India tackles an obesity surge, Eli Lilly & Novo Nordisk are vying for market dominance, while domestic firms prepare cost-effective alternatives. (ET)

🇮🇳 India

• 💸 Price cuts on essential drugs save Rs 3,788 crore a year. Thanks to Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana (PMBJP) and Affordable Medicine and Reliable Implants for Treatment (AMRIT) initiative, lifesaving medicines are now more affordable across India. (BS)

• 🌏 The Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AiMeD) is urging the government to revise tariff policies to reduce India's reliance on imports, which dominate 70% of the market. They advocate for higher customs duties on imported devices, citing global practices like the U.S.’s tariffs, to strengthen India's medical device supply chain. (EH)

• ⚔️ Stronger minds, stronger soldiers! The Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS) and the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) are teaming up to bring mental health care, specialised training, and innovative programs to help defense personnel and their families tackle PTSD, anxiety, depression and stress. (The Week)

• 💲 India is ramping up its pandemic preparedness with key initiatives, including hosting a Quad workshop for the Indo-Pacific Region on emergency response, investing $10 million in the Pandemic Fund, and expanding digital health platforms like CoWIN and Tele-MANAS. (The Week)

🌏️ Global

• 🦠 The H5N1 bird flu virus is adapting to mammals and evolving unpredictably. While human-to-human transmission has not yet been confirmed, increasing cases among farmworkers and widespread wildlife infections suggest a rising pandemic risk. Mother Nature, let's not do this again. (The Verge)

• ❌ The FDA is shutting down Ozempic & Zepbound’s compounded versions (affordable medications made by combining, mixing, or altering various ingredients). Patients reliant on affordable alternatives now face financial challenges. (healthline)

🇮🇳 India

• 🏢 Bharat Biotech is investing $75 million in a 50,000 sq ft, cell and gene therapy (CGT) facility in Hyderabad's Genome Valley. The facility will encompass R&D, manufacturing, and quality control, enabling the development of advanced therapies for diseases like cancer and hemophilia. (TOI)

• 🚀 Bengaluru’s Peptris Technologies has licensed India’s first AI-discovered drug, PEPR124, for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), to the U.S.-based Revio Therapeutics. This partnership aims to fast-track treatment development for the $3B DMD market. (BioSpectrum)

🌏️ Global

• 🧬 AstraZeneca is acquiring EsoBiotec for up to $1 billion, gaining its ENaBL platform, which delivers genetic instructions to immune cells for cancer treatment via simple IV administration. In vivo cell therapy= your immune cells become cancer-fighting warriors. (PB)

• ⚽ From the pitch to personalised nutrition! Manchester United’s Diogo Dalot joins Ronaldo in backing Bioniq, an AI-driven personalised nutrition brand that tailors supplements based on blood test data, and is now valued at $82M. (techeu)