In this week’s edition of InnovationRx, we look at the potential impact of Trump’s executive order on vaccines, the healthcare dynamos on Forbes 50 Over 50, a Swiss startup focused on a rare bleeding disorder, and more. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here.
President Trump is back at with talking down vaccines.
On Monday, he signed an executive order aimed at cutting back childhood vaccine guidelines. It reduces the number of recommended vaccines to 11 from the existing 18, and also recommends that the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (known by the acronym MMR) be split into three and administered during separate medical visits. It also instructs the attorney general to challenge certain state laws that mandate childhood vaccines.
This directive doesn’t change the official vaccine schedule used by insurance companies, government agencies and medical professionals. Those are set by the CDC, and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s attempts to change the agency’s recommendations through his own hand-picked advisory committee are currently halted due to pending litigation. AHIP, a trade organization representing health insurers, said that its members will continue to provide insurance coverage for current vaccine schedules through at least the end of 2027.
At the signing event, Trump and other federal officials promoted misinformation about childhood vaccines, such as implying they cause autism (they do not.) Trump also said that the combination MMR vaccine could be “lethal.” (It isn’t.) When asked for evidence, he admitted he didn’t have any.
The push to change vaccination schedules is especially disturbing because it comes even as the United States faces a 35-year high in measles cases, especially among unvaccinated kids. As American Medical Association president Willie Underwood said in a statement: “Altering a proven vaccination schedule without credible evidence risks weakening public confidence and putting children’s health at risk.”
The Healthcare Dynamos On Forbes 50 Over 50
GoodRx CEO Wendy Barnes
Bloomberg Finance
Wendy Barnes, 54, is president and CEO of GoodRx, a prescription-savings company with nearly 25 million consumers and a market cap of $1.3 billion. Her company allows consumers to compare prices, get coupons, and, it claims, potentially save as much as 80% on their medications.
Mary Brunkow, 65 and a distinguished investigator at Seattle’s Institute for Systems Biology, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her work identifying the Foxp3 gene as the cause of a mutant strain of mice known as “scurfy mice,” which are plagued with widespread autoimmune diseases. That has important implications for understanding autoimmune diseases and potentially developing drugs to treat them.
And Daphne Zohar, 56, is cofounder and CEO of Seaport Therapeutics, which is working on developing next-generation drugs for anxiety and depression. Spun out of PureTech, which she also cofounded, the company now sports a market cap of $1.2 billion.
These are just three of the 16 women doing groundbreaking work in healthcare on this year’s Forbes 50 Over 50 list. The list highlights female entrepreneurs, scientists, inventors and artists who are proving that a career’s second half can be its most impactful.
See here for this year’s complete 50 Over 50 list.
Deal of the Week
Swiss biotech Vaderis Therapeutics raised $152 million from Goldman Sachs Alternatives and TCGX, among others, to run late-stage trials on its potential therapy for a rare bleeding disorder. The genetic disease, known as hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia, or HHT, leads to abnormal blood vessel formation causing nosebleeds and hemorrhages. There are currently no specific treatments approved for it. CEO Nicholas Benedict and his colleagues from Novartis, Pierre Saint-Mezard and Damien Picard, launched Vaderis in 2018.
What We’re Reading
The promise of radiopharmaceuticals to treat cancer smacks into safety concerns.
Greg Verdine’s LifeMine raises $263 million for a safer immunosuppressant in transplant patients.
Taylor Farms is recalling prepared foods with jalapenos due to possible salmonella contamination, a few weeks after it recalled lettuce due to an ongoing cyclospora outbreak.
The NIH is rejecting grant applications for research primarily aimed at informing legislators and regulators, including studies about how policies impact health.