Health News Roundup: Pfizer inflammatory bowel disease drug wins EU approval: Neuralink's first human patient able to control mouse through thinking, Musk says and more

"Based on the turnaround progress achieved last year, we have a strong foundation to build on to make 2024 a year of accelerated profitable growth," CEO Helen Giza said, adding that the firm will continue divestments this year. Teva Pharm to stay as unified drugmaker, sees big interest in API business, says CEO Teva Pharmaceutical Industries will remain a single company for generic and branded drugs, and expects to see significant interest in its active pharmaceutical ingredients business that it plans to divest, its head said on Tuesday.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Medtronic raises annual profit forecast on strong demand for heart devices

Medtronic on Tuesday raised its annual profit forecast for the third time this fiscal, banking on higher demand for its medical devices, sending the company's shares up 6% in premarket trading. The company also said it has decided to exit its unprofitable ventilator product line but would continue to honor existing ventilator contracts.

Fentanyl use spreads deeper into Mexico, on heels of US epidemic

The teenager who arrived at Jose de Jesus Lopez's drug rehab clinic in the industrial Mexican city of Monterrey in December had unusual symptoms. The 17-year-old's family had taken the boy to hospital a few days earlier when he'd had trouble breathing and then passed out after supposedly consuming cocaine, the director said. Now he was sweaty and nauseous. He'd been vomiting and couldn't sleep.

Sydney school, supermarket tainted with asbestos as crisis widens

Seven more public sites in Sydney, including a school, sports hub and supermarket, were exposed to asbestos, authorities said on Monday, as the contamination of the toxic material widened and officials rushed to remove it from public spaces. Traces of bonded asbestos in mulch have been found in 41 spots scattered across Australia's most populous city since early January when it was found in a playground.

EU drug regulator to review Lilly's Mounjaro in multi-dose pen

The European Union's healthcare regulator will this week review the use of Eli Lilly's approved Mounjaro drug against diabetes and obesity when prefilled in a multi-dose injection pen, according to a meeting agenda posted on the watchdog's website on Monday. The U.S. drugmaker won EU approval for the weekly injection late last year and has initially made starter doses available in member states Germany and Poland packaged in vials, so that patients need to draw the medication into syringes before injection.

FMC sees higher earnings in 2024, says few patients on GLP-1s

German dialysis specialist Fresenius Medical Care on Tuesday announced higher guidance for 2024 in a fourth-quarter earnings report which topped market expectations, helped by a turnaround plan and a one-off settlement. "Based on the turnaround progress achieved last year, we have a strong foundation to build on to make 2024 a year of accelerated profitable growth," CEO Helen Giza said, adding that the firm will continue divestments this year.

Teva Pharm to stay as unified drugmaker, sees big interest in API business, says CEO

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries will remain a single company for generic and branded drugs, and expects to see significant interest in its active pharmaceutical ingredients business that it plans to divest, its head said on Tuesday. There has been speculation that Israel-based Teva - the world's largest generic drug maker - would split into two companies handling both the increasingly competitive generics business and its own branded drugs.

Pfizer inflammatory bowel disease drug wins EU approval

Pfizer's drug to treat patients with an inflammatory bowel disease called ulcerative colitis has been approved by the European Commission, the company said on Monday. The approval for Velsipity follows backing from the European Medicines Agency's panel of experts in December.

US study uncovers 275 million entirely new genetic variants

A study that analyzed the genetic code of a quarter of a million U.S. volunteers found more than 275 million entirely new variants that may help explain why some groups are more prone to disease than others, researchers reported on Monday. The whole genome sequencing data from a wide range of Americans aims to address the historical lack of diversity in existing genomic datasets by focusing on previously under-represented groups. The U.S. National Institutes of Health-funded "All of Us" study turned up 1 billion genetic variants in total.

Neuralink's first human patient able to control mouse through thinking, Musk says

The first human patient implanted with a brain-chip from Neuralink appears to have fully recovered and is able to control a computer mouse using their thoughts, the startup's founder Elon Musk said late on Monday. "Progress is good, and the patient seems to have made a full recovery, with no ill effects that we are aware of. Patient is able to move a mouse around the screen by just thinking," Musk said in a Spaces event on social media platform X.

Gotham maintains questions over Grifols' accounts, shares fall

Short-seller fund Gotham City Research on Tuesday issued a second report on Grifols, maintaining some of its questions over the Spanish pharmaceutical company's accounting practices, dragging its shares down. Gotham City's new report focuses on the links between Grifols and Scranton Enterprises NV, an investment vehicle partly linked with the Grifols' founding family.