Current Health Highlights: Insulin, HPV Vaccine, & Emerging COVID Variants

The US FDA panel voted against Novo Nordisk's weekly insulin for type 1 diabetes due to low blood sugar risks. Meanwhile, the HPV vaccine shows real benefits for men. Eli Lilly invests $5.3 billion more in an Indiana site for obesity drugs. Other headlines include Zantac cancer trial, raw milk bird flu study, and COVID-19 FLiRT variants.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

US FDA panel votes against use of Novo Nordisk's weekly insulin in type 1 diabetes patients

A panel of independent experts to the U.S. health regulator on Friday voted against the use of Novo Nordisk's weekly insulin in patients with type 1 diabetes due to risks of low blood sugar. The Food and Drug Administration's panel voted 7-to-4 against the use of the weekly basal insulin icodec saying its benefits do not outweigh the risks when used in adult patients with type 1 diabetes.

HPV vaccine provides real benefits for men, analysis shows

Vaccination of boys and men against the human papillomavirus (HPV) reduces their risk of head and neck cancers and other malignancies, a new analysis shows, adding to the vaccine's proven benefit in protecting women from cervical cancer. The study of more than 3.4 million people is one of the first long-term analyses of the vaccine's real-world effect on preventing HPV-related cancers of the head and neck, anal areas, penis, vulva, vagina and cervix, researchers said.

Lilly invests further $5.3 billion in new Indiana site as obesity drug demand soars

Eli Lilly said on Friday it has invested another $5.3 billion in its new Lebanon, Indiana manufacturing plant, more than doubling its previous investment, as it scrambles to meet soaring demand for its weight-loss and diabetes drugs. The new investment, which brings the total to $9 billion, will help boost production of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) for Lilly's powerful weight-loss drug Zepbound and diabetes treatment Mounjaro, the company said.

Zantac not a cause of woman's cancer, jury says in first trial over drug

A jury in Chicago on Thursday rejected an Illinois woman's claim that the now discontinued heartburn drug Zantac caused her colon cancer, in the first trial out of thousands of lawsuits making similar allegations. The jury in Cook County, Illinois circuit court agreed with arguments from drugmakers GSK and Boehringer Ingelheim that the plaintiff, 89-year-old Illinois resident Angela Valadez, had not proven her colon cancer was at least in part caused by her Zantac use.

Raw milk containing bird flu virus infects mice in study

Feeding raw milk contaminated with bird flu to mice infected them with the virus, adding to evidence that consumption of unpasteurized milk is not safe for humans, according to a study published on Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine. Bird flu has caused serious or fatal infections globally among people in close contact with infected wild birds or poultry, and scientists have long viewed the virus as being capable of causing a global health crisis.

Emcure, HDT settle legal fight over COVID vaccine technology

Indian generic drugmaker Emcure Pharmaceuticals and U.S. vaccine developer HDT Bio have settled allegations that Emcure stole HDT trade secrets during their joint work on a COVID-19 shot, the companies said in a press release on Friday. The companies said they have signed a long-term agreement to continue collaborating on the development of mRNA-based vaccines and a license that allows Emcure to use HDT's mRNA technology, ending a lawsuit in the United States and arbitration in the United Kingdom.

Explainer-What are the FLiRT COVID variants and are they more contagious?

The so-called FLiRT variants of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that cause COVID-19 have been the dominant forms of the virus circulating this year globally, according to the World Health Organization The moniker FLiRT is an acronym for the locations of the mutations the variants share on the virus' spike protein. One of them, called KP.2, has become the most commonly circulating variant in the United States over the past month, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Explainer-How close is the World Health Organization to agreeing on pandemic response rules?

Health officials from the 194 member states of the World Health Organization hope next week to complete more than two years of negotiations on new rules for responding to pandemics when they gather in Geneva. Negotiations are ongoing for two complementary deals that could be formalised at the May 27-June 1 meeting: an update to existing health rules on outbreaks and a new legally-binding treaty to shore up the world's defences against future pathogens after the COVID-19 pandemic killed millions of people.

Novo Nordisk's Ozempic slows diabetic kidney disease progression in trial

Novo Nordisk's Ozempic slowed the worsening of kidney dysfunction in patients with type 2 diabetes and lowered the risk of kidney failure, heart problems, stroke and death, according to detailed results from a late-stage trial presented on Friday. The company in March reported that the diabetes drug known chemically as semaglutide cut the combined risk of kidney complications and cardiovascular events by 24% over the next 3.4 years in patients who received weekly 1-milligram injections compared with those who got a placebo.

Bird flu detected in tissue samples of US dairy cow sent to slaughter, USDA says

Bird flu virus particles were found in tissue samples taken from one dairy cow sent to slaughter at a U.S. meat processing plant, but none were detected in samples from 95 other cattle, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said on Friday. Meat from the animals was prevented from entering the nation's food supply, USDA said.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)