Hello, my sweet sipping friends,
This week the biotech pot’s been properly brewing: daily sugary drinks are linked to a higher risk of stomach cancer, Hong Kong is building a bridge between US and Asian biotech, Moderna and Merck’s melanoma vaccine shows real promise, Harvard’s lab-grown brains reach their fifth birthday, and a gut bacterial metabolite is tied to faster cognitive decline.
Put the kettle on!
Dodo
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☕ Sugar-sweetened beverages daily can lead to higher stomach cancer risk (GEN): A decades-long study of more than 112,000 US adults found that drinking at least one sugar-sweetened beverage a day was associated with a 2.45-fold higher risk of gastric cancer, compared with drinking less than one a month. Artificially sweetened drinks showed no such link. The study is observational and cannot prove sugary drinks cause cancer, but it raises fresh questions about whether high fructose intake could play a role in stomach cancer risk. (Read the paper in Gastro Hep Advances)
Our take: If this association with gastric cancer is replicated, it could become a new front in the policy case against sugary drinks. Up until now, taxes and marketing restrictions have largely been framed around obesity and diabetes. Adding cancer prevention could potentially strengthen arguments for higher levies, warning labels and restricted advertising. This old Dodo is switching to the diet stuff, effective immediately!
🇭🇰 With China rising, Hong Kong builds bridge to biotech innovation (BioSpace): LabCentral, a US biotech accelerator, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) to trade scientists and startups between the two ecosystems. The partnership will allow participants to exchange expertise, and build stronger links with American and Asian venture capital and clinical trial networks. (Editor’s note: the memorandum was signed in June at BIO.)
Our take: With increased legislation – including the BIOSECURE Act, which became law last December – US-China collaboration has become even more sensitive, and neutral-ish infrastructure ever more valuable. The bet is that Hong Kong evolves into a place where partnerships are restructured, due diligence is conducted, IP is licensed, and capital is deployed with sufficient separation to reduce geopolitical exposure.
💉 Vaccine breakthrough stops cancer returning in trial (BBC News): A personalised mRNA vaccine from Moderna and Merck has shown promising results in preventing high-risk melanoma from returning after surgery. In the Phase 3 INTerpath-001 trial involving 1,137 patients, intismeran was administered alongside Merck’s existing immunotherapy, Keytruda. Topline results show the combination significantly extended the time patients remained cancer-free and reduced the risk of the disease spreading to other organs, compared with Keytruda alone, with fuller findings due at a medical conference in October.
Our take: Precision oncology has largely meant matching patients to existing therapies using biomarkers. Intismeran pushes that logic much further, with the tumour itself becoming the blueprint for producing an individual treatment encoding up to 34 neoantigens. If scalable, that changes the economics and structure of oncology; the question stops being which patients qualify for a drug and starts being how quickly you can develop one.
🧠 A ‘renaissance for biomedicine’: human brain organoids model development for 5 years (Fierce Biotech): Harvard researchers have kept lab-grown brain organoids alive for five years (with some cultures continuing even longer) – far beyond the months most models survive. Grown from a donor’s blood sample, the cells were found to age on a human schedule, with gene-expression and epigenetic changes running from early foetal patterns to features that appear only after birth. Scientists say the models could help in the study of autism and other neurodevelopmental conditions. (Read the paper in Nature)
Our take: The five-year brain culture is a scientific breakthrough, but it is also a commercial problem. Longitudinal experiments demand years of investment in cell culture, specialist staff and quality control before producing anything usable, which could disproportionately favour well-resourced universities and large pharmaceutical companies. The Harvard team wants this pipeline picked up by biotechs and startups, but they are precisely the organisations least able to fund half a decade of incubator space and technicians before seeing a result.
And finally…
🦠 There’s a new link between gut health and Alzheimer’s disease (Wired): Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have linked a gut bacterial metabolite called imidazole propionate (ImP) to Alzheimer’s disease. In a study of 1,196 cognitively healthy adults, higher blood levels of ImP were associated with faster cognitive decline and higher levels of the Alzheimer’s biomarkers pTau-217 and NfL. In mice, ImP increased blood-brain barrier permeability and worsened disease-like brain changes. (Read the paper in Nature Communications)
Our take: ImP has to cross the blood-brain barrier to reach neurons (damaging it further in the process), which means the barrier fails before the brain does. That raises the possibility that microbial metabolites change the brain’s permeability in ways that make it more vulnerable to multiple inflammatory or metabolic insults. The wider therapeutic opportunity could therefore be preserving the barrier’s integrity, not targeting any one gut-derived molecule.
Tune in 🎧
🦀 How Cancer Research Horizons is building the future of childhood cancer medicines: This episode looks at why children are still largely reliant on repurposed adult drugs, and how the C-Further consortium plans to build a dedicated pipeline of first-in-class paediatric oncology therapeutics.
🧬 Getting to a first product approval with Celcuity’s Brian Sullivan: A discussion on why targeting an “untreated disease mechanism” can outperform chasing single mutations, and how Celcuity licensed and de-risked a dormant asset.
🧠 Targeting the brain’s immune system in Alzheimer’s disease: Evinco Therapeutics’ CEO discusses natural killer cell-derived particles, which are designed to cross the blood-brain barrier and deliver proteins and microRNAs directly to the brain.
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🧫 1-2.09 | International Bacteriophage Conference (Phages) | Oxford, UK: Bringing together scientists, clinicians and industry experts, the event will explore cutting-edge bacteriophage research and emerging approaches to phage therapy.
🧪 9.09 | Driving innovation through engineering biology | London, UK: This networking event allows participants the chance to explore collaboration opportunities, develop project ideas and prepare for anticipated UKRI Engineering Biology Priority Programme calls.
🧑🔬 14-16.09 | MSS 2026 | Bled, Slovenia: A three-day scientific meeting focused on purification and advanced analytical technologies for gene therapies, vaccines, plasma, proteins and enzymes, bringing together industry and academia to share biopharma advances.
🇬🇧 21-25.09 | Life Sciences Week 2026 | Birmingham, UK: A national programme of more than 30 conferences, roundtables and showcases, opening with a launch day conference at Millennium Point on 21 September.
💰 28.09-1.10 | LSI Europe '26 | Barcelona, Spain: The emerging medtech summit brings startups together with investors and strategics, with around 200 presenting companies pitching to the funds and corporates that show up to write cheques. Applications to present close on 28 August.
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