Hello, my fellow selfie snappers
This week’s biotech camera roll has Merck snapping up a rare blood cancer treatment for billions, Roche hitting pause on its operations in Germany while zooming in on China, stress triggering arthritis flare-ups in mice, an AI tool predicting cancer survival from a single selfie, and noise-cancelling headphones helping patients feel less queasy.
Say cheese, and keep a sick bag handy!
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🩸 Merck KGaA spends $1.3bn to buy siRNA specialist Silence Therapeutics (Pharmaceutical Technology): Merck KGaA has acquired UK-based Silence Therapeutics in a deal that values the biotech at an 82% premium. The main attraction is divesiran, an experimental siRNA treatment for rare blood cancer polycythemia vera, which achieved an 88% clinical response rate in Phase II trials. The acquisition also gives Merck access to Silence’s wider RNA interference platform and strengthens its growing rare disease portfolio.
Our take: Silence joins a growing list of British biotechs bought by overseas pharma companies. The timing is telling. Silence raised $175M following its Phase II results in August, then agreed to sell two months later, saying Merck has the scale to take divesiran through Phase III. Investors get a welcome exit, but once again a promising British drug will cross the finish line under someone else’s flag.
🎯 $15 billion deal: Roche bets on China — and questions Germany’s future (European Biotechnology Magazine): The Swiss pharma giant has expanded its partnership with Hansoh Pharma, committing $400m upfront to access a portfolio of experimental cancer therapies and its antibody-drug conjugate technology. The agreement reflects China’s growing influence as a source of pharmaceutical innovation, even as Beijing considers tighter controls on exporting strategic biotech technologies. Meanwhile, Roche has paused new investment decisions in Germany, citing an increasingly challenging policy environment.
Our take: As ever, the devil is in the deal details, which suggests Roche will propose the targets, Hansoh will build the drugs and run early trials, and then Roche will jump back in to handle business outside Greater China. Because Beijing’s proposed export rules are likely to leave room for licensing, Western pharma will still be able to buy China’s medicines, even if development stays firmly rooted in China.
🐭 Psychological stress triggers arthritis flares in mice via IL-6-dependent pathway (GEN): Researchers at Chiba University have identified a biological pathway linking psychological stress to rheumatoid arthritis in mice. Stress activates the sympathetic nervous system, prompting the release of inflammatory signals that reactivate immune responses in previously affected joints, so this study could offer a potential explanation for stress-related arthritis flare-ups.
Our take: Intriguingly, the findings suggest rheumatoid arthritis could leave a lasting molecular imprint on joint tissue, indicating that remission may be more like a dormant disease state that stress signals elsewhere in the body can reactivate, rather than a return to biological normality as previously thought. If researchers replicate these findings in human studies, we could be on the cusp of understanding how tissues retain inflammatory memory.
📸 New AI tool can predict cancer survival by a single patient selfie, study suggests (The Guardian): Researchers at Mass General Brigham have developed an AI system that estimates biological age and predicts cancer survival from facial photographs. Trained on more than 40 million images, the technology identified a 21% higher mortality risk among patients appearing at least five years older than their chronological age. Further validation is of course required, but it does open the door to use of facial analysis to support clinical assessments and treatment decisions.
Our take: With the study finding that heavy drinking, drug use and smoking all correlated with a higher algo-assigned biological age, it shows that the face can be a window for not just how much physical reserve someone might have, but also how their life has been lived. It raises some interesting, if not difficult, questions about health equity when we can accurately measure lifelong disadvantage as a factor in health, rather than just a person’s underlying capacity to withstand treatment.
And finally…
👂Noise-cancelling headphones prevent vomiting after surgery (The New Scientist): A study of 192 patients in China found that wearing noise-blocking ear defenders during surgery reduced postoperative nausea and vomiting from 52% to 35% within 48 hours, despite all patients receiving anti-nausea medication. It’s thought that the brain may keep processing sound under general anaesthesia, triggering a stress response that contributes to nausea. This points to a potential low-cost way to aid recovery without additional medication.
Our take: During the research, the operating theatre noise levels were also tracked, and were surprisingly normal, averaging 66 decibels, which is roughly the level of a normal conversation - and yet blocking those ordinary sound levels still cut nausea by about a third. This study included only women undergoing the same surgery, so the next step is to see whether the results hold true in a larger, multi-site trial that measured nervous system activity alongside noise.
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💊 Investing in tomorrow’s CNS breakthroughs with Breyer Capital’s Bret Bostwick, M.D: This latest episode explored the challenges of developing CNS therapies, the limitations of animal models, lessons from Alnylam on genetically validated drug targets, and the opportunities and risks of AI in early-stage biotech.
🫄 A gut-level pivot from diabetes to a GLP-1 off-ramp: Fractyl Health co-founder and CEO Harith Rajagopalan discusses the company’s experimental Revita procedure, designed to regenerate the duodenal lining, its shift from type 2 diabetes to preventing weight regain after GLP-1 treatment, and the potential to reset metabolic regulation.
📉 Biotech market volatility, clinical trial setbacks and emerging therapies: Guest panel Graig Suvannavejh, Paul Matteis, Brian Skorney, Yaron Werber and Jake Becraft examine biotech market performance, investor uncertainty and M&A prospects, alongside clinical developments in pulmonary fibrosis, coeliac disease, neurodegeneration and pancreatic cancer.
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🇳🇱 27-28.10 | World Orphan Drug Congress Europe | Amsterdam, Netherlands: An international rare disease and orphan drug meeting, featuring biotech, pharma, policymakers and researchers across cell and gene therapy, diagnostics, market access and real-world evidence.
🇩🇪 9-11.11 | BIO-Europe 2026 | Cologne, Germany: Europe’s largest and longest-running partnering conference for the global biotechnology and biopharma industry, connecting thousands of executives, researchers, and investors
🇬🇧 10-11.11 | Global Pharma and Biotech Summit 2026 | London, UK: The conference brings together global industry leaders, investors, and journalists to discuss US-China geopolitical tensions and the rise of India and China as innovation hubs.Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!
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