Medical Journal May 2025 Digital Edition
May 22, 20251 min
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Healthcare & Life Sciences M&A: Navigating 2025
May 22, 202512 min
BY Darron J. Gill, Partner, Healthcare Advisory, & Britni Barsness, Director, Financial Due Diligence, KPMG The question at the forefront of dealmakers’ minds: How will the macroeconomic environment, public policy, and innovation impact the healthcare and life sciences market in 2025? To understand what might happen in 2025, let’s first revisit how the HCLS deal market performed in 2024. KPMG’s annual investment outlook for Healthcare and Life Sciences (HCLS) (the Outlook), published each year in...
From algorithms to bedside: Navigating the intersection of AI, healthcare, and emerging policy
May 22, 202510 min
BY Bradley Byars, J.D., M.H.A., LL.M. and Michael R. Alexander, J.D., Brown & Fortunato, P.C. A patient checks her phone on a chilly January morning for lab results. She notices a note labeled: “This communication was generated by an artificial intelligence tool. She wonders: “Who, or what, is advising me?” This reaction captures a microcosm of the modern healthcare experience—where advanced algorithms increasingly shape patient interactions, while policymakers race to ensure these tools serve...
The shadow of standard oil: How petroleum byproducts may be fueling our health crisis
May 22, 20259 min
BY Hasan Yasin, MD, Assistant Professor, UTMB and Samuel Mathis, MD, Assistant Professor, UTMB “When you know better, you do better.” – Maya Angelou The legacy of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil and the subsequent proliferation of petroleum-derived products have left an indelible mark on modern medicine and public health. As clinicians, it is essential to recognize how the omnipresence of petrochemicals, ranging from pharmaceutical precursors to food additives and plastics, may be contributing to...
Congress should be careful with Medicaid. Lives are at stake.
May 22, 20256 min
BY John Hawkins, President and CEO, THA Since talk of a major congressional budget package began several months ago, our Texas Hospital Association has been stressing that Medicaid – the source of health coverage for more than 4 million Texans – couldn’t handle a seismic and sudden upset. Based on where things stand at this writing, we’ve made progress. But there’s a long way to go, and the future of Medicaid funding in...
UT MD Anderson and Texas Children’s Hospital announce $150 million gift from Kinder Foundation to launch Kinder Children’s Cancer Center
May 22, 20257 min
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Texas Children’s Hospital announced a $150 million gift from Kinder Foundation. The transformational gift creates Kinder Children’s Cancer Center, a joint venture of UT MD Anderson Cancer Center and Texas Children’s Hospital, with a single mission: to end childhood cancer. The gift is one of the largest philanthropic donations made to an American pediatric hospital and one of the largest in the history of the Texas Medical Center (TMC). With this...
Researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch joined a multi-center team in conducting the largest randomized clinical trial to date on testosterone therapy in women recovering from hip fractures, finding that the hormone treatment did not improve physical function compared to supervised exercise alone. The STEP-HI study is the largest such study of testosterone administration to women following a fracture of the hip. Hip fractures are the most serious type of osteoporotic fracture,...
Pancreatic cancer is notoriously difficult to treat, resulting in a five-year survival rate of roughly 12%. Approximately half of patients develop metastases shortly after diagnosis, but the biological mechanisms driving spread to specific organs are not fully understood. To provide insights, Linghua Wang, M.D., Ph.D., Anirban Maitra, M.B.B.S., and colleagues generated a comprehensive spatial atlas using 55 samples of primary tumors and metastases collected from 13 patients with advanced pancreatic cancer undergoing rapid autopsy. The researchers focused...
Lung cancer is often diagnosed at late stages, making treatment challenging. To understand its early development, researchers led by Bo Zhu, Ph.D., Jia Wu, Ph.D., Alexandre Reuben, Ph.D., and Jianjun Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., used imaging mass cytometry to map the spatial tumor microenvironment across 114 lung cancers and precancers. They found a gradual shift from innate to adaptive immune responses as lesions progressed to more invasive cancer. High levels of TIM-3, an immune checkpoint marker, were found in precancers but dropped off in more...
Novel combination provides more effective treatment option for mantle cell lymphoma
May 22, 20251 min
The latest treatment for mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) – an aggressive and incurable B-cell lymphoma – includes Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitors such as acalabrutinib. Acalabrutinib is a second-generation BTK inhibitor with high specificity. In the Phase III international ECHO trial, researchers led by Michael Wang, M.D., evaluated adding either acalabrutinib or placebo to the standard of care for 598 patients with MCL. At a median follow-up of 44.9 months, the median progression-free survival (PFS) was 66.4 months...