Monday, 8 June 2026 edition — The Vital Record

In brief

• Biotech Business Roche pays Nurix $700M upfront for investigational BTK degrader, in pact worth up to $2.3B The Swiss pharma takes a co-development stake in bexobrutideg, an oral protein degrader being tested head-to-head against pirtobrutinib in a Phase 3 leukemia trial.
• FDA & Regulatory FDA approves first PROTAC degrader, narrowing it to ESR1-mutated breast cancer after the overall trial missed In VERITAC-2, vepdegestrant more than doubled median progression-free survival versus fulvestrant in the ESR1-mutated subgroup but missed in the full trial population, and it carries QTc and pregnancy warnings.
• Research Add-on CagriSema lowers HbA1c 1.7 points beyond placebo on basal insulin in phase 3 REIMAGINE 3 In a short, small, placebo-controlled trial of 274 adults, Novo Nordisk's investigational cagrilintide-semaglutide combination (CagriSema) — not approved for any use — cut HbA1c by 1.7 points more than placebo and trimmed weight 10–12% with no added hypoglycemia, but was not tested against intensified insulin.
• Clinical Trials J&J ends its aticaprant relapse-prevention trial with two patients randomized VENTURA-5 (NCT06635135) was terminated for insufficient efficacy, the registry confirms — a formality after the Phase 3 depression program had already failed.
• Devices & Diagnostics FDA warns of Omnipod cannula tear that can quietly cut off insulin — sometimes with no alarm Insulet is correcting roughly 7 million Pods across three Omnipod lines after reports the tubing can tear above the skin, leaking insulin — sometimes without any alert.
• Biotech Business Incyte to buy a Phase 3 bleeding-disorder antibody for $1.25B in cash The Wilmington drugmaker is acquiring Star Therapeutics' Vega unit and its investigational von Willebrand candidate VGA039, with sales milestones that could lift the deal to $2.0 billion.
• Research In a phase 3 trial, the GLP-1 pill orforglipron cut HbA1c about 1.1 points beyond placebo when added to titrated basal insulin In ACHIEVE-5, 546 adults with type 2 diabetes on titrated insulin glargine took Eli Lilly's once-daily oral orforglipron — approved for weight loss but still investigational for diabetes — and gained better glycemic control and modest weight loss over placebo, without more clinically significant hypoglycemia; gastrointestinal events were the main adverse effect and led up to 9.6% of treated patients to discontinue.
• Research Base editing of human embryos avoids the chromosomal damage seen with CRISPR-Cas9, Columbia preprint reports A bioRxiv preprint (not peer reviewed) reports efficient base editing and blastocyst development without the aneuploidy and large deletions seen in Cas9 embryo work — and renewed ethical alarm.
• Clinical Trials Merck stopped its sotatercept PAH trial early — for benefit, not failure HYPERION, a Phase 3 trial of sotatercept (Winrevair) added to background therapy in WHO Group 1 PAH, was halted for "loss of clinical equipoise"; interim data at closure show a hazard ratio of 0.24 for clinical worsening — read as a trial stopped early, not a completed event-driven analysis.
• Clinical Trials Phase 3 trial of investigational low-dose tamoxifen pauses to enlarge, registry shows The Alliance/NCI LoTam trial is testing — not confirming — whether an unproven, lower tamoxifen dose works for some early breast cancers; no results exist, and the registry now lists it as suspended to amend the protocol and add patients.