Healthcare, Pharma & Life Sciences

SAN MATEO – November 05, 2026 -- Astrosalva Therapeutics, a privately held preclinical biotech developing treatments for Alexander disease and the cerebral form of adrenoleukodystrophy (cALD), has appointed Wendy Erler, Senior Vice President of Patient Affairs at Sarepta Therapeutics, as the first member of its Strategic Advisory Board.

Erler to steer patient engagement and trial planning at Astrosalva

Erler will advise on patient and community engagement strategy. Her remit includes working with existing community natural history registries and bringing patient and caregiver perspectives into future clinical trial planning.

Co-founder and CEO Paul Schmidt said the order of announcements is deliberate: Erler is the first advisor named, because the company wants families to know it is being built around patients and their communities.

Valencia – November 04, 2026 -- ARTHEx Biotech, a clinical-stage RNA therapeutics developer, has appointed Christian (Chris) Freitag, M.D., as Chief Medical Officer, adding more than 20 years of clinical development experience to a pipeline led by ATX-01 for myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1).

Freitag arrives from CMO roles at Azafaros and Dynacure

Freitag most recently served as Chief Medical Officer at Azafaros, which develops treatments for rare genetic disorders. Before that, he was CMO at Dynacure, where he was responsible for medical and regulatory strategy, including clinical development of the company's lead investigational therapy for centronuclear myopathies.

Beijing – November 04, 2026 -- Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals (Stock Code: 603087.SH) reported that once-monthly bofanglutide met the primary endpoint of its Phase IIIb GRADUAL-3 study, holding body weight near baseline over 24 weeks while the placebo group changed by 8.52%.

Both monthly dose groups beat placebo at P0.0001

Mean body-weight changes from baseline were 0.41% in the 24 mg once-monthly group and -0.12% in the 48 mg group, against 8.52% for placebo. Both comparisons reached P0.0001. The primary endpoint was the percentage change in body weight from baseline after 24 weeks.

San Diego – November 04, 2026 -- Circular Genomics and PharmatrophiX have launched a biomarker collaboration that applies blood-based circular RNA (circRNA) profiling to LM11A-31, PharmatrophiX's first-in-class Alzheimer's candidate, with possible extension across the company's neurodegeneration pipeline.

Planned open-label study is the first test of the circRNA platform

The initial workstream centers on PharmatrophiX's planned open-label Alzheimer's biomarker study of LM11A-31, a small molecule targeting the p75 neurotrophin receptor (p75NTR). Circular Genomics will use its research-use-only CircPath platform to characterize baseline molecular heterogeneity and track pathway-level changes during treatment.

Orlando – November 04, 2026 -- A single infusion of high-dose mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) produced treatment responses in nearly half of participants with refractory lupus, more than double the placebo rate, according to a Phase II trial funded by the Lupus Foundation of America (LFA). The results will be presented at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Convergence 2026 in Orlando, November 6-11.

MSC trial results support a confirmatory study

The multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled study (Abstract #LB17) will be presented by Dr. Gary Gilkeson on November 10. Its findings support further evaluation of high-dose MSCs in a confirmatory trial.

Sheridan, Wyoming – November 04, 2026 -- The global ophthalmic equipment market is valued at USD 21.2 billion in 2026 and will reach USD 30.5 billion by 2031, a 7.5% CAGR over 2026-2031, according to a new study by Wissen Research.

Untreated vision loss drives procurement toward two device tiers

The World Health Organization reported in February 2026 that at least 2.2 billion people have a near or distance vision impairment, and that at least 1 billion of those cases could have been treated. Cataracts affect more than 94 million people, and nearly half of those facing cataract-related blindness still lack access to surgery. Global cataract surgical coverage rose by about 15% over two decades, but WHO projects growth of only 8.4% in the current decade.

Wissen finds demand splitting in two: more capable surgical and imaging platforms in hospitals, and lower-cost portable and AI-assisted devices for patients far from specialist eye centres.

HANGZHOU – November 04, 2026 -- TJ Biopharma's GM-CSF antibody plonmarlimab achieved an 83.3% overall response rate at Week 8 in the Phase 2 PRIME-1 study of macrophage activation syndrome (MAS), according to results now published in the Journal of Hematology & Oncology.

PRIME-1 enrolled 18 patients who had failed high-dose glucocorticoids

The open-label, single-arm, multi-center study treated patients who were refractory to, or had relapsed after, high-dose glucocorticoid therapy. Fifteen of 18 patients achieved a complete or partial response. Median time to response was 2.1 weeks, with the earliest response recorded on Day 5.

Gothenburg – November 04, 2026 -- Radiotherapy is applied in as few as 12–22% of radically treated prostate cancer patients in some European national registries, even though nearly all men with non-metastatic disease requiring active treatment are candidates for it under European Association of Urology (EAU) guidelines. Clinicians and Swedish medtech firm Micropos Medical are now pushing to raise awareness of high-precision radiotherapy as an alternative to surgery.

Exton, Pennsylvania – November 04, 2026 -- West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE: WST), which generated $3.07 billion in net sales in fiscal year 2025, will present at the Jefferies Global Healthcare Conference in London on Wednesday, November 18, 2026, at 8:00 a.m. GMT.

West delivers over 41 billion components and devices a year from 50 sites

The injectable drug administration supplier employs more than 10,000 people across 50 sites, including 26 manufacturing facilities worldwide. Its output of over 41 billion components and devices annually serves both established and emerging drug developers, according to the company.

West is headquartered in Exton and is a member of the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO – November 04, 2026 -- IDEAYA Biosciences (NASDAQ: IDYA) will hold an Investor R&D Day in London on Nov. 16, 2026, at 5:00 PM GMT, presenting Phase 1 dose-escalation data for its PRMT5 inhibitor IDE892 and outlining targeted 2027 clinical milestones.

The oncology company will also appear at two sell-side conferences in London that week. CEO Yujiro S. Hata will join a fireside chat at the UBS Global Biopharma Conference on Nov. 16 at 10:40 AM GMT, hosted by Michael Yee. On Nov. 17 at 1:00 PM GMT, Hata, R&D President Michael White and CFO Joshua Bleharski will appear at the Jefferies Global Healthcare Conference, hosted by analyst Maury Raycroft.