In this week’s edition of InnovationRx, we look at Immuneering’s slow-and-steady approach to cancer fighting, litigation over vaccine limits, venture funding for digital health, and more. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here.
In a roughly 57-minute video, a white-haired man in a checkered shirt sits in a blurred hallway. He speaks slowly: “With Donald Trump taking the White House and RFK Jr. now positioned to dismantle the uniparty’s corrupt FDA …. multibillion dollar drug conglomerates, some of Big Pharma’s oldest and most prominent, will be in a desperate race to flood our nation with poison.” The man urges “seniors like you and me” to join the online “Health Sciences Institute,” where they can learn about alleged “remarkable medical breakthroughs” that the government and pharmaceutical companies “have been intentionally hiding.” (The Institute’s website contains a disclaimer that its content should not be interpreted as personal medical advice.)
The man’s video is one of many of longform advertisements produced by The Agora and its sprawling conglomerate of subsidiaries, which have spent decades cashing in on Americans’ growing distrust in government, financial institutions and healthcare providers.
The Agora makes its money by selling subscriptions to “natural health” newsletters that are a vector for its wellness supplements business, as well as investment advice newsletters that can cost thousands of dollars a year. It says it is a “1.5bn+ company,” while the consumer protection group Truth in Advertising estimates it pulled in approximately $500 million in revenue in 2021. its subsidiaries pour millions each month into advertising on Facebook and Instagram. Agora-related channels have more than 100 million views on YouTube, and the company’s top-performing newsletters boast millions of subscribers.
But a Forbes investigation into hundreds of Agora-linked ads and opaque social media accounts—and interviews with six people who have worked for Agora companies—reveal a company that has found success by misleading vulnerable people. Despite regulatory actions from the FTC in recent years, the Agora seems poised to continue its practices at a moment when Trump has gutted consumer protection enforcement and mistrust in institutions is at an all-time high. As Truth in Advertising executive director Bonnie Patten told Forbes: “This is the perfect storm for a company like Agora to manipulate consumers in the U.S.”
A Slow And Steady Approach To Cancer Fighting
When someone is first diagnosed with cancer, the first clinical response is often to treat it hard and fast to eliminate cancer cells as quickly as possible. This can often work, but it can also hit patients with challenging side effects from chemotherapy or radiation. And some cancers have a high risk of recurrence, forcing patients to go through treatment all over again when it comes back.
Ben Zeskind, cofounder and CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based Immuneering, told Forbes that his biotech firm approaches cancer differently. “Our goal is not necessarily to kill the cancer, but rather to keep the cancer from killing the patient,” he said. He likens the approach to that of HIV infection, where medicines have turned a once-fatal disease into a chronic, but controllable one.
Immuneering’s experimental drug atebimetinib is a once-daily pill that inhibits the MEK pathway, a chain of proteins that is crucial for tumor cell growth. After a patient takes the drug, it works for just a few hours before dissipating, by design. Immuneering’s research determined that cancer cells begin developing resistance to drugs after about 24 hours of continuous exposure. By keeping the drug’s time in the body limited, Immuneering aims to keep it working for years–and to limit its side effects. “Essentially it shrinks the tumors more slowly, but more steadily,” Zeskind said.
Last month, the company released results from a phase 2 study of the drug in pancreatic cancer patients. The data showed that 94% of patients survived after six months on the drug in combination with standard treatment, compared to 67% survival under the current standard of care, while 72% showed progression-free survival. Apart from a risk of anemia, patients reported fewer side effects than standard pancreatic cancer medications.
Immuneering, which was founded in 2008, is a microcap stock, whose shares have cratered since its 2021 IPO. But since announcing these results, its stock has more than doubled, to $4 a share, giving it a market cap of $144 million.
Zeskind said the company hopes to start phase 3 clinical trials next year. And it’s also exploring partnerships with larger pharmaceutical companies, such as one it signed earlier this year with Regeneron to explore atebimetinib in combination with immunotherapies.
BIOTECH AND PHARMA
Merck agreed to buy Verona Pharma for about $10 billion in an effort to expand its portfolio beyond its blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda. Verona’s treatments for respiratory disease include a newly approved therapy, called Ohtuvayre, for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Keytruda, the world’s top selling drug, with nearly $30 billion in revenue, faces patent expirations in 2028.
Plus: Regeneron received FDA accelerated approval for its antibody drug, Lynozyfic, to treat patients with the blood cancer multiple myeloma that have unsuccessfully received four other cancer treatments.
DIGITAL HEALTH AND AI
Digital health startups raked in $6.4 billion in venture funding in the first half of 2025, according to venture firm Rock Health’s midyear funding report. That’s a modest increase over last year, when these startups brought in $6 billion. This year saw fewer–but larger–deals compared to 2024. Among those raising megarounds to date: Abridge, Innovaccer, Hippocratic AI, Qventus, Truveta, Commure, Persivia and Tennr.
MEDICAL DEVICES
Robotics startup Mendaera received FDA clearance for its handheld robotic system, called Focalist, to enhance ultrasound guided needle placement in a variety of medical procedures, starting with urology. Mendaera was cofounded by two former employees of medical robotics pioneer Auris Health (acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 2019 for approximately $3.4 billion) and has raised a total of $99 million in venture funding, according to VC database PitchBook.
PUBLIC HEALTH AND HOSPITALS
Six leading medical organizations sued the federal Department of Health and Human Services and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for limiting access to vaccines. In a suit filed in federal court in western Massachusetts on Monday, the groups charged that recent limits placed on vaccines were unscientific and harmful to the general public. The lawsuit seeks to overturn RFK Jr.’s May decision to limit the shots for children and pregnant women, a reversal of the government’s previous recommendation, which the suing groups say has made it difficult for some pregnant women to get vaccinated.
Plus: A hospital in rural Nebraska will close after more than 30 years, citing the federal cuts to Medicaid as a reason.
WHAT WE’RE READING
Healthcare workers now represent 13% of the workforce. But growth in the industry could slow because of the cuts to Medicaid and other healthcare funding in the Republican tax and spending bill.
In the wake of a federal judge’s ruling that many terminated NIH grants were illegal, they’re being reinstated almost entirely in blue states.
U.S. measles cases hit a 33-year high, with 1,277 confirmed cases across 38 states and Washington, D.C. as the outbreak keeps spreading, according to Johns Hopkins data.
Investor Kevin Tang’s Concentra Biosciences continues its buying spree of struggling biotechs with Cargo Therapeutics, just a week after agreeing to purchase IGM Biosciences.
Stat looks inside the staff exodus and tanking morale that threaten Marty Makary’s FDA.
