In this week’s edition of InnovationRx, we look at how tariffs could hit medical devices, a gene therapy company that helps blind kids see again, Stand Up for Science rallies, AbbVie gets into weight loss, and more. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here.
Forty-three days into Donald Trump’s second term in office, and tariff policy is about as chaotic as the cutbacks by DOGE. Trump enacted some of the tariffs he campaigned on Tuesday morning, including 25% tariffs against U.S. allies and major trading partners Canada and Mexico. The Mexico tariffs could have a heavy impact on medical device manufacturers because many devices are made in Mexico. That’s why earlier this month, the Advanced Medical Technology Association, which represents major manufacturers including GE HealthCare and Philips, urged the Trump Administration to carve out an exemption for medical devices and forecast possible critical shortages without it.
By Tuesday afternoon, however, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was on TV saying that Trump could offer some relief on Mexican and Canadian goods as soon as today. Whether or not that pans out, or which goods might be impacted, the uncertainty leaves manufacturers in a tough spot because changing supply chains takes time.
All three countries that have been hit with tariffs have retaliated in ways that could impact U.S. companies, too. One immediate impact: China has banned the import of gene sequencers from biotech company Illumina. The impact of Trump’s trade war has tanked markets, with the S&P 500 falling 3% this week (through Tuesday’s close).
Meanwhile, top officials at the State Department warned the Trump Administration’s that its slash-and-burn policy at USAID would result in hundreds of thousands of deaths, reported ProPublica. The top officials estimated that the casualties would include up to 166,000 deaths from malaria, a 30% rise in new tuberculosis cases, 200,000 children paralyzed by polio over the next decade and more than a million children left untreated for severe malnutrition.
Closer to home, HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr. tepidly suggested vaccination as a response to ongoing measles outbreaks in a Fox News editorial that drew criticism from doctors and public health experts for calling the decision to vaccinate “a personal one.” Meanwhile, key vaccine meetings at both the CDC and FDA have been postponed and the Wall Street Journal reported that Kennedy plans to revamp the staffing of their advisory committees. The impact on this year’s flu vaccine is unclear; manufacturers could choose to follow the guidelines from the World Health Organization, however they typically depend on input from the U.S. government’s vaccine advisory committees, which also help determine which vaccines will be covered by insurance. Kennedy is reviewing and considering pulling a $590 million contract with Moderna to develop vaccines against avian flu, according to Bloomberg, and suspended a $461 million contract with Vaxart to create an oral Covid-19 vaccine.
This Founder’s Gene Therapy Company Helped Blind Kids See Again
Each year, hundreds of children are born legally blind because of a genetic disorder that degrades their retinas. Though some can distinguish between light and dark early on, a defect in their AIPL1 gene leaves most without sight by the time they turn four. The disorder has long been considered irreversible.
But that’s no longer true. A new gene therapy from publicly traded company MeiraGTx has managed to do something unprecedented: It’s given eyesight to 11 children who were born blind.
Surgeons at Moorsfield Eye Hospital and University College London injected the retinas of kids born with the AIPL1 defect with an MeiraGTx therapy that introduces a correct version of the gene, which causes their bodies to produce the mechanisms that enable sight. Within weeks they were able to see for the first time. Now, years later they all are capable of reading, coloring and playing like other children with the aid of glasses.
“These were blind kids and now they run around and find rooms. They can read letters. They can read numbers,” said Zandy Forbes, 60, the founder and CEO of MeiraGTx. The therapy is one of several the company is working on to treat eye-related disorders and other conditions such as Parkinson’s, obesity and xerostomia.
Read more at Forbes.
PUBLIC HEALTH AND HOSPITALS
Since Donald Trump took office, there have been a barrage of attacks on scientists and scientific funding. In response, a group of early-career scientists has organized a Stand Up for Science rally in Washington, D.C. this Friday, March 7, with 31 official satellite rallies in cities that include Boston, Chicago, Nashville, New York, Pittsburgh and Seattle. The group’s goals include secure scientific funding, an end to censorship and political interference in science, and the defense of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
“The reason I set this whole thing up is it was surprising to me that we hadn’t taken to the streets,” Colette Delawalla, a Ph.D. student in clinical psychology at Emory University who is one of the lead organizers, told Forbes.
She said that at least a few thousand people are expected to join the rally at the Lincoln Memorial. Francis Collins, the long-time former director of the National Institutes of Health, who abruptly retired on Saturday, will be among the lineup of some 30 speakers now being finalized. “It has really taken off,” Delawalla said. “I was going to be excited if 500 people turned up to yell in D.C. and the fact that it has taken off the way it has is really crazy.”
BIOTECH AND PHARMA
Biotech giant AbbVie is getting into the weight-loss space. On Monday, it announced that it had signed a licensing deal worth up to $2.2 billion with Danish company Gubra to bring a long-lasting amylin drug, delivered by injection, to market. The obesity market is growing fast and dominated by GLP-1 drugs from Novo Nordisk (which makes Ozempic and Wegovy) and Eli Lilly (Zepbound and Mounjaro). In a December note to investors, Leerink Partners called amylin “the hottest new mechanism for obesity.” Gubra’s GUB014295 is currently in a phase 1 clinical trial. AbbVie will pay $350 million upfront, with an additional $1.875 billion based on milestones. AbbVie shares are up 2.3% so far this week (through Tuesday’s close), while the S&P 500 index is down 3% in the same period.
MEDTECH
Medical tech company Paragonix announced last week that its KidneyVault had been used on a commercial flight for the first time. This device for the transportation of donor kidneys helps keep the organs at a constant temperature and feeds them nutrients, keeping them in better condition, which results in better clinical results for patients. Conventionally, donor organs are simply kept on ice and are transported on charter flights. The KidneyVault, by contrast, can be used commercially, which CEO and founder Lisa Anderson told Forbes can save thousands of dollars on the cost of flights. The device was cleared by the FDA in October and first used for a transplantation surgery in January. The company also has FDA cleared devices for transporting hearts and livers for transplant, and is currently in clinical trials for lungs.
DEAL OF THE WEEK
Private-equity firm Clearlake Capital is buying a majority stake in healthcare software company ModMed. The deal values the firm at $5.3 billion including debt, making it the most valuable leveraged buyout in the sector this year, according to the Financial Times. Boca Raton, Florida-based ModMed operates electronic health records used by more than 160,000 specialty physicians and surgeons across the U.S. Reuters reported in January that private equity firm Warburg Pincus (which first invested in ModMed in 2017) was soliciting bids for the company and hoped to get more than $5 billion for it, including debt. Cofounder Dan Cane, who had run ModMed since 2010, gained a co-CEO, Joe Harpaz, who had previously been a managing director at Thomson Reuters, in February 2024. Clearlake has more than $90 billion in assets under management.
WHAT WE’RE READING
A New York Times investigation found that officials skipped patients on the waiting list for organ transplants about 20% of the time last year.
When this professor got cancer, he didn’t quit. He taught a class about it.
Medicare and Medicaid agency faces compromised functions and disruptions from the Trump Administration’s haphazard firings and cuts–which could impact the operations of hospitals, healthcare providers and insurance companies.
New treatments in clinical trials are giving hope to patients with pancreatic cancer, which is one of the deadliest cancers.
A Texas official warns against ‘measles parties’ as the growing outbreak in the state has so far resulted in 146 cases, 20 hospitalizations and one death. Meanwhile, New York City reports two confirmed cases of measles.
As more states face doctor shortages, they’re easing licensing rules for foreign-trained physicians.
Biotech startup Callio Therapeutics, which is focused on delivering antibody drug conjugates for multiple drugs, launched with $187 million in venture funding.
Cuts to USAID have slowed the World Health Organization’s response to an unknown illness in Congo that has affected over 1,300 people and caused 53 deaths.
