The FDA has approved olezarsen as the first and only therapy, alongside diet, to lower triglycerides and acute pancreatitis risk in patients with severe hypertriglyceridemia, according to a manufacturer press release.
Olezarsen (Tryngolza, Ionis Pharmaceuticals), an apolipoprotein C-III inhibitor, is administered once monthly by autoinjector and is available in 50 mg and 80 mg doses. As Healio previously reported, olezarsen had been granted FDA orphan drug status in February 2024 for the treatment of familial chylomicronemia syndrome, a rare form of severe hypertriglyceridemia (sHTG).
“I have

DENVER —The largest global, prospective, noninterventional study of faricimab demonstrated “robust, rapid” anatomical improvements in patients with diabetic macular edema, according to a speaker.
The VOYAGER study included real-world data from more than 5,000 patients from 28 countries who were treated with Vabysmo (faricimab, Genentech/Roche) for DME, wet age-related macular degeneration or retinal vein occlusion. Robert P. Finger, MD, PhD, of University of Heidelberg, and colleagues performed a volumetric analysis of intraretinal fluid, subretinal fluid and central subfield thickness over 6

PHOENIX — Referring patients with glaucoma who need cataract surgery to ophthalmologists who do minimally invasive glaucoma surgery can forestall future procedures and lead to better visual outcomes, said a speaker at Optometry’s Meeting.
“This is where you make a difference as an optometrist,” Nora Lee Cothran, OD, FAAO, of the department of glaucoma at the Eye Institute of West Florida, said. “Knowing who’s doing MIGS and who isn’t makes a very big difference in the patient’s outcome.”
In addition to being a proponent of a proactive approach to management with interventional glaucoma care,

The CDC has officially ended its response to the deadly hantavirus outbreak that triggered federal quarantines of American citizens and several weeks of health monitoring.
The agency announced this week that all Americans who were being monitored cleared their 42-day quarantine windows without developing symptoms.
“Everyone is home safe,” Brendan Jackson, MD, MPH, acting director of the CDC’s Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, said during a teleconference with media on Wednesday. “For CDC, this marks the end of a complex public health response that involved partners across

The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled Bayer cannot be sued over state-level claims that the company failed to warn the public about cancer risks from its popular weedkiller Roundup.
The 7-2 decision overturns a Missouri jury’s decision to award $1.25 million to a man who claimed he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma after being exposed to Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, for several years.
The ruling also is a blow to thousands of lawsuits in multiple state courts against Bayer, which acquired previous Roundup maker Monsanto in 2018.
The Environmental Protection Agency regulates

The FDA approved another over-the-counter intranasal naloxone product as an emergency treatment for opioid overdoses, the agency recently announced.
The product, 4 mg Rextovy (naloxone hydrochloride, Amphastar Pharmaceuticals), is the third to be approved by the FDA for OTC use. Narcan (Emergent BioSolutions) and RiVive (Harm Reduction Therapeutics) were approved in 2023.
“Reducing opioid overdose deaths is a top priority for FDA,” Mike Davis MD, PhD, acting director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in a press release. “Today’s approval of an additional

HELSINKI — Many subjective and objective tools are available to support ophthalmologists in making the right treatment decisions for presbyopia, according to a speaker.
“It’s nice to think sometimes about what we had in the past and how far we have come,” Erik Mertens, MD, said at the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons winter meeting.
Mertens provided guidance on how to build a repeatable preoperative workup for presbyopia correction, how to use objective tests to predict quality of vision risk, how to use subjective tools to align expectations and tolerance, and how to

PARK CITY, Utah — Due to the physical and psychological risks associated with early sport specialization, a presenter at the International Extreme Sports Medicine Congress said not all young athletes should specialize in a sport early.
“The key for sports for kids is that we want to make sure we are encouraging healthy activity across a lifespan,” Jordan D. Metzl, MD, from Hospital for Special Surgery, told Healio. “The risk of specialization in sport is that we are trying to put a lot of resources and a lot of pressure in a small number of kids, and that can sometimes

The FDA has approved sacituzumab govitecan-hziy as first-line therapy for adults with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer across PD-L1 status.
Sacituzumab govitecan-hziy (Trodelvy, Gilead Sciences) — a TROP2-directed antibody-drug conjugate — received approval as a single agent for patients who are not eligible for PD-1 or PD-L1 inhibitors, and in combination with pembrolizumab (Keytruda, Merck), or pembrolizumab and berahyaluronidase alfa-pmph (Keytruda Qlex, Merck), for those whose tumors express PD-L1, as determined by an FDA-authorized test.
“For people

One in 3 people with vitiligo who attended a follow-up appointment reported not receiving any treatment, according to a study published in JAMA Dermatology.
This finding was consistent regardless of body surface area involvement, the authors reported.
“These findings suggest possible limited long-term options for vitiligo,” Genevieve Gauthier, MSc, lead investigator for the study and medical evidence development dermatology lead with Pfizer, told Healio. “Roughly 27% to 32% of patients are going untreated, and those who are treated tend to stay on therapy for a short period of time.”
Using the