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The FDA cleared an investigational new drug application for SZN-8141, a Wnt agonist and VEGF antagonist antibody designed to treat diabetic macular edema, according to a press release from Surrozen.
The clearance will allow the initiation of the phase 1b/2a DUET clinical study, with the first patient expected to be dosed in the fourth quarter.
In the phase 1b portion of the study (part one), patients will be evaluated for 3 months after a single intravitreal injection of SZN-8141 for safety and tolerability “as

Ketamine may enhance the benefits of psychotherapy in treating patients with chronic neuropathic pain, according to a pilot study by researchers with the University of Toronto.
Although ketamine has shown to provide short-term relief in some patients with neuropathic pain, those benefits tend to last days to weeks before waning, said Akash Goel, MD, assistant professor in the department of anesthesiology and pain medicine at the University of Toronto.
Goel said his and his colleagues’ research, published in Med, demonstrates how ketamine and psychotherapy can work together to provide

Underweight children with eczema who received dupilumab saw significant gains in body weight and BMI at 16 weeks compared with placebo, with the greatest gains observed among children aged 2 to 5 years, researchers reported.
The findings, presented at the European Academy of Dermatology and Venerology Congress, build on previous data that showed dupilumab (Dupixent; Sanofi, Regeneron) treatment was associated with improved bone growth and bone mineral density in children with atopic dermatitis.
“This study suggests dupilumab can address an unmet need related to weight and BMI status among

Patients with drug-resistant epilepsy who frequently used cannabis experienced greater disease severity and burden, according to a study published in Epilepsia.
Although cannabis use has become more common, its association with epilepsy has not been well understood, Aaron F. Struck, MD, section chief of adult epilepsy in the department of neurology, Washington University in St. Louis, and colleagues wrote.
“We noted a clinical trend and then discussed it with colleagues around the nation and confirmed that they had also seen a similar pattern,” Struck told Healio.
After investigating previous

Nearly one in four U.S. adults are projected to develop heart failure in their lifetime, and the overall prevalence of the disease is expected to keep rising due to an aging population with increasing comorbidities, researchers reported.
Cost-effective guideline-directed medical therapy use remains low among patients with HF, and healthcare costs for HF are estimated to increase to up to $858 billion annually by 2050, according to the latest iteration of the Heart Failure Society of America’s HF statistics report published in the Journal of Cardiac Failure.
“HF is moving in the wrong direction

More than 90% of oncologists who prescribe chemotherapy drugs such as fluoropyrimidines, thiopurines and irinotecan know genetic variants are linked to adverse events, and more than half perform pharmacogenomic testing before prescribing.
“This is really encouraging,” Stuart A. Scott, PhD, professor of pathology and director of the clinical genomics laboratory at Stanford Medicine, told Healio.
However, survey results also showed approximately half of oncologists who do not order drug-gene testing for these chemotherapy drugs are “unlikely” to do so in the future, and greater than 50% of all

A monoclonal antibody that inhibits myostatin improved preservation of lean mass when combined with once-weekly semaglutide, according to data presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes annual meeting.
In the two-part COURAGE phase 2 trial, researchers assessed change in lean mass for adults with obesity who received once-weekly trevogrumab (Regeneron), an anti-myostatin therapy, in combination with once-weekly subcutaneous semaglutide 2.4 mg (Wegovy, Novo Nordisk).
“One of the purposes [of the study] is that people are interested in maintaining muscle mass, which is an

Over 52 weeks, adults with moderate to very severe eosinophilic COPD receiving tezepelumab vs. placebo had less healthcare resource utilization, according to data presented at the European Respiratory Society International Congress.
Additionally, fewer patients in the tezepelumab (Tezspire; AstraZeneca, Amgen) vs. placebo group received systemic corticosteroids (SCS) for COPD exacerbations, according to researchers.
“Drugs like tezepelumab have [the] potential to decrease use of systemic steroids, decrease healthcare utilization and improve patient morbidity,” Gerard J. Criner, MD, FACP, FACCP,

Biologic recommendations for uncontrolled severe asthma from ChatGPT, Copilot, DeepSeek, Gemini and PerplexityAI poorly agreed with biologic decisions from multidisciplinary team meetings, according to study results.
These data were published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice.
“Current open-source large language models show poor concordance with multidisciplinary team (MDT) decisions and therefore highlight that AI cannot be used as a standalone decision-maker for biologic therapies,” Philipp Suter, MD, research fellow at the Scottish Centre for Respiratory

Diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in medical practice are not just about reaching underserved communities but should also influence who is recruited to care for them.
According to Andy Tau, MD, FACG, FASGE, chair of recruiting at Austin Gastroenterology in Texas, DEI is helping shape the qualities the practice looks for in its next generation of gastroenterologists.
“It is my overt mission statement to try to recruit people in our group who are excellent gastroenterologists, but I also want them to be people who will be willing, as part of their mission statement as gastroenterologists,