The National Institute for Health and Care Research has opened a GBP £600M funding call for its next cycle of Biomedical Research Centres, covering 2028 to 2033. The 20 existing BRCs, NHS-university partnerships focused on translational research, can each receive up to GBP £50M over five years, with the new round carrying a strengthened remit aligned to the NHS 10-Year Plan and the government's Life Sciences ambition to make the UK Europe's leading life sciences economy by 2030.

Priorities include translational research addressing health inequalities, digitalisation, and community-based care, alongside deeper collaboration with industry partners. Applications close 17 September.

A separate GBP £260M envelope will fund Strategic Infrastructure Partnerships, awards of GBP £6–15M each, designed to connect BRCs, NHS trusts, and life sciences companies on large-scale research challenges. The first SIP will focus on accelerating the shift from hospital to community care settings.

The FDA carries contradictory currents into 2026: genuine scientific momentum in cell and gene therapy development sits alongside mounting concern about the agency's political direction under the Trump administration.

On the positive side, 2025 brought meaningful regulatory progress, new guidance to accelerate cell, gene, and rare disease programmes, alongside the introduction of novel expedited approval pathways that continue to energise the biopharma sector.

But controversy has followed. Moderna halted all late-stage mRNA vaccine development in January, citing policy headwinds, while Pfizer's CEO publicly condemned Health Secretary RFK Jr.'s vaccine stance as "anti-science". Regulatory experts are raising concerns about the Commissioner's National Priority Voucher programme, suggesting potential links to broader Trump administration priorities including drug pricing, a charge that points to deeper questions about agency independence.

As leadership instability persists following the departure of Commissioner Makary, the FDA's ability to maintain scientific credibility through 2026 faces its most serious stress test in years.

For 20 years, Prix Galien USA has honored the breakthroughs shaping the future of healthcare and improving lives worldwide. Often regarded by the industry as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize of biopharmaceutical research, this is where innovation meets impact.

From groundbreaking therapies to life-saving technologies, this is more than an event, it’s a global movement advancing human health.

Follow The Galien Foundation on LinkedIn to stay updated on announcements, speakers, and innovations leading up to the event.

Eli Lilly has struck a research collaboration with Massachusetts-based Ascidian Therapeutics worth up to USD $1.9B, targeting monogenic kidney diseases using Ascidian's RNA exon editing platform. The technology corrects disease-causing gene variants at kilobase scale without altering DNA, offering a potentially durable therapeutic effect while avoiding the risks associated with direct DNA editing.

Under the agreement, Ascidian leads discovery and early preclinical work, while Lilly assumes responsibility for later preclinical development, clinical R&D, manufacturing and commercialisation, retaining exclusive rights to Ascidian's platform for selected kidney targets.

The deal is Lilly's third in a single week, alongside a USD $1.26B GLP-2 licensing agreement with Hanmi and a USD $3B pact with Haisco. It reinforces a broader genetic medicines push that now spans recombinase editing, gene therapy, and RNA-based approaches, all funded by the continued commercial momentum of Lilly's weight loss portfolio.

Akeso's ivonescimab made history at ASCO 2026, becoming the first Chinese-only dataset to command a plenary session slot, delivering an overall survival win in first-line squamous non-small cell lung cancer that reverberated across the oncology world. It was far from alone: Kelun-Biotech's TROP2 ADC sac-TMT, Dizal's Zegfrovy, and Ascentage's olverembatinib all featured prominently, reinforcing what many attendees described as China's definitive arrival as a peer innovator, not merely a fast follower.

The deal flow reflects the shift. Cross-border licensing of Chinese assets rose 120% between 2022 and 2025, with total upfront values jumping 400% to USD $5.6B, leading one analyst to declare China "not a bargain basement anymore." Pfizer, Merck, Takeda and BMS are all deepening structural partnerships, some including co-development terms previously reserved for Western peers.

While many people have heard of the placebo effect, its lesser-known twin – the nocebo effect – may be quietly killing clinical trials.

The nocebo effect is a phenomenon where a person experiences adverse outcomes to a medical treatment that cannot be explained by the pharmacological effects of the treatment1. These can be triggered by verbal suggestions (from both clinicians and other patients), media reports, or through written patient information2. While relatively common in clinical trials, the nocebo effect is rarely discussed and often not taken into account when interpreting trial results2.

The evidence is compelling. In a trial examining the nocebo effect in antidepressant use, over 60% of individuals in the placebo group reported treatment-emergent adverse effects, with nearly 5% dropping out of the trial3. A different study, investigating the prevalence of sexual side effects on finasteride treatment, split participants into two groups: one counselled on the drug’s sexual side effects and one not4. Over 40% of the counselled group reported sexual side effects, compared to only 15% of those who weren’t told to expect them. Consequently, clinician-conveyed information produced measurable, real-world harm to patients, and had a detrimental effect on clinical trials.

The implications for drug development are serious, but often unexamined. Nocebo-inflated adverse event reports may contribute to increased trial dropout, distorted safety conclusions, and may prevent continued investigation of a promising drug. There is not currently any direct evidence that drugs have been abandoned due to the nocebo effect – partly due to limited investigation of failed compounds – but given that ~90% of drugs are failing clinical trials, and tolerability is a common cause, we must ask ourselves: how many nocebo casualties are we misclassifying as pharmacological ones?

Informed consent is non-negotiable, but reevaluating the framing, language, and delivery behind conveying side effect information may significantly affect clinical trials and patient outcomes.

References

1. Colloca L. The Nocebo Effect. Annu Rev Pharmacol Toxicol. 2024;64:171-190. doi:10.1146/annurev-pharmtox-022723-112425

2. Wartolowska K. The nocebo effect as a source of bias in the assessment of treatment effects. F1000Res. 2019;8:5. doi:10.12688/f1000research.17611.2

3. Dodd S, Schacht A, Kelin K, et al. Nocebo effects in the treatment of major depression: results from an individual study participant-level meta-analysis of the placebo arm of duloxetine clinical trials. J Clin Psychiatry. 2015;76(6):702-711. doi:10.4088/JCP.13r08858

4. Mondaini N, Gontero P, Giubilei G, et al. Finasteride 5  mg and Sexual Side Effects: How Many of these are Related to a Nocebo Phenomenon? The Journal of Sexual Medicine. 2007;4(6):1708-1712. doi:10.1111/j.1743-6109.2007.00563.x