Alzheimer’s dis­ease has af­flict­ed Han­nah Richard­son’s fam­i­ly for gen­er­a­tions. A rare ge­net­ic mu­ta­tion, passed down from her great-grand­moth­er, has struck her rel­a­tives with the first signs of mem­o­ry loss at an av­er­age age of 39. Last year, her un­cle died with de­men­tia at 42. Her moth­er, now the same age, is in the mod­er­ate stages of the dis­ease.

Richard­son, 24, has joined a clin­i­cal tri­al hop­ing to avoid the same fate. She will be one of the youngest peo­ple ever to re­ceive an ex­per­i­men­tal drug in­tend­ed to pre­vent de­men­tia-linked amy­loid plaques from build­ing up in the first place.

“I knew im­me­di­ate­ly I want­ed to be a part of it,” she told End­points News in an in­ter­view.

Sen. Bill Cas­sidy (R-LA) vot­ed to ad­vance Robert F Kennedy Jr.’s nom­i­na­tion for HHS sec­re­tary to the full Sen­ate, a key show of sup­port from one of the nom­i­nee's most vo­cal crit­ics on the Re­pub­li­can side.

His de­ci­sion, part of a 14-13 com­mit­tee vote along par­ty lines, is a pos­i­tive sign for Kennedy’s prospects in a full floor vote. Fi­nance Com­mit­tee Chair­man Mike Crapo (R-ID) sig­naled last week that the larg­er Sen­ate vote could come at the end of this week.

"I’ve had very in­tense con­ver­sa­tions with Bob­by and the White House over the week­end and even this morn­ing," Cas­sidy tweet­ed ahead of the vote. "I want to thank VP JD specif­i­cal­ly for his hon­est coun­sel. With the se­ri­ous com­mit­ments I’ve re­ceived from the ad­min­is­tra­tion and the op­por­tu­ni­ty to make progress on the is­sues we agree on like healthy foods and a pro-Amer­i­can agen­da, I will vote yes."

At long last, the FDA ap­proved Su­per­nus Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals’ Parkin­son’s dis­ease treat­ment, which will be mar­ket­ed as On­ap­go.

On­ap­go is now ap­proved to treat mo­tor fluc­tu­a­tions in adults with ad­vanced Parkin­son’s dis­ease. Pre­vi­ous­ly known as SPN-830, the ther­a­py is ad­min­is­tered us­ing a pump that con­tin­u­ous­ly de­liv­ers apo­mor­phine, a drug used to treat what’s known as “off” episodes in Parkin­son’s dis­ease. That’s when Parkin­son’s symp­toms, like stiff­ness or tremors, af­fect pa­tients be­tween dos­es of med­ica­tion such as lev­odopa.

In a Phase 3 study, On­ap­go re­duced the amount of dai­ly "off" time by 2.6 hours com­pared to 0.9 hours with place­bo at 12 weeks.

Su­per­nus said On­ap­go will be avail­able in the US in the sec­ond quar­ter of this year. The com­pa­ny did not im­me­di­ate­ly dis­close the price of the treat­ment. Its stock SUPN was up about 5% on Tues­day morn­ing.

Plus, news about Au­ron Ther­a­peu­tics, Akribion Ther­a­peu­tics, En­ver­ic Bio­sciences and Va­le­rio Ther­a­peu­tics:

Turn­stone Bi­o­log­ics to dis­con­tin­ue TIL stud­ies, “re­view strate­gic al­ter­na­tives”: The com­pa­ny an­nounced it will dis­con­tin­ue stud­ies of TIDAL-01, its ex­per­i­men­tal tu­mor-in­fil­trat­ing lym­pho­cyte ther­a­py for sol­id tu­mors, and seek “strate­gic al­ter­na­tives,” such as a sale, merg­er or li­cens­ing deal. Turn­stone al­so said it is again lay­ing off staff. Back in Oc­to­ber, it laid off 60% of its work­force and sev­er­al ex­ec­u­tives stepped down. The biotech went pub­lic in Ju­ly 2023 with a $75 mil­lion ini­tial pub­lic of­fer­ing. — Lei Lei Wu

GH Re­search plans to raise $150 mil­lion: It dis­closed the pub­lic of­fer­ing af­ter shar­ing promis­ing mid-stage da­ta for its psy­che­del­ic treat­ment in some pa­tients with de­pres­sion. — Jaimy Lee