Week in Review: July 15

By Samantha Rossi • July 15, 2022

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The Week in Review provides an overview of the past week’s top health care content, including industry news and trends, Mayo Clinic and Mayo Clinic Laboratories news, and upcoming events.

Industry News

FDA to authorize Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine

The FDA is expected to authorize the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine as early as today. The authorization is expected to be for a primary immunization series and authorities hope that it’s more traditional protein-based technology might be more appealing to COVID-19 vaccine holdouts. Source: Politico

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Newsom announces California will produce its own ‘low cost’ insulin

Governor Gavin Newsom announced yesterday that California would be producing its own “low cost” insulin, thanks to a provision in the state’s recently enacted budget. $100 million will go towards developing the insulin and manufacturing it in California. Source: The Hill

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Latest organ transplant milestone: Pig hearts to brain-dead patients

Doctors at NYU Langone Health have taken another step toward making pig organs available for transplant, by successfully implanting pig hearts into two newly deceased people. Brain-dead patients can be used to gather information not safely collected on the living and offer doctors an opportunity to practice before implanting gene-edited pig organs into live people. The deceased patients used in the procedures were declared brain dead and their family members donated their bodies to the research. Source: USA Today

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Mayo Clinic News

New dominant COVID-19 variant most transmissible yet, health officials say

Mayo Clinic is also finding BA.5 to be more contagious — making the vaccine one of the best defenses against it. “If there’s really high amounts of antibodies that are elicited from recent vaccination or recent infection, it can help prevent the virus from causing an infection or causing disease,” Dr. Matt Binnicker, director of virology with Mayo Clinic said, adding: “That’s why it’s going to be important to get that second booster.” Source: KSTP

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New drug shows real promise against Celiac disease

Dr. Joseph Murray, a gastroenterologist at the Mayo Clinic, called the findings "encouraging." The trial "proves that blocking this key enzyme is feasible," said Murray, who is also a medical advisor to the Celiac Disease Foundation. Whether that will also lessen patients' symptoms and improve their quality of life remains to be seen in larger studies, Murray said. Source: Health Day

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FL surpasses 100 Monkeypox infections amid expansion of screening tests

Florida monkeypox cases have climbed to 105 across ten different counties. The most cases have been reported in Broward County with 67. Source: Florida Pheonix

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Samantha Rossi

Samantha Rossi is a Digital Marketing Manager at Mayo Clinic Laboratories. She supports marketing strategies for product management and specialty testing. Samantha has worked at Mayo Clinic since 2019.