First Opinion is STAT’s platform for interesting, illuminating, and provocative articles about the life sciences writ large, written by biotech insiders, health care workers, researchers, and others. To encourage robust, good-faith discussion about issues raised in First Opinion essays, STAT publishes selected Letters to the Editor received in response to them. You can submit a…
Want to stay on top of the science and politics driving biotech today? Sign up to get our biotech newsletter in your inbox. Today, a win for RFK Jr., as an FDA panel narrowly voted in favor of allowing compounding pharmacies to produce certain unregulated peptides. Also, in heart-wrenching detail, Science writes of the six-year-old girl who died…
Add ThinkChina as a preferred source Technicians assemble humanoid robots at the Lingyi iTech Guangdong Co. Embodied Intelligence Super Factory facility in Beijing, China, on 29 May 2026. (Qilai Shen/Bloomberg) The eminent scientist and sinologist Joseph Needham famously formulated two questions on Chinese science and technology (S&T) in his 1969 book The Great Titration: Science and…
Add ThinkChina as a preferred source Attendees look at the China booth at the BIO International Convention 2026, a meeting of pharmaceutical and biotechnology leaders in San Diego, California, US, on 23 June 2026. (Mike Blake/Reuters) (By Caixin journalist Chen Xi) US lawmakers’ push to scrutinise biotechnology ties with China is unsettling expectations for Chinese…
Want to stay on top of the science and politics driving biotech today? Sign up to get our biotech newsletter in your inbox. Hi from BIO! I’m sitting in the frigid media room here next to STAT’s Brittany Trang, who is writing something scintillating about artificial intelligence. Today, we’ve got Lilly chasing aesthetics with a AI-designed experimental hair loss…
This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on June 8, 2026 – June 14, 2026 In “The political economy of modern capitalism” (The Edge, June 1, 2026), I argued that modern economic systems are ultimately shaped less by ideology than by the incentives embedded within them — incentives that determine how savings are…
China’s rapid rise in science has hit a milestone. The country’s investment in research and development has reached parity with – and by purchasing power measures has surpassed – that of the United States, according to a March 2026 report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Both nations have crossed the US$1 trillion…
Credit: ZME Science. China’s rapid rise in science has hit a milestone. The country’s investment in research and development has reached parity with – and by purchasing power measures has surpassed – that of the United States, according to a March 2026 report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Both nations have crossed…
Want to stay on top of the science and politics driving biotech today? Sign up to get our biotech newsletter in your inbox. The NIH’s foreign subaward crackdown is scrambling global collaborations, while China’s rapid ascent is reshaping drug development. Meanwhile, Wave Life Sciences sheds half its value on underwhelming obesity results. Also, breaking: I’m adopting a rogue…
Scientists spent the first weeks of the year on an expedition to Antarctica to study Thwaites Glacier, which is melting at an alarming rate. If it breaks apart entirely, it could push up global sea levels by two feet over the course of several decades, affecting tens of millions worldwide, according to a New York…