Chemomab Therapeutics, Ltd. (Nasdaq: CMMB) (Chemomab), a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of innovative therapeutics for fibrotic and inflammatory diseases with high unmet need, today reported top-line results from its Phase 2a trial assessing CM-101, its first-in-class CCL24-neutralizing monoclonal antibody, in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) patients. The trial met its primary endpoint of safety and tolerability, and CM-101 achieved reductions in secondary endpoints that include a range of liver fibrosis biomarkers and physiologic assessments measured at baseline and at week 20.
The randomized, placebo-controlled trial enrolled 23 NASH patients with stage F1c, F2 and F3 disease who were randomized to receive either CM-101 or placebo. Patients received eight doses of 5 mg/kg of CM-101 or placebo, administered by subcutaneous (SC) injection once every two weeks, for a treatment period of 16 weeks. This trial was primarily designed to assess the subcutaneous formulation of CM-101 and to evaluate the drug's impact on liver fibrosis biomarkers relevant to both NASH and the rare fibro-inflammatory conditions that represent the focus for the company, such as primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) and systemic sclerosis (SSc).
Following the publication of a research report by Richard Vosser, JP Morgan lowers its recommendation to Neutral versus Buying. The target price is reduced from EUR 77 to EUR 60.
Health Net and Community Health System announced they will continue their long-standing partnership to serve residents ofFresno county. Community's complete continuum of services will continue to be available to existing and future Health Net members enrolled in commercial, Medicare and Medi-Cal plans.
Community Health System is the largest health system in the Central Valley and includes Community Medical Centers (its hospitals and clinics), as well as a health plan and a physician network of 380 and growing. Community Medical Centers operates three major, acute-care hospitals—Community Regional Medical Center in downtown Fresno, Clovis Community Medical Center in Clovis, and the Fresno Heart & Surgical Hospital in northeast Fresno, as well as Community Behavioral Health Center.
"We are proud to work with Community Health System to continue to provide vital health services to our members in the Central Valley," said Paul Pakuckas, Health Plan Development and Contracting Officer at Health Net. "This significant partnership solidifies our long-term commitment to continuity of care for residents of Fresno County."
Medi-Cal beneficiaries in Fresno, Kings and Madera Counties will continue to have access to CMC through CalViva Health. CalViva Health is the local initiative health plan for Medi-Cal managed care in Fresno, Kings and Madera counties. CalViva Health is a full-service health plan contracting with the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) to provide services to Medi-Cal managed care enrollees under the Two-Plan model in all ZIP codes in Fresno, Kings and Madera counties. CalViva Health contracts with Health Net to provide certain administrative and health care services to CalViva Health members on CalViva's behalf.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr will fly to Beijing on Tuesday for a three-day visit, during which he is expected to discuss, among other things, Beijing's activities in the disputed South China Sea that Manila describes as illegal.
Speaking ahead of his flight, Marcos said he looked forward to meeting President Xi Jinping and that "the issues between our two countries are problems that do not belong between two friends such as the Philippines and China".
This will be the second face-to-face meeting between Marcos and Xi after their November meeting in Thailand, and comes as the Philippines has raised concerns over reported Chinese construction activities and the "swarming" of Beijing's vessels in disputed waters of the South China Sea.
Last week, a Philippine foreign ministry official said talks with Xi would include China's actions in the South China Sea.
China's foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin on Friday did not mention the South China Sea but said the visit "will focus on an in-depth exchange of views on bilateral relations and regional and international issues of common concern".
It will promote cooperation in agriculture, infrastructure, energy and culture to create a "golden era", Wang said.
Analysts expect Marcos to use the trip to help rebalance his country's foreign policy, which under previous leader Rodrigo Duterte moved closer to China and away from the United States.
While the Philippines is a defence ally of the United States, under Duterte it set aside a territorial spat over the South China Sea in exchange for Chinese investment.
Beijing claims much of the South China Sea, where about $3 trillion in ship-borne trade passes annually, with the area becoming a flashpoint for Chinese and U.S. tensions around naval operations.
In an address last May, Marcos vowed he would not lose an inch of Philippine territory to any foreign power, drawing cheers from advocates of a 2016 arbitral ruling invalidating China's expansive claims in the South China Sea.
Since Marcos, the son of the late strongman who fled into exile in Hawaii during a 1986 "people power" uprising, came into office, he has twice met with U.S. President Joe Biden abroad.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Vice President Kamala Harris also visited the Southeast Asian country last year and assured Manila that Washington would defend the Philippines if it were attacked in the South China Sea.
Marcos is clearly "inching away from the extreme pivot to China", Renato Cruz De Castro, an international affairs analyst at De La Salle University in Manila, said.
But while De Castro expects the South China Sea issue to be brought up, he does not expect Beijing to alter its position.
"At the end of the day, China's goal is to force us to accept the fait accompli, that they will be operating within our exclusive economic zone," De Castro said.
A peer-reviewed study published by National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers in the eBioMedicine journal on Monday reveals that adequately hydrated individuals could live longer and develop fewer age-related chronic diseases.
"The results suggest that proper hydration may slow down aging and prolong a disease-free life," Natalia Dmitrieva, Ph.D., the study's lead author and researcher in the Laboratory of Cardiovascular Regenerative Medicine at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of NIH, said in a statement.
Dmitrieva and her team used health data spanning three decades of 11,255 adults and analyzed their serum sodium levels which fluctuate with fluid intake. Consuming more fluid will lower serum sodium levels. They found that adults with higher sodium levels were more prone to develop chronic illnesses and show signs of advanced biological aging than those with lower sodium levels. Adults with higher sodium levels were more susceptible to death at a younger age.
Serum sodium levels above 142 mEq/L increased the risk of chronic diseases like heart failure, stroke, atrial fibrillation, peripheral artery disease, chronic lung disease, diabetes, and dementia by up to 64%. But adults with serum sodium levels between 138-140 mEq/L had a much lower risk of such fatal diseases.
"People whose serum sodium is 142 mEq/L or higher would benefit from evaluation of their fluid intake," Dmitrieva said. She added that most people could increase their fluid intake to reduce sodium levels.
According to the National Academy of Medicine, men should ingest 125 ounces of water daily, and women consume 91 ounces.
Dmitrieva said her findings don't prove a causal effect, and randomized, controlled clinical trials are needed to understand if proper hydration can promote healthy aging, prevent diseases, and lead to a longer life.
Sandra Pippa woke in a panic in the middle of the night six years ago — anxious her son still wasn’t home from celebrating his 29th birthday.
“Oh please don’t be mad at me for being late. I’m on the train. I’m coming home,” Pippa recalled her son, Dorian, responding to her frantic 4:30 a.m. text.
“And then, he didn’t… He never did make it,” she told The Post recently. “It’s as if I knew.”
Dorian died moments after the exchange — found in the bathroom of a Metro-North train by NYPD officers — having taken a small but fatal dose of fentanyl that was cut into another drug without his knowledge.
At the time, his story was few and far between, but in the years since his death in 2016, fatal fentanyl-fueled overdoses have become all too common in New York.
The synthetic opioid — which is at least 50 times more powerful than morphine and flows into the states from the southern border — has driven a surge of drug deaths across the country.
In the Big Apple, authorities say it can now be found in nearly every illegal pill or drug peddled on the street.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said NYC Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan, who worked as a homicide prosecutor during the surge of crack in the city in the late 1980s, and early 90s.
Dorian Pippa was killed by a small but lethal dose of fentanyl
More than 2,800 New Yorkers died of a drug overdose — the vast majority involving fentanyl — over a 12-month span ending in July 2022, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That’s a 125% increase from 2016 when Dorian died.
For the first nine months of 2022, EMS workers rushed to the scene for more than 7,500 calls for overdose, which is on pace to double the tally for the year compared to 2018, according to FDNY data.
“The effect of this drug and the loss that people have suffered because of fentanyl is tremendous and it’s really widespread,” Brennan told The Post.
“It just cuts across everything, age, demographic,” she said. “And it’s just heartbreaking.”
‘Integrated’ in the drug supply
Cutting drugs with another substance to make them stronger is nothing new for dealers, but the highly addictive fentanyl — which can kill with an amount equivalent to just 10 to 20 grains of salt — has created a new drug epidemic.
The pills have been flooding the country with the DEA already seizing 379 million lethal doses of fentanyl this year — double the amount of last year.DEA
Just over a year ago, three Manhattan professionals died on a single day in the winter of 2021 after buying what they believed was cocaine from an illicit, DoorDash-style drug delivery service.
They had no idea the trio of dealers — who were busted by the feds last year — had laced the coke they were buying with a dose of fentanyl that proved deadly.
Frank Tarentino, the Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s New York Office, said these type of fatal overdoses have become the norm — with the synthetic opioid being responsible for almost two of every three OD deaths across the country, according to the most recent federal data.
In New York City, that figure is even higher, with fentanyl accounting for 81% of drug deaths over the 12-month span ending in July 2022.
The new trend, according to the DEA head, is what they are calling fentanyl-laced fake prescription pills.Drug Enforcement Agency
“That’s a ridiculous amount of overdoses and poisonings caused by one manmade synthetic opioids, like fentanyl,” said Tarentino.
He pointed the finger at two Mexican cartels — the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco Cartel — for the flood of drugs that is primarily sourced from China.
Fentanyl has proved to be a boon for dealers thanks to its inexpensive price tag and the ease at which the cartels can manufacture the drug, unlike heroin or cocaine.
So much so, said Brennan, that in New York City it has essentially replaced heroin as the primary street drug.
“It’s so integrated into the drug supply, you really can’t trust any drug that you’re buying on the street,” said Brennan.
The crack epidemic “was nothing like this.”
“The flood of drugs that is coming in [the city] seems to be unending, and it keeps morphing, and now it’s morphing into different forms of fentanyl,” she said.
According to a study by the DEA released in December, six out of 10 fake prescription pills seized and analyzed across the country in 2022 contained a fatal dose of fentanyl. In 2021, it was four in 10.
The new trend, according to Tarentino, is what the agency calls fentanyl-laced fake prescription pills — such as Xanax, Percocet or 30-milligram oxycodone pills — being mass-produced by the Cartels.
“Unfortunately for the opioid-naive and the substance-use dependent people that are out there they are unsuspectingly purchasing pills that have the lethal dose of fentanyl in them,” said Tarentino.
The fake pills have been flooding the country with the DEA already seizing 379 million lethal doses of fentanyl last year — double the amount of in 2021.
“It’s incredible,” said Tarentino.
Dorian Pippa died just hours after turning 29 years old from a fatal dose of fentanyl
Dorian Pippa was found in the bathroom of a Metro-North train by NYPD officers.
Path to addiction
Dorian’s struggle with addiction started when he attended the State University of New York as an undergrad trying to find his way and studying social sciences, his mother said.
“It was with oxy first,” said Pippa, referring to the strong painkiller oxycodone. “The dealers are just giving it to the kids, you know? And then he got very into it.”
An avid music fan who loved the band Phish, Dorian was in and out of rehab for years and “struggled for a long time,” his mom said.
In the time leading up to his death on Aug. 6, 2016, Dorian had been clean.
Alex Sutton died at 30 years old from fentanyl poisoning
“He was battling his addiction and was actually quite proud of being able to fight it off,” said Pippa.
But that night, Pippa said Dorian was in an “emotional state” after getting into it with his friends and he went out to buy heroin.
“I don’t know who he hooked up with. I never did find out,” she said. “But he got something with fentanyl in it.”
Dorian’s drug progression, from prescription pills to heroin, is a well-documented addict’s path due to the opioid epidemic.
But with fentanyl replacing heroin as the dominant street drug, addicts are now forced to go down a new, much more dangerous road, Brennan told The Post.
“I would say was not a choice of the people who use the drugs,” the special narcotics prosecutor said. “It was a choice of the drug suppliers.”
Not just in New York City
“I’ll never forget it was Sunday was a very windy day… I got a text from him at one in the morning saying, ‘I love you. I’ll see you tomorrow,'” Suffolk County resident Carole Trottere recently recalled.
Hours later on April 8, 2018, police showed up at her home, telling her her 30-year-old son Alex Sutton had died of a drug overdose in an apartment in Nassau County, having been poisoned by fentanyl.
“He had died at seven in the morning approximately, but I didn’t find out until late in the afternoon,” said Trottere.
“You know, ironically… everyone was sort of also pleased [in 2018] the rate of overdose deaths was down, but that’s little solace,” she said.
Alex was among the just under 2,300 people who died of a drug overdose between May 2017 and April 2018 in the state outside of New York City, according to the CDC.
That figure has since climbed to above 3,000, where it has hovered since July 2021, the CDC data shows.
Sen. Peter Harckham has focused on overdose prevention in the state Senate.New York State Senate
“It’s not just New York City it’s little communities like North Salem, New York. It’s every corner of the state people who are using without near fatal implications in past years,” state Sen. Peter Harckham (D-Hudson Valley) told The Post.
Harckham said he doesn’t see a solution to stem the tainted supply of drugs and has tried to focus on death prevention through fentanyl testing strips and overdose centers.
“It’s a constant multi-point effort,” he said. “It’s shoring up treatment and harm reduction treatment and getting more mental health treatment facilities up.”
Across the country, drug deaths have nearly doubled since 2016.
As of July, 102,429 people have died of an overdose in the US, according to the CDC data. In 2016, it was 58,525.
“If not for COVID, what we’re going through right now with fentanyl would be the number one health crisis in the past 100 years,” Trottere recalled a New York City Medical Examiner saying at a DEA summit for victims’ families.
“And I feel like, the majority of the population is kind of ignoring it.”
