Wednesday, June 11, 2025
OKYO First Treatment for Neuropathic Corneal Pain?
OKYO Pharma (NASDAQ: OKYO), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, announced that CEO Gary S. Jacob will present at the Bio International Convention 2025 in Boston. The presentation will focus on urcosimod, the company's lead clinical drug candidate being developed to treat neuropathic corneal pain (NCP). NCP is a severe ocular condition affecting tens of thousands globally, causing chronic and severe eye discomfort, with no current FDA-approved treatment. The presentation will take place during the convention scheduled for June 16-19, 2025, at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center.
Kazia Paxalisib Successfully Combats Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Resistance in Preclinical
Kazia Therapeutics (NASDAQ: KZIA) has unveiled groundbreaking preclinical research published in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics demonstrating that its lead drug paxalisib shows promise in treating triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). The study, conducted at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, revealed that paxalisib can effectively reprogram the tumor microenvironment and enhance immune response when combined with immunotherapy. Key findings show that paxalisib's dual targeting of PI3K and mTOR inhibits cancer cell growth, increases T cell infiltration, and demonstrates synergistic antitumor activity when combined with KEYTRUDA, leading to tumor regression in preclinical models. The company has already initiated a Phase 1b clinical trial testing paxalisib in combination with checkpoint inhibitors and chemotherapy for advanced breast cancer, with the first patient dosed.
Catheter Precision, Inc. Secures VIVO Purchase Order From Sahlgrenska University Hospital
Catheter Precision, Inc. (VTAK - NYSE/American), a US based medical device company focused on developing technologically advanced products for the cardiac electrophysiology market announced receipt of the first purchase order for their VIVO product from Sweden.
This newest purchase order comes from Sahlgrenska University Hospital, the largest hospital in Sweden with 350,000 patients per year. It is also the largest ventricular ablation program in the region.
“We are very excited to partner with Sahlgrenska University Hospital”, said David Jenkins, CEO of Catheter Precision, Inc. “Not only does this hospital perform many ventricular ablation procedures per year, but they are also a committed teaching hospital. Creating strong partnerships with teaching hospitals enables new physicians to be trained with our products and creating a new opportunity for future sales when that physician leaves the teaching institution.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/catheter-precision-inc-secures-vivo-123000530.html
Trump shows he called Newsom during LA riots as gov claims wasn’t ‘even a voicemail’
President Donald Trump hit back at Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s claims that the president did not recently call him, telling Fox News he spoke to the governor for about 16 minutes on Saturday.
Trump told Fox News Tuesday while traveling to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, that Newsom did not pick up his first call over the weekend, but that he picked up the second call and the pair spoke for about 16 minutes on Saturday.
“I told him to, essentially, ‘Get his ass in gear,’ and stop the riots, which were out of control,” Trump said Tuesday. “More than anything else, this shows what a liar he is – said I never called.”
Trump provided a screenshot of the phone call dated June 7 at 1:23 a.m.
White House director of communications Steven Cheung added in comment to Fox Digital Tuesday afternoon: “The President called Gavin Newsom to tell him to get his ass in gear. The Governor has clearly decided to disgustingly side with the violent rioters instead of protecting Californians. The only liar here is Newsom who continues to fail his state as he prioritizes doing interviews with leftist media to gaslight the public instead of helping his state.”
Earlier Tuesday, Trump held an event addressing wildfire response and prevention from the Oval Office, where he fielded a handful of questions from the media regarding the ongoing anti-ICE riots in Los Angles, telling a reporter he spoke to Newsom “a day ago.”
“A day ago. I called him up to tell him (he’s) got to do a better job. He’s done a bad job,” Trump said.
In a response post on X, Newsom claimed Trump did not call him or leave a voicemail in the past day.
“There was no call. Not even a voicemail. Americans should be alarmed that a President deploying Marines onto our streets doesn’t even know who he’s talking to,” Newsom posted to X Tuesday afternoon, accompanied by video of Trump in the Oval Office.
“This call is from 3 days ago,” the governor’s press office added on X following the White House’s pushback on Newsom’s claim that Trump did not call.
Newsom’s office added in an email to Fox News Digital Tuesday that: “The Governor’s comment is clearly in regards to the President’s comment this morning of ‘a day ago,’” adding that Newsom had already confirmed his Saturday phone call in a media interview on Sunday.
Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gardon added in a comment to the Sacramento Bee Tuesday: “I just personally looked through the governor’s phone. No missed call. No voicemail. Nothing. The last time they spoke was Friday when the governor called him.”
Los Angeles descended into violent riots Friday when federal immigration officials converged on the city to carry out raids targeting illegal immigrants. Local leaders such as Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Newsom, however, quickly denounced the raids in public statements while offering words of support for illegal immigrants in the state.
Protests over the raids soon devolved into violence as rioters targeted and launched attacks on federal law enforcement officials.
Trump announced Saturday that he was deploying 2,000 National Guard troops to help quell the violence. The Trump administration also deployed hundreds of U.S. Marines to respond to anti-immigration chaos on Monday evening as the violence continued.
“If I didn’t ‘SEND IN THE TROOPS’ to Los Angeles the last three nights, that once beautiful and great City would be burning to the ground right now,” Trump posted to Truth Social on Tuesday morning.
Rolls-Royce CEO Defends Call to Drop Electric Aviation Program
Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc’s chief executive officer defended his decision to exit the flying taxi business, saying higher costs for the electric aircraft dented prospects and regulatory challenges had slowed their rollout.
“What I’ve seen is that the market is getting pushed to the right all the time,” Tufan Erginbilgic said Wednesday at an event in London.
"Temporary Disruptions": Cyberattack On Whole Foods Supplier Sparks Store Shortages
North American grocery wholesaler United Natural Foods (UNFI), the primary distributor for Whole Foods Market, has been hit by a cyberattack that temporarily paralyzed U.S. operations. The company is working to restore systems by the weekend. The disruption has already led to reports of empty shelves at some Whole Foods locations due to delayed shipments.
Last Thursday, UNFI revealed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it "activated its incident response plan and implemented containment measures, including proactively taking certain systems offline," after uncovering unauthorized network activity on its systems.
"The incident has caused, and is expected to continue to cause, temporary disruptions to the Company's business operations," the Form 8-K continued, adding, "The Company is working actively to assess, mitigate, and remediate the incident with the assistance of third-party cybersecurity professionals and has notified law enforcement."
Fast forward to Monday, UNFI told customers in an email obtained by Bloomberg that it was "working toward the goal of returning to full operational capacity by Sunday or sooner," while apologizing for the disruption.
What's happened so far (via Bloomberg):
Operations Halted: UNFI shut down all business systems, including ordering and shipping, after detecting intruders in its network.
Customer Impact: Forklift operators were sent home, and some resumed work using pen-and-paper systems. Clients like National Co+op Grocers made special requests to keep top-selling products moving.
Response: UNFI is working with cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike and has reported the incident to the FBI. CEO Sandy Douglas said the situation is being handled by "a strong team of experts."
No Payroll Disruptions Expected.
Whole Foods: Confirmed supply disruptions; shelves in some Manhattan stores were visibly empty.
UNFI CEO Sandy Douglas informed investors during a Tuesday earnings call that intruders had compromised its IT systems, and backend systems related to the supply chain were down.
"We believe we are managing the incident capably with a very strong team of inside and outside professionals, including specialized experts," Douglas said, adding, "We will continue to keep our customers, suppliers and associates regularly updated on our progress and next steps."
Bloomberg reported that at least one Whole Foods location in Manhattan had partially empty shelves as a result of the disruption.
X users report disruptions...
Tech blog BleepingComputer noted about the increasing cyber threats targeting America's food supply chain:
UNFI is just the latest company in the food industry to have been breached in recent years. For instance, in March, Walmart-owned warehouse supermarket chain Sam's Club disclosed it was investigating claims of a Clop ransomware breach. Food giant JBS Foods, the world's largest beef producer, also paid an $11 million ransom in 2021 after a REvil ransomware attack forced it to shut down production at multiple sites worldwide.
The key takeaway: UNFI's cyberattack underscores the fragility of the U.S. just-in-time supply chain and its heavy reliance on vulnerable IT infrastructure.
NIH Director Gives More Details On New Government Medical Journal
by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will start a new journal that will help change the culture of science, the agency’s director said in a newly released interview.
“The NIH can stand up and will stand up a journal where these replication results can be published and made searchable in an easy way,” Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said in a four-hour podcast interview with Andrew Huberman, a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine, released on June 9.
Bhattacharya said he envisions people being able to see summaries of similar papers that looked at the same questions.
“A scientific journal put out by the NIH, a high-profile journal will then make publishing replication work a high-profile scientific, high-prestige scientific activity,” he added later.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in May that federal scientists would likely be told to stop publishing in medical journals and, if that happened, the NIH would launch journals that would publish the scientists’ research.
Kennedy said that the existing journals have problems such as not publishing all of the data that underpins studies, while Bhattacharya said the journals will not publish replication research. Both officials have said they want the government to devote resources to replication, with Kennedy estimating that 20 percent of the NIH budget be designated for that purpose.
Replication is the process of taking a study, repeating it, and seeing if the results are the same.
While some scientists conduct meta-analyses, or studies that sum up existing literature on a topic—which could be considered a form of replication—“it’s really difficult to make a career out of doing replication work as a general matter,” Bhattacharya said in the podcast.
Scientists cannot at present earn large grants from the NIH for such work, which means the scientists cannot receive tenure at a top university, he said. That dissuades young scientists from focusing on replication work.
“We don’t reward it. The NIH doesn’t reward it,” Bhattacharya said. “That will change.”
The new journal will also publish negative results, or when scientists try to replicate a study and fail.
Emphasizing replication will make scientific literature more reliable, according to Bhattacharya, including for drug discovery and individual behavior, and will change the culture of science so that it “rewards truth ... rather than influence,” he added later.
Huberman, a neuroscientist, said that he welcomed the new journal and the focus on replication. “Everything you’re saying is very reassuring, and should be reassuring to people,” he said. “It’s music to my ears, frankly.”
The interview was released the same day some NIH employees signed a declaration that called cuts to NIH grants harmful and urged Bhattacharya to restore them. The NIH has terminated more than 2,000 grants totaling some $9.5 billion, as well as $2.6 billion in contracts, the employees said. The Trump administration is also proposing a smaller budget for the NIH in the next fiscal year.
Huberman noted that some grants that were labeled as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) were cut and questioned Bhattacharya on whether the cuts included grants with the word transgenic. Bhattacharya said that there’s been an appeal process set up and researchers whose grants should not have been cut can file with the government. Some grants that were cut have been restored.
The NIH director said that it’s important to carry out research on vulnerable populations, and there are legitimate scientific questions where race or sex matters, such as breast cancer.
“The NIH absolutely supports that kind of research still despite all of the changes,” he said.
Bhattacharya also said that DEI is centered on the idea that structural racism is primarily responsible for the health outcomes of minorities and that he could not think of a scientific experiment that would in principle falsify that idea. Researchers who want to conduct studies based on the idea will not receive funding, he indicated.
“Let’s focus on the mission,” Bhattacharya said. “The mission is how do we advance, how do we make investments in research that advance the health and longevity of the American people ... I don’t believe there’s any place for this sort of race essentialism in it.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/nih-director-gives-more-details-new-government-medical-journal
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