AstraZeneca Wins Pfizer Patent Battle Over Cancer Drug

 On July 09, 2026, a U.S. appeals court confirmed a previous decision in favor of AstraZeneca AZN regarding claims that its popular lung cancer treatment, Tagrisso, violated patents held by Wyeth, a subsidiary of Pfizer. The ruling from the Federal Circuit Court, based in Washington, aligns with a prior judgment made by a federal judge in Delaware, who also deemed the patents in question to be invalid.

The recent ruling in favor of AstraZeneca regarding its lung cancer treatment, Tagrisso, is significant as it clears the company of patent infringement claims that could have impacted its market position and revenue from this critical drug. Tagrisso has been a cornerstone of AstraZeneca's oncology portfolio, contributing significantly to its revenue and market presence. The decision not only validates AstraZeneca's intellectual property strategy but also reinforces its commitment to providing innovative treatments in the oncology sector.

https://www.gurufocus.com/news/8952127/astrazeneca-azn-wins-patent-dispute-over-tagrisso

US, Japan, And South Korea Push SMR Exports For "Energy Security Needs"

 The American nuclear buildout is not just about the climate or powering data centers. It's a geopolitical war against the export of nuclear technology from Russia and China, mixed with a new demand for national energy security.

On the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Ankara, the United States, Japan, and South Korea signed a trilateral Memorandum of Cooperation aimed at accelerating small modular reactor (SMR) deployments in other countries, with an initial focus on the Indo-Pacific. The agreement is designed to bring together the complementary strengths of the three countries’ civil nuclear industries.

The US State Department also notes, “The MOC advances our mutual security interests and paves the way for partner countries to meet their energy security needs.”

In addition to deploying reactors in the Indo-Pacific, the initiative is also supported by the U.S. committing over $10 million in new funding to the State Department's Foundational Infrastructure for Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor Technology (FIRST) Program.

Lastly, the U.S. also announced an industry initiative agreed upon with GE Vernova and their partner Hitachi, with Samsung C&T and SGE to deploy the BWRX-300 SMR in Europe. 

The U.S. is continuing its trend, started after the executive orders were signed last year, of deploying American nuclear technology in foreign countries. In the executive orders, the State Department was directed to renew or start 20 civil nuclear cooperation agreements, sometimes referred to as “123 Agreements”. 

The goal is to strengthen U.S. political ties with allies and other countries in Europe and Asia by supporting those countries' domestic energy security needs.  

The reactor export story also has a fuel-chain counterpart. More allied SMR deployments would eventually require more allied fuel supply, and that is where companies like Centrus Energy and General Matter become relevant.

Centrus already has a direct South Korea connection. In 2025, Centrus announced that it had expanded its agreement with Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power and POSCO International, including higher low-enriched uranium supply volumes tied to new enrichment capacity at the American Centrifuge Plant in Ohio. 

The supply commitment remains contingent on Centrus receiving the necessary federal funding to build that capacity, but as we clearly identified just last week, Centrus should reasonably expect to receive whatever financial support they ask for from the federal government at this point.  

General Matter adds another piece to the same puzzle. In March, the Export-Import Bank of the United States issued Letters of Interest supporting up to $4.2 billion in potential financing for nuclear fuel sales by General Matter to nuclear power operators in Japan and South Korea.

The new US-Japan-Korea framework does not name a reactor developer, but it can be reasonably expected that GE Vernova (GEV) will lead the pack given its connection to all three countries. The framework does create a backdrop for additional US-aligned advanced reactor developers trying to work with Asian industrial partners.

NANO has already started building that lane in South Korea. In January, the company signed an MOU with DS Dansuk to advance potential deployment of its KRONOS MMR system in South Korea. Under the agreement, DS Dansuk is expected to help with site identification, supply-chain localization, regulatory engagement, and institutional partnerships.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/us-japan-and-south-korea-push-smr-exports-energy-security-needs

Liver Transplant Studies Retracted Over Organ Harvesting Concerns

 Two Chinese studies related to liver transplantation published more than a decade ago in the Journal of Hepatology were retracted by the journal's editors.

The editors said concerns were raised that the transplants described in both studies may have involved organs "procured unethically."

The first study -- "Association between donor and recipient TCF7L2 gene polymorphisms and the risk of new-onset diabetes mellitus after liver transplantation in a Han Chinese population" -- was published in October 2012 and retracted this week. In the retraction notice, the editors said they had asked the study's authors to:

• Provide evidence of ethical approval from an appropriate Institutional Review Board that pre-dated the start of the research
• Provide evidence of the source of donor organs and confirmation that they were obtained with informed consent and not from executed prisoners or trafficked individuals
• Confirm whether the research involved organs from living or deceased donors
• Clarify whether the study complied with relevant international standards

In the retraction notice for the second study, "Safe use of liver grafts from hepatitis B surface antigen positive donors in liver transplantation," which was published in October 2014 and retracted last month, the editors said they asked for similar documentation.

In both cases, the authors failed to provide the necessary documents or meet the evidentiary requirements in guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics or the organ provenance policy from Elsevier, which publishes the Journal of Hepatology.

"The journal is strongly against the use of human organs or tissues from any individual where appropriate consent has not been obtained," the editors wrote. "Given that the editor has outstanding concerns regarding insufficient documentation of ethical organ provenance and appropriate ethical approval, they have made the decision to retract the article in accordance with Elsevier policies."

The retraction notices directly referenced a review article published in BMJ Open in 2019, in which researchers led by Wendy Rogers, PhD, of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, called for the mass retraction of 445 scientific papers on organ transplantation published in 173 journals -- including the two studies retracted by the Journal of Hepatology -- over fears that the organs were obtained unethically from Chinese prisoners, "pending investigation of individual papers."

Last year, Retraction Watch published an article describing how journals have been slow to "clear the record," despite a number of new retractions.

In an email to MedPage Today, Rogers noted that Elsevier's research ethics policy states that the source of organs or tissues used in research "must be transparent and traceable and must not be sourced from executed prisoners or prisoners of conscience, consistent with recommendations" from the not-for-profit Global Rights Compliance (GRC).

"We've been contacting journals with the GRC advice and this is triggering a new round of retractions," Rogers said.

Meanwhile, allegations persist that China continues to unethically harvest organs for transplant, despite an announcement in 2015 that it had banned the use of prisoners' organs as the major source of organ donations.

"We have no evidence China has stopped forced organ harvesting," Rogers pointed out. "There continue to be high numbers of transplants with significant doubt that the voluntary system can supply enough organs."

In 2019, a tribunal initiated by the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China ruled that evidence suggests the practice has not stopped.

The International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation issued a statement in 2022 on transplant ethics, noting that it was boycotting studies relating to transplantation that involve organs or tissue sourced from China, given "the body of evidence that the government of the People's Republic of China stands alone in continuing to systematically support the procurement of organs or tissue from executed prisoners."

Various U.S. congressional committees have held hearings on the subject. Last year, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) introduced the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act, which was passed in the House by a vote of 406-1, but stalled in the Senate.

Earlier this year, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) introduced a separate but related bill -- the Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act -- which would impose sanctions on those responsible for organ harvesting in China and directs the Secretary of State to report to Congress on the Chinese organ harvesting policies and transplant system.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/gastroenterology/livertransplantation/122124

HHS Moves to Create List of COVID Vaccine Injuries

 HHS is paving the way to create an injury table for COVID countermeasures -- such as vaccines -- under the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).

The Health Resources and Services Administration posted a notice that it will introduce a proposed rule in November to establish the injury table, with the comment period ending in January 2027.

Currently, only two CICP injury tables exist: one for smallpox and another for pandemic influenza H1N1. While people who believe they've been harmed by other countermeasures, including those for COVID, can still file a claim with the CICP, the burden of proof of injury is much higher.

Having an injury table would lessen that burden, experts said, which wouldn't be a bad thing for well-established COVID countermeasure-related injuries, such as myocarditis following mRNA vaccination, or thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome after the Janssen vaccine.

However, there are concerns that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would add "more speculative or weakly supported conditions," said Richard H. Hughes IV, the lead attorney on the American Academy of Pediatrics' lawsuit against Kennedy's changes to the pediatric vaccine schedule.

"If HHS listed broad neurologic syndromes, POTS/dysautonomia, chronic fatigue-type conditions, autoimmune conditions, sudden cardiac death theories, or loosely defined 'vaccine injury' categories without strong evidence, that could be used to claim that the federal government has affirmed causation," Hughes wrote in an email to MedPage Today.

"A compensation table should not be converted into a vehicle for validating unsupported injury narratives," he added.

Kennedy has long been threatening to revamp a sister program, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP).

Last year, Kennedy said in a post on X that he would "fix" the VICP as it has "devolved into a morass of inefficiency, favoritism, and outright corruption."

He has since taken steps to do so. In late 2025, HHS convened a hasty end-of-year meeting of the VICP's Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines (ACCV), which advises on VICP policies and procedures, including its injury table. The group is supposed to meet four times per year, but that was its only meeting in 2025.

At the beginning of this year, Kennedy removed at least four members of the ACCV, leading some to suspect he was reshaping that panel as he has with numerous other HHS agency advisory groups.

Kennedy also revived a dormant childhood vaccine safety task force that ended its work almost 30 years ago. It was supposed to work closely with the ACCV, but there appears to be little activity since it was announced almost a year ago.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19vaccine/122126

US not conducting strikes amid reports of blasts in Iran, official says - CNN

 

The US military is not currently conducting strikes, a US official told CNN, after explosions were heard in southeastern Iran.

https://www.iranintl.com/en/liveblog/202607049017

New blasts heard across southern Iran

 Local residents reported hearing multiple explosions across southern Iran, the country's Mehr News Agency announced on Thursday.

The news outlet shared that two explosions were heard near the Bushehr nuclear power plant as well as in the cities of Konarak and Chabahar, located in Sistan and Baluchestan province. Mehr also reported blasts in the port city of Bandar Abbas, which Iranian state television promptly denied.

Furthermore, several media outlets quoted officials from the United States, denying any involvement in the current wave of attacks on Iran.

https://breakingthenews.net/Article/New-blasts-heard-across-southern-Iran/66669627

'Israel TV: US unlikely to ask Israel to rejoin Iran campaign'

 The United States does not plan to include Israel in its renewed campaign against Iran, Israel's Channel 12 reported on Thursday.

According to US officials, Washington is preparing for the option that the renewed clashes might last longer. US President Donald Trump is allegedly about to welcome national security representatives at the Oval Office of the White House to review all the possibilities.

Previously, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz stressed that his country is ready to resume the campaign against Iran if necessary.

https://breakingthenews.net/Article/US-unlikely-to-ask-Israel-to-rejoin-Iran-campaign/66669376