Rowan Walrath
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rowanwalrath.bsky.social
Rowan Walrath
@rowanwalrath.bsky.social
770 followers 1K following 140 posts
Associate editor, life sciences reporter @cenmag.bsky.social. Texan Bostonian. she/her. [email protected]. For sensitive tips, I'm on Signal @rowanwalrath.01 or email [email protected]
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rowanwalrath.bsky.social
Artur Mylin was unfazed when his friend called him in the middle of the night to tell him that the war had begun.
Artur Mylin wears a lab coat and stands for a portrait in an orderly lab space. He stands on one natural leg and one prosthetic leg and holds a cane. An array of flasks, some with stoppers and others without, are on the counter behind him and on the shelves above him. The brown, tiled floor alternates in a pattern of squares, diamonds, and eight-pointed stars.
September 15, 2025 at 3:00 PM
rowanwalrath.bsky.social
By value, 32% of pharmaceutical out-licensing deals worldwide in the first half of 2025 involved China-made assets, up from 21% in 2023 and 2024 and single-digit percentages before that, according to a recent report from the investment firm Jefferies.
Two bar graphs show both the number of deals and total deal size of business development deals in China steadily rising between 2020 and 2024.
September 8, 2025 at 3:31 PM
rowanwalrath.bsky.social
It's no surprise to anyone who's been paying attention that China's biomedical engine is churning out more and more new molecules -- and innovative ones, not just "me-too" drug candidates. 🧵

#chemsky #biosky
A screenshot of an article published in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN). Headline: China's biotech industry is on the rise. Will it reshape US pharma? Dek: Some see molecules from China as an opportunity. Others see a threat to US biotech. Image below text: a hand holding an orange tamper-safe bottle filled with white oblong pills against a red-tinted backdrop of Chinese yuan Key Insights US and European pharmaceutical firms are licensing new drug candidates developed in China at an increasing clip. Some industry watchers see opportunity in China’s biomedical market; others see a threat to biotech. Collaboration may be threatened by geopolitical tensions between the US and China.
September 8, 2025 at 3:31 PM
rowanwalrath.bsky.social
Stifel Biopharma Market Update, April 14, 2025
www.stifel.com/newsletters/...
April 14, 2025 at 8:21 PM
rowanwalrath.bsky.social
HIV, Trans Health, and Covid Research Targeted by Trump Cuts to NIH
www.scientificamerican.com/article/hiv-...
A bar graph titled TERMINATED GRANT TALLY. Subhead: Under President Donald Trump, the US National Institutes of Health has cancelled roughly 770 active research grants as of 7 April. Nearly 29% of the grants terminated were for research that mentioned HIV/AIDS, and about one-quarter of the grants terminated were related to the health of transgender people. Other topic areas that the Trump team has deemed no longer in the interests of the agency are COVID-19 and the effects of climate change on health. Proportion of grants terminated HIV/AIDS related: 28.7% Trans health related: 24.3% COVID-19 related: 17.1% Climate related: 3.5% *Percentages are calculated by searching NIH grant titles and abstracts for key terms such as 'transgender,' 'gender diversity,' 'climate' and 'SARS-CoV-2.' Percentages do not sum to 100% because these topic do not cover all grants cancelled and because there is some overlap between them.
April 14, 2025 at 7:30 PM
rowanwalrath.bsky.social
Today's undergraduate seniors already weathered the COVID-19 pandemic as high school students 5 years ago.
"I didn’t get a prom; I didn’t get my high school graduation; my freshman year of college was fully online. . . . It feels really cruel that these next 4 years, we’re kind of going through a situation that’s limiting us." Anonymous student, applicant who was accepted to a PhD program and then moved to a waitlist
March 18, 2025 at 3:17 PM
rowanwalrath.bsky.social
Not one student graduating from Vanderbilt's Keivan Stassun's lab--nor his colleagues’ labs--has received an offer of admission to a PhD program that has lasted.
"Students who were told they were about to be admitted into a doctoral program . . . are seeing their admissions rescinded and throwing the entire possibility of pursuing advanced study into doubt." Keivan Stassun, physicist, Vanderbilt University
March 18, 2025 at 3:17 PM
rowanwalrath.bsky.social
Uncertainty about federal funding and cuts to university research are already shaping the careers of young people entering the field of chemistry. @cenmag.bsky.social #ChemSky 🧪

🧵
An illustration including a university in the background, two scientists talking while wearing lab coats, and a pair of hands shaking, with red, blue, yellow, and cream lines overlaid to partially obscure them.
March 18, 2025 at 3:17 PM
rowanwalrath.bsky.social
@mileswgriffis.bsky.social wrote it best, in my opinion, in this recent essay for @thesicktimes.bsky.social chronicling half a decade of Long COVID. thesicktimes.org/2025/03/07/h...
None of our understanding about Long COVID today could exist without people with the disease. We filled out thousands of surveys, showing the disease has more than 200 different symptoms. We gave blood and organ samples to researchers. We informed clinicians on what interventions have moved the needle, leading to important clinical trials. We made life-saving support groups and groundbreaking advocacy organizations. We even set up our own research collaborations that have led to scientific breakthroughs.
March 14, 2025 at 5:27 PM
rowanwalrath.bsky.social
@bethanyhalford.bsky.social chronicles a profile in medicinal chemistry. Pfizer scientists are closing in on a new COVID antiviral called ibuzatrelvir, designed to improve upon Paxlovid's drawbacks. cen.acs.org/pharmaceutic...
The chemical structure of ibuzatrelvir.
March 10, 2025 at 2:20 PM
rowanwalrath.bsky.social
Tomorrow will have been 5 years since WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic.

Today, @cenmag.bsky.social is publishing a cover package we're ambitiously describing as The Next 5 Years of COVID-19. 🧵
March 10, 2025 at 2:20 PM
rowanwalrath.bsky.social
Academic researchers want to repurpose drugs for #LongCOVID.

Manufacturers aren’t supplying them. 🧵

#chemsky #scisky #biosky
February 19, 2025 at 7:28 PM
rowanwalrath.bsky.social
In my @cenmag.bsky.social story about RFK's confirmation -- written before the weekend HHS firings -- a former FDA leader points out that the Trump admin may actually end up shooting itself in the foot with these kinds of cuts.
That kind of turnover, and the accompanying loss of institutional knowledge, could undermine Trump and Kennedy's goals, according to Stuart Pape, former associate chief counsel for food at the FDA, who now chairs the FDA practice at the law firm Polsinelli. "If you have a diminished workforce, by definition, you have fewer people who can execute on any strategy, whether conventional or otherwise," Pape says. "The likelihood that you would succeed would also be diminished, because if you're going to try something unconventional, you need experienced people who can help you identify the traps so that you don't walk into them."
February 18, 2025 at 5:37 PM
rowanwalrath.bsky.social
As seen outside of #JPM2025
January 14, 2025 at 1:01 AM
rowanwalrath.bsky.social
About two-thirds of the drugs proposed as interventions were immunomodulatory agents.

The top two were naltrexone (presumably low-dose naltrexone aka LDN) and monoclonal antibodies.
A slide from Geerling showing the types of drugs submitted. 45% were immunomodulatory, 24% were neurological agents, 21% were antiviral agents, 8% were host-directed, and 2% were other. Another slide from Geerling showing the most commonly submitted interventions. 14 were naltrexone, 14 were covid monoclonal antibodies, 6 were nicotine, 6 were rintatolimod, 5 were stellate ganglion nerve block, 4 were plasmapheresis, 4 were IVIG, 4 were hyperbaric oxygen therapy, 4 were rapamycin, 4 were MCAS treatment, and 4 were metformin.
November 21, 2024 at 8:29 PM
rowanwalrath.bsky.social
Most proposed interventions were drugs. No surprise there -- people with Long Covid have been clamoring for trials of pharmaceutical interventions (not exercise therapy, not CBT).
Another screenshot of Geerling presenting a slide, this time breaking down what types of therapeutic agents were submitted. There were 207 drugs, 33 nutrition and diet, 25 manual and physical therapies, 20 devices, and 16 complementary and integrative health approaches.
November 21, 2024 at 8:29 PM
rowanwalrath.bsky.social
A few interesting takeaways from NIH's first RECOVER-TLC meeting about #LongCovid clinical trials since the 3-day workshop in September.

More than 300 submissions to RECOVER-TLC's online portal. Overwhelmingly patients! 🧵
A screenshot of a Zoom presentation. Lizzie Geerling is presenting a slide showing submitter data and insights from RECOVER-TLC's online portal. There were 225 submissions from patients, 35 from universities, 26 from caregivers, 15 from companies, and 12 from research institutes.
November 21, 2024 at 8:29 PM