fb-pixelBiotech and health care - The Boston Globe Skip to main content
Health and biotech

Latest stories

Patient dies in Sarepta gene therapy trial, adding to safety concerns

The death will likely further stoke safety concerns around Sarepta's gene therapies, as well as raise questions around the company’s transparency.

In latest sign of lab space woes, Wellesley building auctions at big loss
The four-story, 284,000-square-foot office building just off Route 9 was ultimately acquired by its lender.

What is an assisted living facility — and how does it differ from a nursing home?
Assisted living centers are rare in Mass, but many families still don’t know what they offer — or what they don’t.

Juul gets FDA’s OK to keep selling tobacco and menthol e-cigarettes
The move provides relief to a company that has struggled for years after being widely blamed for sparking the teen vaping trend.

ChatGPT saved her life. Psychologists say it could also be dangerous.
Risks posed by unregulated chatbots include misdiagnoses, privacy violations, inappropriate treatments, and exploitation.

Sarepta Therapeutics lays off one-third of workforce in drastic cost-cutting
The drastic cost-cutting move follows the deaths of two teenagers that forced the company to restrict usage of its gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Congress targeted Planned Parenthood for defunding, but also caught a Maine health care provider
Accessing health care in Maine — one of the Northeast’s poorest states and its most rural — is a challenge in areas far from population centers such as Portland and Bangor.

Will RFK Jr.’s push for psychedelic therapy help or hamper the emerging field?
The Trump administration’s embrace of psychedelics has sparked both excitement as well as concern from those in the field.

Biotech

Patient dies in Sarepta gene therapy trial, adding to safety concerns

The death will likely further stoke safety concerns around Sarepta's gene therapies, as well as raise questions around the company’s transparency.

In latest sign of lab space woes, Wellesley building auctions at big loss

The four-story, 284,000-square-foot office building just off Route 9 was ultimately acquired by its lender.

Sarepta Therapeutics lays off one-third of workforce in drastic cost-cutting

The drastic cost-cutting move follows the deaths of two teenagers that forced the company to restrict usage of its gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
Lifestyle

ChatGPT saved her life. Psychologists say it could also be dangerous.

Risks posed by unregulated chatbots include misdiagnoses, privacy violations, inappropriate treatments, and exploitation.

US ice cream makers say they’ll stop using artificial dyes by 2028

The move is the latest voluntary effort by food manufacturers to heed calls from the Trump administration to remove synthetic dyes over concerns about potential health effects.

What long COVID can teach us about future pandemics

In the past five years, COVID has caused serious amounts of chronic illness. Research advances may help not only people facing chronic illnesses today but postinfection syndromes of the future.
Spotlight

How Brigham Health helped create a Chinese hospital for elites — and almost nobody came

In a deal worth millions with Chinese developer Evergrande, a Harvard teaching hospital risked its reputation on what would become a near-empty shell.

Boston’s hospital chiefs moonlight on corporate boards at rates far beyond the national level

Hospital chiefs and trustees defend this as boosting public-private partnerships, but critics say these board positions — some paying millions of dollars — raise troubling issues of conflict of interest and hospital priorities.

More biotech and health care stories

Deadly fire prompts scrutiny of assisted living homes that serve lower income adults

More than 75 percent of Gabriel House residents are enrolled in Medicaid, state officials have said, and it charges significantly less than a typical assisted living facility does for private-paying patients.

Lunenburg goat is the state’s first animal case of West Nile virus this year, state says

The Worcester County town is now at moderate risk for the virus, state public health officials said Tuesday.

US ice cream makers say they’ll stop using artificial dyes by 2028

The move is the latest voluntary effort by food manufacturers to heed calls from the Trump administration to remove synthetic dyes over concerns about potential health effects.

A well-placed biotech investor says US policies are straining life sciences startups

“There’s sort of a boom-type feeling at the moment,” he said about returning to his home country of Germany.

Federal judge reverses rule that would have removed medical debt from credit reports

Removing medical debts from consumer credit reports was expected to increase the credit scores of millions of families by an average of 20 points, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said.

RI BUSINESS

As Rhode Island bets on biotech, Life Science Hub founding chair Neil Steinberg resigns

His successor will inherit an agency with big ambitions, and a limited time to prove its worth. The Hub will face a key funding cliff in 2026.

He was brutally beaten by his son. The experience redefined his life’s purpose.

More than 20 years after the attack, a former New Hampshire Supreme Court justice is driven to raise awareness about mental illness and urge adolescents to seek help.

RI HEALTH

With Newport Hospital’s birthing center at risk amid budget woes, the city council is fired up

Tonight’s council meeting comes after at least 300 women has their annual OB-GYN appointments at Newport Women’s Health Services unexpectedly postponed.