The Most Exciting Month of Medical Breakthroughs in Years
6/16/202659 min
For years, scientists worried that medical progress was slowing down. Drug development became more expensive than ever with more complex clinical trials, and even then, many new treatments offered only modest gains. But over the past month, a series of breakthroughs has raised hopes that medicine may be entering a new era.
Researchers unveiled a massively promising new therapy for pancreatic cancer, a gene-editing treatment that could dramatically reduce the risk of heart disease, and an experimental obesity drug that not only produces unprecedented weight loss but also improves a huge range of related conditions. Cancer and heart disease are America’s two biggest killers, but if these treatments fulfill their promise, they could transform public health and extend millions of lives.
Today’s guest is Matthew Herper, senior writer at STAT News. We discuss this remarkable month in medicine, why so many advances are arriving at once, and what they could mean for the future of human health.
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Host: Derek Thompson
Guest: Matthew Herper
Producer: Devon Baroldi
Additional Production Support: Ben Glicksman
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First 90 secondsDerek Thompson· Host0:00
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Derek Thompson· Host1:04
Today, a miracle month in medicine. There's a famous quote often attributed to Vladimir Lenin, that, "There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen." For the last few years, I've spoken to so many scientists who told me they were deeply, deeply frustrated that America was moving too slowly on solving the most important diseases, especially cancer and Alzheimer's. The cost of developing