💊 GSK's RSV shot approved in the UK; Coloplast gets up to fishy business; Varda makes drugs in space

#380 | Eating right for your heart; Exercising for your liver; GenZ falling prey to misinformation

Hello and welcome back to The Kable for a refreshingly light and uneventful day.

For starters, the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has approved GSK’s Arexvy shot against RSV for use in adults 60 years and over. This vaccine already has the go-ahead from regulators in the US and EU.

Sumitomo Pharma is integrating its seven US subsidiaries and letting go of 62 people in New York City in the process.

Denmark’s Coloplast is up to some fishy business. It is buying Iceland-based Kerecis, a wound care company which uses fish skin to develop tissue-transplant products to treat burns, surgical wounds and more. This deal is worth 8.9 billion Danish kroner (~ $1.3 billion).

Making drugs on Earth is so yesterday. California-based startup Varda Space Industries hitched a ride aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and successfully grew crystals of HIV drug Ritonavir in a space trial.

In Malaysia, mosquitoes are feasting and how. The total number of dengue fever cases up to July this year has seen quite the upward spike. From 24,743 cases recorded for the same time last year, the tally this year is up 139% at 59,057 cases. The death rate has also gone up 122%.

In Thailand, too, dengue cases have shot up to almost thrice that recorded for the same period last year. 27,377 cases and 33 deaths were recorded up to June 28 this year.

And finally, in China, four mpox cases were reported on Friday in the cities of Changsha and Tianjin. This brings mainland China’s cumulative case tally to 10.