Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) says when it comes to competing with global biotech, Washington needs to “fix itself and worry less about what China is doing.”

If you care about biotech and drug development watch this interview with Matt Gline, the CEO of Roivant, a biotech firm that is now worth $24 billion. He talks about why he thinks predictions about AI from people like Anthropic’s Dario Amodei are overly optimistic. “If Dario is right and I'm wrong, and he cures every disease in five years, man, are we all the winners from that outcome,” Gline said. “I think if you work in this industry, it is very hard not to be skeptical of any of those claims. Because, and I've said this in other settings recently too, biotech is a wood chipper that like is built to like ingest souls and shred them. It's just like such a hard business that like someone comes and they're like, oh, but I've built a computer and I'm going to push a button and all of that goes away and it just works. Like that is probably not the way that's going to go.”

Former FDA officials blast DOGE as ‘one of the biggest disasters in American history’ statnews.com/2026/10/14/form…

Science editor-in-chief Holden Thorpe gave the day’s first warning about the rise of science in China. He says he can see it in the papers researchers are trying to get published in the top scientific journal he edits. "Submissions from China continue to increase, not just in number but in quality, and submissions from the U.S. are going down,” Thorpe said. He later added: “The atmosphere there (China) is just so much more pro-science than it is here.” Here is a video.

On AI, $ROIV CEO Gline says we are all patients first. But he is skeptical of AI drug development. He mentions claims by the CEO of Anthropic. “if Dario is right and I'm wrong, and he cures every disease in five years, man, are we all the winners from that outcome. Like that's just there's no question. Like I'm rooting for all of that, Gline says. “ “I think if you work in this industry, it is very hard not to be skeptical of any of those claims. Because, and I've said this in other settings recently too, biocheck is a wood chipper that like is built to like ingest souls and shred them.” “ It's just like such a hard business that like someone comes and they're like, oh, but I've built a computer and I'm going to push a button and all of that goes away and it just works. Like that is probably not the way that's going to go.”

MIT’s Sally Kornbluth at #STATSummit: right now MIT is being cautious about funding. Also: Industrial sponsorship of graduate students is interesting. The work around one targeted cancer drug took 40 years…. But industry is not just interested in the research. It is interested in the talent, she says.

Terrible, terrible terrible news. We're bereft to lose @HelenBranswell. She was precise, fair, and prescient, and the world is poorer without her. Helen Branswell, whose reporting on infectious diseases and public health drew acclaim, dies at 69 statnews.com/2026/10/13/hele…