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Antipsychotic Drug Recalled Due to Mix-up With Antifungal Medication: FDA
Thousands of bottles of a popular antipsychotic drug used to treat schizophrenia and major depressive disorder are being recalled across the United States due to a product mix-up, the FDA announced.
Aripiprazole tablets, commonly known by the brand name Abilify, are being recalled because they were inadvertently mixed with the antifungal medication Voriconazole.
The recall was voluntarily issued by Ajanta Pharma USA Inc., based in New Jersey, according to an FDA announcement obtained by PIX11 News.
Aripiprazole is often used to treat mental health conditions such as bipolar I disorder, major depressive disorder, and schizophrenia. Voriconazole is often used to treat serious fungal or yeast infections, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Will Weak Gardasil Sales Continue to Ail MRK’s Vaccines Sales in 2026?
Sales of Merck’s MRK second-largest product, Gardasil, which is a vaccine approved to prevent certain cancers caused by the human papillomavirus, have been declining for some time now. While the vaccine’s sales grew steadily through 2022, it started witnessing sluggish sales from 2024.
Gardasil sales plunged 22% to $1.07 billion in the first quarter of 2026. Sales of Gardasil are declining due to weak performance in China, which resulted from weak demand trends amid an economic slowdown.
Lower demand in China resulted in above-normal channel inventory levels at Merck’s commercialization partner in China, Zhifei. As a result, Merck decided to temporarily halt shipments of Gardasil in China to allow Zhifei to burn down existing inventory. The company is also seeing lower demand for the vaccine in Japan, with sales not expected to improve in 2026. Management does not expect Gardasil sales to improve in 2026.
FDA to Launch Pilot Program to Speed up Early-Stage Clinical Trials
Federal health officials announced a pilot program Monday to speed up early-stage clinical trials, which they say will reduce development timelines by six to 12 months, in hopes of encouraging U.S.-based trials and combating Chinese dominance in the field.
The pilot comes as the Food and Drug Administration, through the president’s 2027 fiscal budget, asks Congress to establish a permanent, faster process for the existing Investigational New Drug pathway. That proposal was championed by former FDA Commissioner Marty Makary before he resigned last month, though officials said on a Monday morning call that this program had been in the works since the start of the administration.
In a Fox News op-ed, health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote that the U.S. is “losing ground” against China in clinical research and touted the actions as a way to reverse that trend.
Buildings May Soon Have ‘Immune Systems’ That Fight Airborne Disease
Linsey Marr, an environmental engineer, stood next to a pair of clear plastic boxes packed with tubes, nozzles and electronics, an odd-looking prototype that one day might serve to protect children in day care from airborne pathogens. A nozzle filled the right-hand box with a faint silvery mist. A pump pulled some of that air into the left-hand box, where a sampler trapped floating particles and droplets. Soon, a digital screen bolted to the box turned red: “Detected! Dust mite allergen Der f 1.”
A protein shed by dust mites, Der f 1 can trigger asthma attacks when inhaled. Dr. Marr’s device had detected 843 picograms of Der f 1 per cubic meter. A single grain of salt is about 10 million times as heavy. “Before this instrument, it would have taken us two days to figure out how much was in the air,” Dr. Marr said. “Now we’re doing it almost in real time.”
Dust mite allergens are not the only threats that Dr. Marr’s team aims to fish from the air. The technology, still evolving, can already sniff out influenza, the coronavirus and E. coli. “We have 10 different things that we’re able to detect, and by the end of the program, there will be 25 different things,” she said.
Psilocybin Combined With Psychotherapy Demonstrates Antidepressant Effects Over a 12-Month Period
Psilocybin combined with psychotherapy can lead to long-term improvements in depressive symptoms in people with treatment-resistant depression. This has been shown by a recently published long-term follow-up study conducted by the Central Institute of Mental Health (CIMH), Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the MIND Foundation. The antidepressant effects persisted for up to 12 months.
According to the researchers, this is the most comprehensive long-term follow-up of a clinical trial involving psychedelics to date. The results were published in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. To date, there has been little research into whether the antidepressant effects of psychedelic therapies persist over the long term.
The long-term data from the EPIsoDE study, which have now been analyzed, suggest that the antidepressant effects of treatment with psilocybin and accompanying psychotherapy may persist for up to 12 months. The study included 144 patients with treatment-resistant depression. Of these, 126 were included in the long-term analyses at six and 12 months. All participants had received at least one treatment with 25 mg of psilocybin in combination with psychotherapeutic support as part of the clinical trial.
Ebola Cases Top 1,000 in Congo as Virus Infects Frontline Health Workers
Ebola cases have surpassed 1,000 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where health workers are becoming infected before anyone realizes they’re treating the deadly virus, exposing a dangerous weakness in efforts to contain one of the world’s fastest-growing outbreaks.
At least 78 nurses, doctors and other health-care workers have become ill and 18 have died during the epidemic, according to Congo’s National Public Health Institute. Many of the infections have occurred in ordinary clinics and hospitals rather than specialized Ebola treatment centers, according to outbreak responders.
“All infected health workers were infected outside Ebola treatment facilities so far,” said Abdou Sebushishe, medical lead in Congo for International Medical Corps.
