From Washington, DC,

• The House of Representatives and the Senate remain on Capitol Hill this week for Committee business and floor voting.

• The New York Times reports,
  • “President Trump on Saturday signed an executive order seeking to hasten research into the therapeutic benefits of LSD, Ecstasy, psilocybin and other mind-altering drugs by ordering federal agencies to ease restrictions that have long limited the ability of scientists to study them.
  • “The measure also provides $50 million for state-level research into ibogaine, a powerful psychedelic made from the root of a Central African shrub that has been drawing interest from researchers for its potential to treat opioid use disorder and other forms of substance abuse.
  • “The funding will most immediately benefit Texas, which has already committed $50 million to studying ibogaine but recently failed to secure matching funds from a private drug developer.
  • “I’m pleased to announce historic reforms to dramatically accelerate access to new medical research and treatments based on psychedelic drugs,” Mr. Trump said from the Oval Office, where he was joined by a number of top cabinet officials and the podcaster Joe Rogan.”
• Here is a link to the White House fact sheet on this executive order.

From the census front,

• The New York Times informs us,
  • “Fertility in the United States has been declining since the Great Recession, and reached a new low last year, according to federal data released Thursday {april 9], causing some to fear a baby bust.
  • “But it’s not clear that will happen. Instead, there could be a lull, demographers say — a period of very low fertility that could eventually rebound.
  • “That’s because of a drastic shift among American women who are now of childbearing age: They are waiting longer to have babies. They’ve become much less likely to have them in their teens or 20s — and much more likely to in their 30s or 40s.
  • “Demographers have a name for this kind of lull in fertility: a “postponement transition.” It happened in the 1990s in Europe, then rebounded somewhat as the younger women who delayed pregnancy eventually had children. It also happened in the United States in the 1970s, as more women pursued college and careers after the women’s movement. These women didn’t end up having fewer children; they just had them later.”

From the public health and medical research front,

• The Wall Street Journal reports,
  • “Doctors may be getting closer to having a potent weapon against a genetic driver of lung cancer that has long lacked any targeted treatment options.
  • “Researchers on Sunday presented early results of clinical trials of two experimental drugs targeting a gene called KRAS, one of the most common and challenging drivers of human cancers. Each drug takes aim at a different KRAS mutation that drives lung cancer, which kills more people worldwide each year than any other form of the disease.
  • “KRAS mutations act as an accelerator in cancer cells. Both drugs shrank tumors and slowed disease progression in patients with advanced cancer that had progressed despite standard chemotherapy and immunotherapy, raising hopes that doctors may be homing in on a new option for a form of cancer that has long resisted treatment. 
  • “I’ve never been this hopeful about KRAS mutations,” said Dr. Lei Deng, an oncologist at Fred Hutch Cancer Center in Seattle who wasn’t involved in either study. The research was presented at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting.”

• Healio points out,
  • “Odds for developing Parkinson’s disease increased with newer groundwater and with carbonate aquifers, according to a poster presented at the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting. 
  • “Our previous studies have focused a lot on air pollution, but we know from prior research that contaminated drinking water can also impact health,” Brittany Krzyzanowski, PhD, who conducted the study at Barrow Neurological Institute, told Healio.
  • “There’s a wealth of underused data on drinking water sources, like aquifer type and groundwater characteristics, so we took the opportunity to explore how these factors might be linked to Parkinson’s disease,” said Kryzyzanowski, who is now with the Atria Research Institute.”

Froom the U.S. healthcare business front,

• The Wall Street Journal reports,
  • “Eli Lilly LLY is in advanced talks to acquire Kelonia Therapeutics for more than $2 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
  • “A deal could come as soon as Monday, assuming the talks don’t fall apart, the people said. The deal price could also include additional consideration if Kelonia reaches certain milestones, they said.
  • “Privately held Kelonia is developing a next-generation treatment for the blood cancer multiple myeloma. Buying it would position Eli Lilly to boost its position in the lucrative blood-cancer segment of the $240 billion global cancer-drug market.
  • Kelonia has raised just under $60 million to date, with its last public valuation being a little over $100 million as of April 2022, according to data from PitchBook.
  • “Kelonia is developing a next-generation so-called CAR-T therapy. CAR-T therapies deliver genes—or genetically altered cells—to help a patient’s immune system fight the cancer. 
  • “We have something that is truly transformative to the space,” Kelonia Chief Executive Kevin Friedman said in an interview in January at an industry conference.”

• Fierce Healthcare tells us,
  • “More than 80% of primary care physicians are concerned about financial stability over the next several years, new research from Elation Health found.
  • “The health tech company surveyed 280 PCPs from Jan. 31 to Feb. 23 for its 2026 Primary Care Pulse Survey Report. Fifty-two percent of respondents were fully independent and 48% have some affiliation. 
  • “As financial pressures mount for PCP practices, 64% cite government and commercial payer reimbursement as their top concern. Staffing costs, workforce challenges, technology and IT costs and rising operational costs are also challenges for responding physicians. 
  • “Simultaneously, the report found 68% of respondents are actively developing plans to address concerns—ranging from increasing marketing to adopting new payment models. Sixty-seven percent of respondents plan to implement changes within the next two years while 27% report already implementing membership or cash-pay models and 18% report adopting value-based payment structures.”