Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump is mak­ing good on his ear­li­er pledge to of­fer Spra­va­to, J&J’s re­for­mu­lat­ed ke­t­a­mine nasal spray, to as many vet­er­ans in need, as soon as pos­si­ble — how­ev­er it may hap­pen.

Ad­dress­ing the is­sue of vet­er­an sui­cide at the Amer­i­can Vet­er­ans Na­tion­al Con­ven­tion Wednes­day, Trump said he’s “in­struct­ed the top of­fi­cials to go out and get as much of it as you can from John­son & John­son.”

He fol­lowed that with a call to the drug­mak­er to “make a con­tri­bu­tion” to the US.

Rege Ri­ley AmVets

“They’ve done so well in this coun­try, they’ve made so much mon­ey, I think they should give it to us for free,” he said, draw­ing ap­plause, then ges­tured to AmVets Na­tion­al Com­man­der Rege Ri­ley, urg­ing him: “Give it a shot! Give it a shot!”

The pres­i­dent has been re­port­ed cham­pi­oning the drug re­port­ed­ly — which is known for its quick ef­fect in curb­ing sui­ci­dal thoughts but is al­so plagued by safe­ty con­cerns — since June when he told Vet­er­ans Af­fairs Sec­re­tary Robert Wilkie to “give it to any­body that has the prob­lem.”

The VA had an­nounced in March just days af­ter Spra­va­to was ap­proved that its health­care providers would of­fer the drug for treat­ment-re­sis­tant de­pres­sion. De­spite Trump’s en­dorse­ment, clin­i­cians at the de­part­ment vot­ed in June against plac­ing it on the for­mu­la­ry, keep­ing it to more lim­it­ed use. Un­der this pol­i­cy, vet­er­ans would on­ly be pre­scribed Spra­va­to if they have not re­spond­ed to oth­er treat­ments and gone through an au­tho­riza­tion process.

Robert Wilkie US De­part­ment of De­fense

Per cur­rent pro­to­col, health­care pro­fes­sion­als must al­so be present to mon­i­tor the use of Spra­va­to due to side ef­fects such as dis­so­ci­a­tion.

It’s un­clear how Trump plans to over­ride these re­stric­tions even if the VA is able to ne­go­ti­ate a fa­vor­able price with J&J or even — as he sug­gest­ed — get it for free.

ICER, the drug price watch­dog, has pre­vi­ous­ly chas­tised the phar­ma gi­ant for over­pric­ing the treat­ment, which is close­ly re­lat­ed to in­tra­venous gener­ic ke­t­a­mine, an­oth­er for­mu­la­tion of the horse tran­quil­iz­er prone to abuse in par­ty scenes. While the lat­ter is un­ap­proved and thus not cov­ered by in­sur­ers, Spra­va­to’s an­nu­al list price of $32,400 is still low val­ue for mon­ey, ICER claimed.

For now, Trump has noth­ing but praise for the drug. Back on the stage at the AmVets con­ven­tion:

They have some­thing that, what­ev­er it may do, it re­al­ly takes that hor­ri­ble anx­i­ety, what­ev­er caus­es some­body to be so des­per­ate to com­mit sui­cide, you take it, it’s an in­haler, you take it, and its re­sults are in­cred­i­ble. […] It does some­thing — some­thing pret­ty amaz­ing.

Aclaris Therapeutics has found a way to get rid of the warts and all.

The company — which earlier this month decided to focus on its arsenal of kinase inhibitors — on Monday unveiled positive data from a pivotal study testing its lead experimental drug for use in common warts.

The drug, A-101, was tested in a 502-patient study called THWART-2 — patients enrolled had one to six warts before qualifying for the trial. Patients either self-administered A-101 topical solution or a vehicle twice a week over a two-month period. A higher proportion of patients on the drug (a potent hydrogen peroxide topical solution) saw their warts disappear at day 60, versus the vehicle (p<0.0001) — meeting the main goal of the study.  Each secondary endpoint also emerged in favor of A-101, the company said.

Psychedelics have experienced a renaissance in recent years amid a torrent of preclinical and clinical research suggesting it might provide a path to treat mood disorders conventional remedies have only scraped at. Now a preclinical trial from a young biotech suggests at least one psychedelic compound has effects beyond the mind, and — if you believe the still very, very early hype — could provide the first single remedy for some of the main complications of obesity.

Over the past 10 years I’ve made a point of getting to know the Golden Triangle and the special role the UK biopharma industry plays there in drug development. The concentration of world class research institutes, some of the most accomplished scientists I’ve ever seen at work and a rising tide of global investment cash leaves an impression that there’s much, much more to come as biotech hubs are birthed and nurtured.

Acceleron is scrapping a muscular dystrophy development program underway for its number 2 drug in the pipeline after pouring over some failed mid-stage secondary data.

Gone is the ACE-083 project in patients with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy. Their drug hit the primary endpoint on building muscle but flopped on key secondaries for functional improvements in patients, which execs felt was vital to the drug’s success.