© Chokniti Khongchum
In 2025, more than 40 new drugs for various diseases could enter the market in Germany, according to the Association of Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies.
January 21, 2025
Birgitta Dunckel
Cancer vaccines based on mRNA technology, hope for Alzheimer's patients, advances in AI analyses: These medical breakthroughs could come in 2025.
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The mRNA technology, already successfully used for COVID-19 vaccines, aims to revolutionize cancer therapy. Companies like Moderna and Biontech have achieved impressive results in clinical trials for the malignant form of skin cancer, high-risk melanoma. A combination of mRNA vaccines and immunotherapies shows that the risk of recurrence in this form of skin cancer can be reduced by up to 50 percent. In both cases, the vaccines aim to activate the immune system.
However, the cancer vaccine does not target a pathogen like the coronavirus, but rather the body's own cancer cells. The use of the vaccines is personalized to the patient: the vaccines are individually tailored to the patients' tumors so that the immune system can specifically fight the cancer cells.
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When is cancer curable? .
Moderna aims for accelerated approval in 2025, primarily in key markets like the USA or the EU. The great hope is that such therapies could also be available for other types of cancer in the near future.
For millions of people who suffer from Alzheimer's , there is hope in 2025 for targeted therapy to slow the progression of the disease. The antibody drug Lecanemab was approved from mid-2023 under the trade name Leqembi, initially in the USA and later in other countries.
On November 14, 2024, the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) also recommended the approval of the drug. The EMA is expected to make a final decision on market approval by the end of January 2025.
The goal is to delay cognitive decline in patients at an early Alzheimer's stage. The drug is exclusively targeted at patients in an early stage of the disease, who have so far only experienced slight impairments in their cognitive abilities.
This includes people diagnosed with Alzheimer's at the MCI stage (Mild Cognitive Impairment).
Unlike previous approaches, Leqembi works on the harmful amyloid proteins in the brain, which are primarily responsible for the development of the disease. Therefore, this drug represents an important step towards making Alzheimer's treatable.
© Freepik
Hope for millions of heart patients
Cardiovascular diseases continue to be among the leading causes of death worldwide. A new class of drugs is expected to come on the market in 2025, specifically aimed at lowering lipoprotein (a) levels, a previously difficult-to-treat risk factor for heart attacks and strokes.
The German company Bayer is also on the verge of a breakthrough: The heart drug Acoramidis could be approved in the European Union as early as the beginning of 2025. The drug targets patients with transthyretin amyloidosis with cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM), a progressive disease of the heart muscle with a poor prognosis.
The clinically relevant Phase III study on Acoramidis had shown a clearly positive effect on mortality and frequency of hospital admissions.
Not only as a result of a corona infection, many people suffer from chronic fatigue. Now, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is being studied more closely.
Experts from Oxford Nanopore Technologies, Action for ME, and the University of Edinburgh are collaborating on a study analyzing the genetic code of around 17,000 people with ME to uncover the genetic causes of the disease.
Despite more than 24 million people worldwide suffering from ME/CFS, the disease remains a medical enigma. The research team will use advanced whole-genome sequencing technology to examine every position of the genome, identifying rare genetic variants – small changes in the DNA sequence – and structural variations.
This approach could finally allow researchers to determine the biological causes of ME, laying the groundwork for breakthroughs in diagnosis and treatment.
With its ability to quickly and accurately analyze large datasets, AI is revolutionizing AI more and more disease diagnosis. By 2025, the integration AI-driven Diagnostics will play an even more important role.
The use of AI in analyzing medical data - such as medical imaging, blood tests, and personal medical history - will lead to faster and more accurate diagnoses and enable timely and personalized treatments tailored to each patient's individual health profile.
An example is the use of AI-supported analyses that identify genetic markers faster. As a result, doctors can make more precise diagnoses and select targeted therapies - for example in cases of cancer, rare genetic diseases, or metabolic disorders.
