The new gen­er­a­tion of weight loss med­i­cines does an un­prece­dent­ed job of keep­ing off the pounds — if peo­ple stay on the drugs. Yet nu­mer­ous stud­ies sug­gest most of those who start tak­ing GLP-1 drugs quit the med­i­cines with­in a year.

One start­up has a bold so­lu­tion to the prob­lem. Ad­di­tion Ther­a­peu­tics is work­ing on a ge­net­ic med­i­cine that would turn a pa­tient’s liv­er cells in­to lit­tle fac­to­ries to per­ma­nent­ly pump out their own weight loss drugs, the start­up told End­points News in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view.

It’s a dar­ing first ap­pli­ca­tion of the com­pa­ny’s nov­el tech­nol­o­gy, which is based on mol­e­c­u­lar ma­chines known as retro­trans­posons, al­so called jump­ing genes. Ad­di­tion is at­tempt­ing to tame these nor­mal­ly wily beasts and coax them to plop a ther­a­peu­tic code — such as the in­struc­tions for a GLP-1 drug — in­to safe spots in the genome.

MA­HA’s sway over HHS could face a fresh test now that Pres­i­dent Trump has a new pick for CDC di­rec­tor: Er­i­ca Schwartz, a for­mer deputy sur­geon gen­er­al.

The po­si­tion has been emp­ty since Au­gust, when Su­san Monarez was oust­ed af­ter clash­es with HHS Sec­re­tary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Like Monarez, Schwartz is a more tra­di­tion­al pub­lic health choice, with a track record of sup­port­ing vac­ci­na­tion. But a cru­cial ques­tion will be just how much in­de­pen­dence she has from Kennedy's in­flu­ence and agen­da on im­mu­niza­tion.

To­day on Post-Hoc Live at 11 a.m. ET, we’ve got a crossover episode! We'll be joined by Why Should I Trust You? host Brin­da Ad­hikari, whose show takes a look at the MA­HA move­ment and chang­ing trust in pub­lic health. Ad­hikari will be chat­ting with me and End­points’ MA­HA ex­pert Max Bay­er to talk about how Schwartz could sta­bi­lize a tur­bu­lent CDC and what the pick says about MA­HA's stand­ing in Trump­world.

Ava­lyn Phar­ma plots $182M IPO: The biotech, which is mak­ing in­haled ver­sions of ap­proved pul­monary fi­bro­sis med­i­cines, an­tic­i­pates about $182 mil­lion in net pro­ceeds if it prices its ini­tial pub­lic of­fer­ing at the mid­point of the range that it is mar­ket­ing to in­vestors. The biotech is seek­ing to sell 11.8 mil­lion shares AVLN be­tween $16 and $18 apiece. The Nas­daq float would come short­ly af­ter Kail­era Ther­a­peu­tics’ record-break­ing IPO last week. — Kyle LaHu­cik

No­var­tis wins WHO pre­qual­i­fi­ca­tion for new­born malar­ia drug: The Swiss drug­mak­er’s Coartem Ba­by will be added to the WHO's list of pre­qual­i­fied prod­ucts, which UN agen­cies and oth­er pub­lic-sec­tor pro­cur­ers use to guide fund­ing and pur­chas­ing de­ci­sions. Coartem Ba­by was ap­proved by the Swiss med­i­cines reg­u­la­tor last year. No­var­tis is pro­vid­ing the treat­ment on a large­ly not-for-prof­it ba­sis in coun­tries where malar­ia is en­dem­ic. — Ay­isha Shar­ma