China's medical regulator has approved Eli Lilly's treatment for early Alzheimer's, providing patients with another option after Eisai and Biogen's Leqembi received approval in January, the company said late on Tuesday. Merck on Wednesday signed a deal worth up to $2 billion with Hansoh Pharma to develop and sell the Chinese biotech's experimental oral obesity drug that works similar to the popular weight-loss treatments Wegovy and Zepbound. A new long-acting preventive HIV drug could reach the world´s poorest countries by the end of 2025 or early 2026, a global health official told Reuters on Tuesday. Democratic Republic of Congo's health ministry said on Tuesday that a previously unidentified disease circulating in the country's Panzi health zone is a severe form of malaria. Merck said on Monday it has discontinued the development of two experimental cancer drugs after their failure in several trials. The European Union's drug regulator said it would assess two new Danish studies that link Novo Nordisk's popular diabetes drug Ozempic to a rare eye disease. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday it has sent warning letters to four companies for selling unapproved versions of GLP-1 drugs including semaglutide and tirzepatide, the active ingredients in popular diabetes and weight-loss drugs. Israel's Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and French drugmaker Sanofi said a study of a drug to treat ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease showed it had met primary goals. Nestle is launching protein shots in the United States which it says help suppress appetite for people looking to shed pounds, the latest effort by the world's biggest packaged food maker to tap the booming market for weight-loss products. Pfizer on Tuesday said it does not expect the Trump administration to make major changes to vaccine policy next year even as the president-elect has put forward vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services.