Population Health Weekly

28 Episodes

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The Gatekeepers

2026-10-2314:16

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!For thirty years, Juan wrote the standards. In his final year, he tried to make his agency faster.The hardware arrived. The backlog cleared. Reviews that took months took days.Then the Phase IV data came in — and the drugs worked. The wards were still full.This is the story of a regulator who perfects his gate, then discovers the gates he cannot reach: housing, prisons, food, labour, trade. A memo that is acknowledged and set aside. A labelling rule drafted on the last day.And a question the entire pipeline will have to answer: what happens when the medicine works, and the disease does not?And Erin Rodgers returns with The Triad — three biomedical updates, three keywords: telemedicine, drinking, the turf.

The Human Trial

2026-10-1617:19

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!I thought the hardest part was over. Then the real work began.This is a first-hand account of a large Phase 3 global randomized clinical trial — the stage where a drug proves itself in thousands of patients, or disappears. From a site with no trained staff, one refrigerator on the fourth floor, and a community that trusted us before we trusted ourselves. And Amara, a grandmother who read the consent form slowly and asked the question no one could dodge.Also: Spotlight — a self-care toolkit for reducing antimicrobial resistance at home. And a memorable 3-liner by Erin Rodgers on the Phase III randomized clinical trials.The rest belonged to the gatekeepers.

The Guinea Pig

2026-10-0917:01

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!A lamb has bolted the barn door.The bacteria told her machines can now do what animals have done for a century. So she will not bleed.Six sheep wait outside. Two guinea pigs watch from the corner — they have seen it all before.What follows is a rare dialogue between species: an old ram, a young striker, and a flock asking whether biopharma still needs them as technology reshapes the pipeline, diseases keep evolving, and nations compete for scarce resources.Erin Rodgers wondered if the lamb had read our running order. She had not. But the coincidence holds: the farm, dental chair anxiety, respiratory health.

The Target

2026-10-0215:19

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!A Himalayan lion watches a road cut through a valley he has known since cubhood. A biochemist climbs to meet him. Between them sits a question that decides which diseases get studied — and which are left behind.Every medicine begins with a target. A lock in the body — an enzyme, a receptor, a gene. The key must fit. But the lock must be chosen first. And choosing is excluding.Of every ninety molecules sent toward the clinic, nine arrive. The rest die in what the industry calls the Valley of Death. Meanwhile, the forests that gave us half of our anticancer drugs are thinning, and regulators move at speeds that leave whole nations waiting.The Molecular Pipeline begins where every medicine begins: with a decision about what to study — and what to leave behind.The forest was the first pharmacy.Also includes moments of Erin's curiosity and empathy for the Himalayan lion and his visitor. And don't miss the extraordinary Dispatch sent by Dr Bilal Zafar on the move in the company of crickets.

The Molecular Pipeline

2026-09-3003:24

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!Coming up throughout October 2026

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