Weekly Rundown: First UK baby born from deceased donor womb transplant A first UK birth from a deceased-donor womb transplant, a billion-dollar siRNA deal for GSK, a sobering setback for early cancer blood tests, and more led the news this week.

https://www.drugdiscoverynews.com/weekly-rundown-first-uk-baby-born-from-deceased-donor-womb-transplant-17030 A baby boy has become the first child in the UK to be born following a womb transplant from a deceased donor, marking what doctors called a “ground-breaking moment” for reproductive medicine. Hugo was born just before Christmas 2025 at Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital to Grace Bell, who was born without a viable womb due to Mayer Rokitansky Küster Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, a condition affecting roughly one in 5,000 women. The birth is the first in the UK to result from a deceased-donor womb transplant under a clinical trial led by teams in Oxford and London, following decades of research by consultant surgeons Richard Smith and Isabel Quiroga, supported by Womb Transplant UK. Their work includes two programs: a living donor initiative aiming for five transplants and the UK INvestigational Study into Transplantation of the Uterus, which involves deceased donors and multiple National Health Services collaborators. Surgeons said the milestone offers new hope to women born without a womb, while Bell and her partner paid tribute to the donor’s family for what they described as the “incredible gift” that made their son’s birth possible. – Bree Foster