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USDA orders H5N1 testing of some dairy cows to limit spread of bird flu
The U.S. Department of Agriculture moved to try to limit spread of the H5N1 bird flu virus among dairy cattle on Wednesday, issuing a federal order that will require an animal to test negative for the virus before it can be moved across state lines. It also requires laboratories Biden administration finalizes abortion privacy protections
Biden officials are still pressing to shore up abortion protections amid an onslaught of legal challenges, one of which is slated for Supreme Court arguments this week. Chuck Schumer’s broken promise on affordable insulin
In February 2022, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer stood alongside constituents in Buffalo, N.Y., and promised to hold a vote to cap costs for insulin at $35 per month for people with all types of insurance. Two years later, he hasn’t followed through. Did you say 486%? Why one company thinks such a price hike for its drug is justified
In an era when huge price hikes for prescription drugs are almost guaranteed to draw criticism, is there any circumstance when a 486% increase for a medicine might appear to be justified? HCA reports almost $1 billion more in charity care to Medicare than to its shareholders, drawing more taxpayer money
The country’s biggest hospital chain, HCA Healthcare , told the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services it doled out almost $1 billion more in financial assistance to needy patients than it reported on its financial statement in 2022, helping the enormously profitable company e Johnson & Johnson to buy Shockwave Medical for $13.1 billion
Johnson & Johnson on Friday announced it would acquire heart device firm Shockwave Medical for $13.1 billion. It’s J&J’s second billion-dollar deal in the cardiovascular space in two years, following its 2022 purchase of Abiomed for $16.6 billion. Critics say U.K. decision on ALS drug could have ‘chilling effect’ on access to new genetic medicines
Neurologists and patient advocates are up in arms over a policy decision by a U.K. health agency that they say will imperil access to an ALS treatment that’s available in the U.S. and on its way to approval in the European Union. Why the world’s most expensive drug might not be all that overpriced
The staff of the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, or ICER, are known as the nerds of the drug industry: bespectacled killjoys who emerge a few times a year to scold drugmakers for pricing their latest cancer or MS advance far beyond reason. Some nonprofit hospitals spend less on charity care than they receive in tax breaks, new analysis shows
A new study of hospitals’ charity care spending suggests nonprofit hospitals really aren’t that different from their for-profit counterparts. How expanded methadone access helped Switzerland defuse its drug crisis
“We have access to a very broad population because it’s so easy to access our treatment center,” Philip Bruggmann, a Swiss doctor and Arud’s head of internal medicine, told STAT during a recent visit to the clinic’s headquarters in central Zurich. “This wouldn’t be possible in a During the pandemic, were great vaccines bad business? A company-by-company review
It’s been four years since Covid-19 emerged, igniting a pandemic that killed millions of people and brought the world to its knees. A key factor in taming the pandemic was the creation of effective vaccines , which have saved millions of lives. The methadone clinic monopoly: Opioid treatment chains backed by private equity are fighting calls for reform
Private equity firms have acquired stakes in nearly one-third of all methadone clinics in recent years, gaining outsize control of the U.S. addiction treatment industry even as the country’s opioid epidemic has developed into a full-fledged public health crisis. As Humira biosimilars take over the market, CVS has created a new ploy: the drug ‘rebate credit’
The biggest enticement that large pharmacy benefit managers offer to the employers that hire them is drug rebates — a steady stream of money sent back to their clients, a tangible symbol of the discounts that PBMs are able to wrangle out of pharmaceutical companies. FDA approves first gene therapy for a fatal neuron disease in children
The Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved a gene therapy for metachromatic leukodystrophy, a devastating genetic disorder that eats away at affected children’s neurons. Medicare couldn’t cover Wegovy for weight loss. But now that it’s also a heart drug, the door is open
Novo Nordisk’s newly won permission to market the heart benefits of its obesity drug Wegovy could provide a backdoor way to expand access to the drug for people on Medicare, experts told STAT. Hemophilia gene therapies arrived after 40 years of struggle. Where are the patients?
As a boy growing up with hemophilia A, Noah Frederick reserved the end of his annual checkups to talk about new technologies. His doctor walked through various experimental approaches for the bleeding disorder and, invariably, gene therapy. It was coming, he always said, in your UnitedHealth is on a buying spree of outpatient surgery centers
UnitedHealth Group quietly acquired dozens of outpatient facilities in 2023, with a particular focus on surgery centers, according to a STAT review of company financial filings. Biden calls for election wake-up call on abortion rights — but new upheavals are fast approaching
President Biden started his sprawling national address Thursday night with a warning to Republicans: Women have rebuked attempted abortion limits in past elections, and they will do it again. Nursing home owners can hide nearly two-thirds of their profits, new study shows
A new study shows that some nursing homes are shunting the majority of their profits off of their own books and into less-visible corners of their owners’ pockets. By: @brittanytrang Biden to propose expanding Medicare drug price negotiation in State of the Union
President Biden wants to more than double the size of Medicare’s new drug price negotiation program and will preview the plan in his State of the Union address, the White House announced Wednesday.