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Big Pharma ‘Unleashed an Army’ of Lawyers to Avoid Lowering Medicare Drug Costs: Report
Manufacturers of the 10 medications listed under the novel Medicare price-negotiation program exploited patent laws to keep costs high for patients, according to a new report from the watchdog group Accountable.US.
The report comes nearly two years after President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act and with it launched the historic Medicare negotiation program, which allows the Department of Health and Human Services to directly negotiate with drug companies to lower the prices of some of the most expensive but commonly used prescription drugs.
“Despite taking billions of taxpayer dollars for drug development, these Big Pharma companies unleashed an army of patent attorneys to keep life-saving medicine exclusive and more expensive for seniors and other patients,” Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable.US, said in a statement.
Bavarian Nordic Says It Can Supply 10 Million Mpox Jabs by End of 2025
Bavarian Nordic can provide 10 million doses of its mpox vaccine to African countries by the end of 2025 to help them deal with the latest global public health emergency, the vaccine manufacturer’s CEO said.
“We have inventory and we have the capabilities. What we’re missing are the orders,” Paul Chaplin told Bloomberg.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has saidit needs 10 million doses to control the outbreak, which has spread from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to neighboring countries in recent weeks.
Stockpiles of the vaccine are also held in other places, in preparation for future outbreaks. The European Union signed a contract for 2 million doses in November 2022 , while some countries in Europe also hold national stockpiles. The U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) this month issued an order to Bavarian Nordic to replenish its stocks of the vaccine.
WHO Confirms First Case of Mpox Outside of Africa as Outbreak Spreads
The World Health Organization on Thursday confirmed that a case of the viral infection mpox in Sweden was linked to an outbreak in Africa, the first sign of its spread outside the continent a day after the WHO declared the disease a global public health emergency.
Swedish health officials said at a press conference that the person was infected while in Africa with the clade Ib type of mpox involved in the recent outbreak. The person is receiving treatment.
Both U.S. and Canadian officials have said they have not identified any cases so far.
The FDA Calls Them ‘Recalls,’ Yet the Targeted Medical Devices Often Remain in Use
In 2016, medical device giant Abbott issued a recall for its MitraClip cardiac device — “a Class I recall, the most serious type,” the FDA said.
“Use of this device may cause serious injuries or death,” an FDA notice about the recall said.
But neither the manufacturer nor the FDA actually recalled the device or suspended its use. They allowed doctors to continue implanting the clips in leaky heart valves in what has become a common procedure.
Assembly Committee Discusses Fentanyl Overdose Crisis Among California’s Youth
The California State Assembly Select Committee on Fentanyl, Opioid Addiction and Overdose Prevention on Monday during an informational hearing discussed the urgency of combatting the rise in overdose deaths among youth in recent years primarily due to ingesting fentanyl.
Between 2019 and 2021, drug overdoses became the third most common cause of death for U.S. children and teens, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An average of 22 adolescents died of drug overdose in the U.S. every week in 2022, the CDC reports.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, opioid-related deaths in California increased 121% from 2019 to 2021, according to the state’s health department. The vast majority of these deaths were linked to fentanyl, a highly potent synthetic opioid.
Nasal Spray Flu Vaccine Candidate Shows Promise When Administered Alongside High Dose Annual Shot
A unique influenza vaccine candidate that’s inhaled and based on technology developed by University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers is safe and could bolster protection against seasonal and pandemic influenza for people vulnerable to severe disease when they receive it in addition to the annual flu shot.
Those are the results of a randomized, controlled trial of the vaccine candidate, administered in nasal spray form in conjunction with the annual shot to a group of 65- to 85-year-olds in 2022. The findings were recently reported in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.
While the study was focused on assessing the vaccine candidate’s safety, data on the immune responses it elicited suggests that vulnerable seniors would be better protected from influenza if they receive both the flu shot and nasal spray vaccine.
