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NFL Star Travis Kelce Teams Up With Pfizer to Run a New Educational COVID Vaccine Campaign
Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce has recently been the subject of rumors regarding his romantic involvement with singer Taylor Swift, but there is no doubt when it comes to his new pharmaceutical partnership.
This week, Kelce made an announcement on his Instagram, launching a new video with the hashtag #PfizerPartner. In the video, he is seen working out, going to dinner, and mowing the lawn all while catching a football, doing an interview or hot air ballooning — playing on the catchphrase “two things at once.”
At the end of the video, Kelce is shown in a doctor’s office with two adhesive bandages on his arm, while the narrator mentions that you can request a COVID booster along with your flu shot.
Pfizer, along with rival mRNA COVID vaccine maker Moderna, has experienced a decline in COVID booster uptake this year. However, in light of the emergence of new variants and the impending fall/winter season, the New York-based pharmaceutical company is seeking to revitalize booster vaccinations. They are clearly counting on the star power of Kelce and the convenience of being able to receive both a COVID booster and an annual flu jab during the same visit to entice more people.
Consulting Firm McKinsey to Pay $230 Million in Latest U.S. Opioid Settlements
Consulting firm McKinsey & Co has agreed to pay $230 million to resolve lawsuits by hundreds of U.S. local governments and school districts alleging it fueled an epidemic of opioid addiction through its work for bankrupt OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and other drug companies.
The settlements, which require a judge’s approval, were disclosed in papers filed on Tuesday in federal court in San Francisco. The money is on top of $641.5 million that McKinsey already paid to resolve claims by state attorneys-general.
McKinsey will pay $207 million to resolve claims by counties and municipalities and another $23 million to resolve claims by public school districts. McKinsey had previously said it had agreed to resolve the cases but had not disclosed for how much.
McKinsey has not admitted wrongdoing. In a statement, the firm said it continued to believe its past work was lawful. It also noted it had committed in 2019 to no longer advise clients on any opioid-related business.
Thousands of lawsuits have been filed by states, local governments and Native American tribes accusing drug companies of downplaying the risks of opioid painkillers, and distributors and pharmacies of ignoring red flags that they were being trafficked illegally. The litigation has resulted in more than $51 billion in settlements, according to lawyers for the plaintiffs, with deals already struck with major drugmakers and the nation’s largest distributors.
Officials Agree: Use Settlement Funds to Curb Youth Addiction. But the ‘How’ Gets Hairy.
When three teenagers died of fentanyl overdoses last year in Larimer County, Colorado, it shocked the community and “flipped families upside down,” said Tom Gonzales, the county’s public health director.
Several schools began stocking naloxone, a medication that reverses opioid overdoses. Community organizations trained teens to use it. But county and school officials wanted to do more.
That’s when they turned to opioid settlement funds — money coming from national deals with healthcare companies like Johnson & Johnson, AmerisourceBergen, and CVS, which were accused of fueling the epidemic via prescription painkillers. The companies are paying out more than $50 billion to state and local governments over 18 years.
Many parents, educators, and elected officials agree that investing in prevention is crucial to addressing the rising rates of youth overdoses, depression, and suicidal thoughts. But the question of how to do that is fraught and will involve testing the comfort levels of many parents and local officials.
In New Effort to Reset Flu Shot Expectations, CDC to Avoid Messages That ‘Could Be Seen as a Scare Tactic’
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it has launched a new public relations campaign this year to “reset expectations” around the influenza vaccine after the agency’s consumer research found some Americans misunderstand the benefits of the annual shot.
People are more likely to perceive messages as credible and trustworthy if they set realistic expectations about what vaccines can and cannot do,” the CDC’s Sara Dodge Ramey told a panel of federal vaccine advisers at a meeting Friday. Ramey said the agency’s new “Wild to Mild” campaign had been created as the result of a dozen focus groups in June and July earlier this year.
That led to them rolling out a campaign this year carefully crafted to “avoid messages that could be seen as a scare tactic,” she said, acknowledging some voiced “fatigue” around talking about important steps to avoid dying from respiratory diseases this fall and winter.
Beyond just flu, Ramey said the agency is also preparing separate efforts to boost awareness around the “general pan-respiratory season.” The CDC’s advice on how to avoid catching and spreading these three viruses has not changed much since last year. However, for the first time, all three viruses now also have new vaccines.
Just 23% of U.S. Adults ‘Definitely’ Plan to Get New COVID Shot
U.S. News & World Report reported:
Just 23% of American adults say they ‘definitely’ will get the new COVID-19 vaccine, while another 23% say they will ‘probably’ get it, according to a new poll, which also finds interest in the shot falls along partisan lines.
More people plan to get seasonal flu shots and the new vaccine to help prevent severe symptoms of respiratory syncytial virus or RSV.
The poll — by the nonprofit organization KFF — breaks down what Americans are thinking about vaccination and their trust in public health agencies. About 37% of people who previously received a COVID vaccine say they “probably” or “definitely” won’t get the new shot.
Parents have some hesitation about getting the new vaccine for their kids. More than half say they “probably” or “definitely” won’t get their children boosted. About 39% of parents plan to get their 12- to 17-year-olds boosted, as do 36% of those with 5- to 11-year-olds and 34% of those with kids between 6 months through 4 years.
About 250,000 Courses of COVID Pill Paxlovid Being Administered per Week — Pfizer CEO
Pfizer Inc’s (PFE.N) chief executive said on Tuesday that almost 250,000 courses of the drugmaker‘s oral antiviral COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid were being administered per week as cases surged in the United States.
Speaking at the Cantor Fitzgerald Annual Healthcare Conference, Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said the company is still uncertain about when Paxlovid, which is currently being distributed by the government, will receive approval to be sold in the U.S. commercial market.
Pfizer has sold nearly 24 million courses of Paxlovid to the U.S. government, which has distributed only about 15 million courses so far, according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services data.
According to IQVIA data published by research analysts, the oral antiviral COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid hit around 217,000 prescriptions in the U.S. in the week of Sept. 1 but has dropped since then.
Focus: Cough Syrup Deaths Overseas Prompt U.S. Crackdown on Toxic Testing
The U.S. FDA is cracking down on lax testing practices by dozens of makers of healthcare products following hundreds of deaths overseas from contaminated cough syrups, a Reuters review of regulatory alerts found.
The Food and Drug Administration has reprimanded at least 28 companies this year, saying they failed to prove sufficient testing of ingredients used in over-the-counter drugs and consumer products for the toxins ethylene glycol (EG) and diethylene glycol (DEG), according to a Reuters analysis of agency import alerts and warning letters to manufacturers.
The manufacturers include U.S.-based companies and exporters from India, South Korea, Switzerland, Canada and Egypt.
The FDA has flagged more manufacturers for failing to test raw materials susceptible to EG and DEG contamination in 2023 than in the previous five years combined, the Reuters analysis found.
Tylenol Sinus Class Action Lawsuit Filed Over Ineffective Decongestant
Another major drug manufacturer faces a class action lawsuit in the wake of a scientific panel’s determination that the nasal decongestant used in Tylenol Sinus and similar cold medications does not work, and never has.
The complaint was filed by Pamela Joyner in New Jersey federal court on September 21, targeting Tylenol Sinus and its manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson Consumer, Inc. It is the second such decongestant class action lawsuit filed in less than a week, following findings issued by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisors, which determined that the decongestant phenylephrine is no better than a placebo.
The lawsuits come after an FDA advisory committee determined that the decongestant phenylephrine is ineffective when taken orally, even though it has been on the market for decades and is found in a number of popular products, including Tylenol Sinus, Mucinex, Nyquil and Sudafed tablets and liquids.
The FDA is now considering whether it will allow the drugs to remain on the market, which may have far-ranging effects on the over-the-counter cold medication industry. However, consumer class action lawsuits seek to recover profits that drug manufacturers have generated from selling useless medications for decades.
Biden Plans $100 Million Drive to Combat Drug-Resistant ‘Superbugs’
U.S. President Joe Biden will announce on Wednesday a $100 million research drive to fight deadly drug-resistant bacteria, according to a White House official. More than a million people worldwide lose their lives each year due to infections resulting from bacteria resistant to antibiotics, according to the World Health Organization.
In the United States, that number is over 35,000 annually, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said. The problem is believed to have grown in recent years as more people with COVID-19 were hospitalized, where they were treated with antibiotics and exposed to infection.
Global health officials have repeatedly warned about the rise of antimicrobial-resistant microbes due to the misuse and overuse of antibiotics, which encourages microorganisms to evolve into “superbugs.”
There has long been an acute need for new antibiotics to combat these resistant bacteria, but there is little incentive among drugmakers as antibiotics are not especially profitable and overuse must be discouraged, keeping sales down.
Inside Bavarian Nordic’s Late-Stage Stumbles — and Drive to Become a Vaccine Giant
Riding high from sales of an mpox vaccine, Bavarian Nordic began 2023 with one major goal in mind: becoming one of the largest pure-play vaccine manufacturers in the world.
While the Dutch biotechnology company has worked on vaccines since its founding in the early ’90s, it has largely relied on government contracts, including for its smallpox and mpox shot Jynneos, to stay afloat. Although the approach was successful — the company sold almost 5.5 million doses of its mpox vaccine to the U.S. government during the surge of cases last summer — the business model is “lumpy,” CEO Paul Chaplin said.
“Government contracts are difficult to predict, and the timing is difficult to explain to analysts and investors,” he said. Bavarian pivoted in 2019 toward building a “more traditional, commercial global infrastructure,” buying two GSK vaccines for rabies and tick-borne encephalitis and dedicating its R&D efforts to infectious disease and cancer vaccines.
But the transition has been bumpy. In July, the company dropped out of the respiratory syncytial virus vaccine race after a Phase 3 trial failed to meet its main goal. One month later, the biotech ended a Phase 3 COVID-19 booster program when the shot showed limited efficacy against new virus variants.
