About the public’s health
Pharmacies See Record Flu Shot Demand in First Season With Covid: For example:“CVS Health Corp. has already surpassed the 9 million flu shots it gave during the entire previous season and expects to double that number by the end of this cycle, a spokesman said. Walgreens Boots Alliance has administered 60% more doses in its U.S. stores than at this point last year, said Rina Shah, group vice president of pharmacy operations.”
Medicare and Medicaid to cover early Covid vaccine: “The Trump administration this week will announce a plan to cover the out-of-pocket costs of Covid-19 vaccines for millions of Americans who receive Medicare or Medicaid, said four people with knowledge of the pending announcement.
Under the planned rule, Medicare and Medicaid will now cover vaccines that receive emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, the people said, which is a change from current policy.”
Sugary Drinks, Artificially-Sweetened Beverages, and Cardiovascular Disease in the NutriNet-Santé Cohort: Consumption of both sugary drinks and artificially sweetened beverages are associated with increases in the incidence of cardiovascular disease.
Illinois study tracks evolution of SARS-CoV-2 virus mutations:”A group of graduate students in a spring-semester Bioinformatics and Systems Biology class at Illinois tracked the mutation rate in the virus’s proteome – the collection of proteins encoded by genetic material – through time, starting with the first SARS-CoV-2 genome published in January and ending more than 15,300 genomes later in May.
The team found some regions still actively spinning off new mutations, indicating continuing adaptation to the host environment. But the mutation rate in other regions showed signs of slowing, coalescing around single versions of key proteins.” The slower mutating areas appear to code for successful adaptations to spreading.
America’s pandemic: This piece is a Washington Post documentary about how recent past Presidents have handled actual or threatened public health crises.
About pharma
Lilly Statement Regarding NIH’s ACTIV-3 Clinical Trial: “The ACTIV-3 clinical trial is being run by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and is the only study evaluating the efficacy of bamlanivimab in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Based on an updated dataset from the trial reviewed on October 26, no additional COVID-19 patients in this hospitalized setting will receive bamlanivimab. This recommendation was based on trial data suggesting that bamlanivimab is unlikely to help hospitalized COVID-19 patients recover from this advanced stage of their disease. In this updated dataset, differences in safety outcomes between the groups were not significant.”
Bayer Acquires Asklepios BioPharmaceutical to Broaden Innovation Base in Cell and Gene Therapy:”Bayer AG… announced the acquisition of Asklepios BioPharmaceutical, Inc. (AskBio), a US-headquartered biopharmaceutical company specialized in the research, development and manufacturing of gene therapies across different therapeutic areas. AskBio’s development portfolio includes investigational pre-clinical and clinical stage candidates for the treatment of neuromuscular, central nervous system, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.”
The purchase price is $2 billion upfront and up to $2 billion in success-based milestone payments.
Florida fails to attract bidders for Canada prescription drug importation program:”Florida’s plan to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada — designed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and endorsed by President Donald Trump — has tasted its first bitter pill.
No private firms bid on Florida’s $30 million contract to set up and operate a drug importation program. Bids were due at the end of September.
The setback is likely to delay by at least several months Florida’s effort to become the first state to import drugs.”
About health insurance
Health Literacy Key to Better Health Outcomes: A really good piece about how improved healthcare literacy can improve health status and save money. For example, prevent about 1 Million hospital visits and save $25 billion per year.