Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine wins full FDA approval, potentially persuading the hesitant to get a shot:
“In the end, the vaccine approval was the fastest in the agency’s history, coming less than four months after Pfizer-BioNTech filed for licensing on May 7. The individuals with knowledge of the decision spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.”
About Covid-19
New Evidence Points To Antibodies As A Reliable Indicator Of Vaccine Protection: But the issue is a bit more complex than the headline leads us to believe. Read the article for a fuller explanation.
Unvaccinated COVID-19 hospitalizations cost the U.S. health system billions of dollars: “Based on our estimates…we find preventable COVID-19 cost the U.S. health system $2.3 billion in June and July 2021.” Read the article for the methodology that includes the finding that “each of these preventable hospitalizations cost roughly $20,000.”
Most U.S. teens, young adults want to get COVID-19 vaccine, survey finds: “About 75% of people ages 14 to 24 years in the United States who responded to the survey, conducted by the University of Michigan's Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, said they would get the shot, the data showed.”
Morphological cell profiling of SARS-CoV-2 infection identifies drug repurposing candidates for COVID-19: “Repurposing of FDA-approved drugs is a promising strategy for identifying rapidly deployable treatments for COVID-19. Herein, we developed a pipeline for quantitative, high-throughput, image-based screening of SARS-CoV-2 infection in human cells that led to the identification of several FDA-approved drugs and clinical candidates with in vitro antiviral activity…
Notably, we discovered that lactoferrin, a glycoprotein found in secretory fluids including mammalian milk, inhibits SARS-CoV-2 infection in the nanomolar range in all cell models with multiple modes of action, including blockage of virus attachment to cellular heparan sulfate and enhancement of interferon responses. Given its safety profile, lactoferrin is a readily translatable therapeutic option for the management of COVID-19.”
Biden sees dip in support amid new COVID cases: AP-NORC poll: “A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 54% of Americans approve of Biden’s job performance, down slightly from 59% last month.”
About health insurance
PRITZKER SIGNS PRIOR AUTHORIZATION LAW: “The [Illinois] law reduces the number of medically necessary services that are subjected to prior authorization requirements, and requires a decision to be made no later than 5 calendar days after obtaining the necessary information.
Prior authorization approvals will also remain valid for six months, or 12 months for chronic and long-term diseases.”
The Uninsurance Rate Held Steady During the Pandemic as Public Coverage Increased:
”Key Findings
Between March 2019 and April 2021, the share of nonelderly adults reporting employer-sponsored insurance declined from 65.0 percent to 62.3 percent, a decrease of approximately 5.5 million adults. Over the same period, the share reporting public coverage increased from 13.6 percent to 17.5 percent, an increase of approximately 7.9 million adults. The national uninsurance rate held steady at approximately 11 percent.
The share of adults reporting public coverage increased in all 50 states, however coverage gains were larger in states that expanded access to Medicaid. Such coverage increased from 14.9 percent to 19.2 percent in expansion states and from 10.7 percent to 14.3 percent in nonexpansion states.
More than 1 in 3 adults with low incomes in nonexpansion states (37.7%) were uninsured in 2021, compared with about 1 in 7 of such adults in expansion states (14.5%).”
Promise vs. Practice: the Actual Financial Performance of Accountable Care Organizations: “We found that overall, ACO programs roughly broke even from the CMS perspective. That is, when bonuses CMS paid to ACOs are subtracted from gross savings, the programs lost money or saved no more than a few tenths of a percent…
On the policy side, it is time to draw the ACO experiment to a close. We now have a decade of impressive empirical evidence demonstrating minimal if any benefit from ACOs of several designs.”
Biden can't rescind Texas' Medicaid waiver, court rules: “Texas has won a preliminary injunction barring President Joe Biden's administration from rescinding the previous administration's approval of changes to the state's Medicaid program, a move the state claims is intended to strong-arm it into expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker in Tyler, Texas, ruled Friday that the state was likely to succeed in proving that the administration's decision not to extenda waiver requiring Medicaid recipients to enroll in managed care, among other provisions, was arbitrary and capricious. The judge found that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services failed to give Texas sufficient notice or chance to comment.”
About pharma
Pfizer swallows CD47 biotech Trillium in $2.3B takeover: “Trillium, like peers such as Forty Seven and Arch Oncology, has identified CD47 blockade as a way to unleash the power of the innate immune system against tumors. The two candidates are designed to block CD47 while simultaneously delivering an ‘eat me’ signal to macrophages and, in the case of TTI-621, activating natural killer (NK) cells.
Pfizer sees enough promise in the prospects to bet $2.26 billion on Trillium.”