About Covid-19
White House mulls post-Covid emergency backstop for uninsured “The Biden administration is zeroing in on a plan to keep Covid vaccines, treatments and tests free for the uninsured into 2024, even as it plots a quicker wind-down of its broader pandemic response, four people with knowledge of the matter told POLITICO.”
About health insurance/insurers
The Joint Commission and Manchester Specialty Programs collaborate to provide insurance pricing benefits to eligible nursing homes and assisted living facilities JC accredited facilities can get premium discounts on insurance from this company. Like good drivers getting an insurance discount.
About hospitals and healthcare systems
Unfortunate trend continues (following 3 articles):
Alabama Hospital Association: Over a dozen rural hospitals at immediate risk of closing
Financial and Operational Impacts on Tennessee Hospitals Since the Onset of the Pandemic “The vast majority of hospitals at risk of closure in Tennessee are rural hospitals, though urban hospitals have also been stressed and are at a higher risk than pre-pandemic levels.”
Duke University Health reports $70M operating loss, overall profit “Overall income for the period totaled $28.8 million, boosted by positive returns on investment income.”
And when the market declines again…?
About pharma
Years after the first US biosim launches, doctors still have their concerns: survey “In the U.S., when a biosimilar is shown through a switching study to have comparable efficacy and safety to a reference product, it is classified as “interchangeable.” As such, it can be swapped out by a pharmacist for the original medicine.
But while the interchangeable designation is valuable, many manufacturers of biosimilars are not willing to undergo the time consuming and expensive studies that are required to gain the status…
When asked in the Sermo study whether regulatory agencies should do away with switching studies and deem all U.S. biosimilars interchangeable, 48% of doctors said they were unsure.
Similarly, when asked about the key factor in prescribing a biosimilar, 48% of doctors cited comparable efficacy data—as proven through a switching study. Meanwhile, only 19% of those surveyed said financial savings to the patient was an important factor.”
High drug prices are not justified by industry’s spending on research and development “Key messages:
From 1999 to 2018, the world’s 15 largest biopharmaceutical companies spent more on selling, general, and administrative activities than on research and development
Most of these companies also spent more on share buybacks and paying out dividends than on research and development
Most new medicines developed during this period offered little or no clinical benefit over existing treatments
Industry could generate more medically valuable and affordable innovation with existing resources
Government action is needed to encourage research and development focused on public health priorities”
About the public’s health
Vaping Dose, Device Type, and E-Liquid Flavor are Determinants of DNA Damage in Electronic Cigarette Users “We demonstrate a dose-dependent formation of DNA damage in oral cells from vapers who had never smoked tobacco cigarettes as well as exclusive cigarette smokers. Device type and e-liquid flavor determine the extent of DNA damage detected in vapers. Users of pod devices followed by mod users, and those who use sweet-, mint or menthol-, and fruit-flavored e-liquids, respectively, show the highest levels of DNA damage when compared to nonusers. Given the popularity of pod and mod devices and the preferability of these same flavors of e-liquid by both adult- and youth vapers, our findings can have significant implications for public health and tobacco products regulation.”
Investigation spotlights rise of for-profit ethics boards in research “Federal regulations require that certain research on human subjects — including those testing the safety of new drugs — first get approval from a registered institutional research board. These boards, which are made up of at least five members and can include researchers and academics, are designed to make sure that a study poses as little risk as possible and that participants have enough information to give consent.
While the majority of these boards are affiliated with universities, a small number have no affiliation with institutions conducting research. But according to a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, these independent boards now account for the largest share of reviews of studies involving new drugs and biologics. Independent boards conducted 48 percent of such research regulated by the Food and Drug Administration in 2021, up from 25 percent a decade earlier, despite making up just 2 percent of all U.S. review boards.”
About health technology
Labcorp plots 2023 revenue growth despite a possible 90% drop in COVID test revenues “In a full-year earnings report published Thursday, Labcorp reported a 7.7% year-over-year drop in revenues in 2022, thanks almost entirely to a COVID diagnostics haul that weighed in at less than half the size of the previous year’s.
For all of 2022, Labcorp raked in $1.1 billion in revenues from sales of its PCR and antibody tests for the coronavirus—just over a 60% drop from 2021’s tally, which added up to $2.8 billion. Though an undeniably huge decrease, that was actually the best-case scenario for Labcorp, which predicted at the start of 2022 that COVID-related revenues for the year would fall at a rate between 60% and 75%.”