About pharma
J&J to buy Momenta for $6.5 billion: “Johnson & Johnson announced Wednesday that it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Momenta Pharmaceuticals for $52.50 per share in cash, or approximately $6.5 billion, a deal it says broadens its position in immune-mediated diseases and allows it an opportunity to expand into autoantibody-driven diseases.”
Report shows Medicare spent more than $1.4 billion on discarded drugs during 2017 and 2018: “Medicare spent more than $1.4 billion on drugs that would eventually be wasted or discarded between 2017 and 2018, according to a report from MedicareAdvantage.com.
The majority of the medications that went unused were chemotherapy and cancer-treating drugs. In 2018, Medicare spent $392.3 million and $115.1 million, respectively, on discarded chemotherapy and anti-cancer drugs. They were wasted because the single-dose vials of medication had a higher dose than necessary to treat the average patient, according to the report from the company that bills itself as one of the largest Medicare sellers in the country.”
Famotidine linked to improved outcomes in COVID-19: “In hospitalized patients with COVID-19, famotidine was correlated with a lower mortality risk, lower risk for combined mortality and intubation outcomes and lower serum markers for severe disease, according to a study published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology.”
Novartis and Roche tee up self-injected Xolair option with FDA filing for prefilled syringe: “Novartis and Roche have struggled to keep their aging asthma blockbuster Xolair relevant, especially as competition from rival drugs—like Sanofi and Regeneron's blockbuster Dupixent—mop up sales.
But now, the drugmakers are advancing a prefilled syringe version that would allow patients and caregivers to inject the drug themselves, padding the case for Xolair's convenience in the pandemic era. The self-administration option is under review at the FDA, with a decision due early next year.”
The self-administered product would be covered by prescription drug benefit instead of the office benefit.
About the public’s health
Just for fun, check this website.
HHS Releases Healthy People 2030 with National Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Objectives for the Next Decade: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services “released Healthy People 2030, the nation's 10-year plan for addressing our most critical public health priorities and challenges. Since 1980, HHS's Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion has set measurable objectives and targets to improve the health and well-being of the nation.
This decade, Healthy People 2030 features 355 core – or measurable – objectives with 10-year targets, new objectives related to opioid use disorder and youth e-cigarette use, and resources for adapting Healthy People 2030 to emerging public health threats like COVID-19. For the first time, Healthy People 2030 also sets 10-year targets for objectives related to social determinants of health.”
FDA halts COVID-19 blood plasma emergency approval: “As the FDA was prepping to allow emergency use of blood plasma donation from recovered COVID-19 patients, government officials have put pay to that.
The authorization is on hold for now as more data are reviewed, and H. Clifford Lane, M.D., clinical director at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said an emergency approval could still be issued in the near future, as quoted by The New York Times.
This comes after National Institutes of Health leader Francis Collins, M.D., and COVID-19 response leader Anthony Fauci, M.D., recently questioned how efficacious treatments from it could be.”
New U.S. ethics board rejects most human fetal tissue research proposals: “An ethics board convened by the Trump administration today recommended that the United States refuse to fund all but one in a group of applications to do medical research using human fetal tissue donated after elective abortions. The applications, made to the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), had already been recommended for funding by scientific reviewers and had met existing legal requirements for ethical use of the tissue."
The Human Fetal Tissue Research Ethics Advisory Board, appointed by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar, reviewed the 14 proposals last month. Its recommendations that 13 of them be rejected, delivered to Azar and Congress today, were the first under a new regime implemented last year by the Trump administration, in which projects by extramural, NIH-funded scientists using human fetal tissue need to pass an extra layer of ethics review.”
Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count: An update: “At least 1,349 new coronavirus deaths and 43,226 new cases were reported in the United States on Aug. 18. Over the past week, there have been an average of 49,102 cases per day, a decrease of 17 percent from the average two weeks earlier.
As of Wednesday morning, more than 5,498,300 people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus and at least 171,800 have died, according to a New York Times database.”
More infectious coronavirus mutation may be 'a good thing', says disease expert: “An increasingly common mutation of the novel coronavirus found in Europe, North America and parts of Asia may be more infectious but appears less deadly, according to a prominent infectious diseases doctor.”
ClearMask Receives FDA OK for Transparent Surgical Mask: “The FDA has granted ClearMask 510(k) clearance for its fully transparent surgical mask, the first one to be fully cleared by the agency.
The transparent mask helps improve visual communication, ‘which may help avoid costly errors and adverse outcomes,’ the company said.”
Many Americans may not comprehend COVID-19 information as agencies fail to meet health literacy guidelines, study says: “The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the White House and state health departments failed to meet guidelines when communicating vital information about COVID-19 to the public, according to a study released Tuesday.
The CDC, the American Medical Association and the National Institutes of Health all recommend that medical information for the public be written at no higher than an eighth-grade reading level.
But after studying 137 federal and state web pages, Dartmouth College researchers found that public information about the coronavirus averaged just over an 11th-grade reading level.”
Facebook funnelling readers towards Covid misinformation - study: “Websites spreading misinformation about health attracted nearly half a billion views on Facebook in April alone, as the coronavirus pandemic escalated worldwide, a report has found.
Facebook had promised to crack down on conspiracy theories and inaccurate news early in the pandemic. But as its executives promised accountability, its algorithm appears to have fuelled traffic to a network of sites sharing dangerous false news, campaign group Avaaz has found.
False medical information can be deadly; researchers led by Bangladesh’s International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, writing in The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, have directly linked a single piece of coronavirus misinformation to 800 deaths.”
Mexico moves to ban junk food sales to children, citing obesity as coronavirus: “Spurred by growing evidence that being overweight increases the risk of serious illness with an infection by the novel coronavirus, a number of Mexican states are moving to ban the sale of junk food to children.
On Monday, legislators in Tabasco voted to prohibit the sale of sugar-sweetened beverages and highly processed foods to anyone under 18, just 12 days after Oaxaca took similar action.”
About health insurance
Cleveland Clinic, Aetna partner to curb employer health spending by 10%: “Cleveland Clinic and Aetna are forming an accountable care organization that includes the launch of a co-branded insurance plan designed for employers in Northeast Ohio and expanded access to the health system for second opinions and heart care.
The health system and payer say employers that enroll in their new Aetna Whole Health – Cleveland Clinic co-branded commercial plan could save as much as 10 percent in healthcare spending compared to a current Aetna broad network plan. Members of the health plan can receive care from the Cleveland Clinic Quality Alliance network of employed and independent community physicians or at any Cleveland Clinic facility, and the system will be rewarded for meeting quality and cost targets.”
U.S. Health Insurance Coverage in 2020: A Looming Crisis in Affordability: From the Commonwealth Fund, a couple highlights from the report:
“In the first half of 2020, 43.4 percent of U.S. adults ages 19 to 64 were inadequately insured. This is statistically unchanged from the last time we fielded the survey in 2018.
The adult uninsured rate was 12.5 percent. In addition, 9.5 percent of adults were insured but had a gap in coverage in the past year and 21.3 percent were underinsured. These findings are also statistically unchanged from 2018.”
Aetna and Lyft to give schools access to essential rides for families: ”Aetna… announced it will give $100,000 in essential rides for families in school districts around the country such as Chicago, Denver, Baltimore and Seattle, in collaboration with the National School Boards Association (NSBA) and Lyft to help families this school year.”
HHS extends application deadlines for financial assistance programs: “HHS announced that Medicaid, Medicaid managed care, Children's Health Insurance Program and dental providers as well as certain Medicare providers experiencing financial difficulty stemming from COVID-19 now have until Aug. 28 to apply for funding relief.”
About health IT
Fitbit posts early findings showing its trackers can identify cases of COVID-19 before symptoms take hold: “Since launching a study to see whether its wearable activity trackers could pick up on the early signs of a COVID-19 infection, Fitbit has enrolled over 100,000 participants across the U.S. and Canada and is now delivering its first, preliminary results 90 days later.
That includes at least 1,100 users who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. By tracking subtle changes in a person’s heart rate, breathing, physical activity and quality of sleep, Fitbit aims to develop an algorithm that can highlight potential cases before symptoms start.
So far, the company said its devices have been able to detect nearly half of COVID-19 cases at least one day before the participant reported any of the disease’s symptoms, such as fever, cough or muscle aches.”
Hospital adoption of electronic health record functions to support age-friendly care: results from a national survey: “Despite significant national investment in EHRs, hospital EHRs do not yet include key documentation, exchange, and communication functions needed to support evidence-based care for the older adults who comprise the majority of the inpatient population.”
COVID-19–Related Infodemic and Its Impact on Public Health: A Global Social Media Analysis: “We identified 2,311 reports of rumors, stigma, and conspiracy theories in 25 languages from 87 countries. Claims were related to illness, transmission and mortality (24%), control measures (21%), treatment and cure (19%), cause of disease including the origin (15%), violence (1%), and miscellaneous (20%). Of the 2,276 reports for which text ratings were available, 1,856 claims were false (82%).” Also, see above Facebook funnelling readers towards Covid misinformation - study
How did Novo Nordisk's Sophia chatbot become a pharma industry standard? Empathy, timing and relevance: experts: Interesting insight into Voice User Interface (VUI).
About hospitals and health systems
Assessment of Costs of Avoidable Delays in Intensive Care Unit Discharge: “In this study, potentially avoidable discharge delay occurred for most patients admitted to ICUs across a large integrated health system and translated into substantial associated health care costs.”
In addition to costs, the delays tie up beds needed for critically ill patients.
Beaumont delays vote on Advocate Aurora merger to address physician complaints: “The board of trustees of Southfield, Mich.-based Beaumont Health agreed last week to postpone voting on a planned merger with Advocate Aurora Health until physician grievances are addressed.
The trustees decided to delay the vote after physicians presented the results of a seven-question survey completed by 1,500 of Beaumont's 5,000 physicians. The results of the survey, which was developed by physician leaders, were critical of Beaumont's management and proposed merger with Advocate Aurora…”
