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The first single-dose Covid-19 vaccine, a shot from Johnson & Johnson, was authorized for use...the third issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, will give health authorities a desperately needed new source of doses as they scramble to ramp up inoculations ahead of elusive emerging strains...J&J said it has begun shipping the vaccine to the U.S. government, which is managing allocation and distribution. That indicates first doses could be administered during the coming week...READ MORE

Nevada health officials are still awaiting answers about why the state has one of the nation’s lowest COVID-19 vaccine allocations from the federal government...As of this week, the state remained ranked among the bottom 10 states in terms of vaccine allocation per capita. It had received about 21,070 first doses per 100,000 adult residents...READ MORE

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by several hospital groups seeking to get the Department of Health and Human Services to clamp down on drugmakers restricting access to products...Federal Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued a ruling...that hospitals had to use a new dispute resolution process to settle the feud with the drugmakers, which the hospitals cannot sue individually under federal law for 340B violations...READ MORE

Fed up with a lack of federal action to lower prescription drug costs, state legislators around the country are pushing bills to penalize drugmakers for unjustified price hikes and to cap payment at much-lower Canadian levels...These bills, sponsored by both Republicans and Democrats in a half-dozen states, are a response to consumers’ intensified demand for action on drug prices as prospects for solutions from Congress remain highly uncertain...READ MORE

The Food and Drug Administration advisory committee endorsed Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine late Friday afternoon...The vaccine appears widely effective against the virus and is especially good at preventing severe cases...And because the vaccine is given as a single dose and is easy to ship, it presents an appealing profile for public health officials struggling to vaccinate hard-to-reach or skeptical populations...READ MORE

Johnson & Johnson has been battling for years against lawsuits claiming its talc powders cause cancer, but now investors are getting a sense of what the litigation could cost the drug giant...In an annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, J&J said its multibillion-dollar 2020 litigation expense is “primarily associated with talc related reserves and certain settlements” worth $3.9 billion. The company faces 25,000 lawsuits alleging the household products cause cancer...READ MORE

Nearly 82% of hospitals surveyed by the Joint Commission in 2019 were noncompliant with at least one Medication Management chapter item. Still, experts say they are hopeful that recent revisions will help those hospitals meet the accreditor’s expectations...Topping the list of noncompliance in 2019 was the medication administration standard, which 49% of hospitals failed to adhere to, Mansur noted. “Surveyors have been finding medications being administered for an indication when another medication was specified, or an ordered medication given for a different indication, and often this is done without a documented explanation,” she said. “Surveyors will also often see that administration of medication, particularly titration medication, is performed differently than is directed by the order.”...READ MORE

Nevada on Thursday reported higher-than-average tallies of new coronavirus cases and additional fatalities over the preceding day...Updated figures from the Department of Health and Human Services posted to the state’s coronavirus website showed 571 new coronavirus cases and 14 additional deaths from Wednesday’s report. That brought cumulative totals for the state to 292,630 cases and 4,933 deaths...READ MORE

Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE have asked the U.S. health regulator to relax requirements for their COVID-19 vaccine to be stored at ultra-low temperatures, potentially allowing it to be kept in pharmacy freezers...Approval by the Food and Drug Administration could send a strong signal to other regulators around the world that may ease distribution of the shot in lower-income countries...The companies have submitted new temperature data to the FDA to support an update to the current label that would allow vials to be stored at -25 to -15 degrees Celsius (-13°F to 5°F) for a total of two weeks...READ MORE

The World Health Organization has granted an emergency authorization to AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine, a move that should allow the U.N. agency’s partners to ship millions of doses to countries worldwide as part of a U.N.-backed program to tame the pandemic...the WHO said it was clearing the AstraZeneca vaccines made by the Serum Institute of India and South Korea’s AstraZeneca-SKBio...“Countries with no access to vaccines to date will finally be able to start vaccinating their health workers and populations at risk,” said Dr Mariângela Simão, the WHO’s Assistant-Director General for Access to Medicines and Health Products....READ MORE