Category:

California will start making its own affordable insulin as part of an effort to combat high drug prices for a lifesaving medication that's been made inaccessible for some Americans living with diabetes, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom announced...Newsom said in a video posted to Twitter that $100 million from the state budget he recently signed for 2022-2023 would be allocated for California to "contract and make [its] own insulin at a cheaper price, close to at cost, and to make it available to all." Half of the $100 million would go toward the development of a "low-cost" insulin, Newsom said. The other $50 million would go toward a facility in the state to manufacture insulin that would "provide new, high-paying jobs and a stronger supply chain for the drug."...READ MORE

The United States government could save billions of healthcare dollars if it purchased generic drugs at the prices offered by Mark Cuban’s new online pharmacy that was launched this year...In a comparison between Medicare’s spending in 2020 and the prices of Cuban’s Cost Plus Drug Company, researchers found that Medicare could have saved $3.6 billion, according to new research from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School published...in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine...READ MORE

What do you do when you can’t find a judge who doesn’t own Pfizer stock? Keep looking. Then look again—and again...Such was plaintiffs’ plight this week in two consolidated federal lawsuits taking aim at the New York City Department of Education’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Since Monday, two judges have come and gone, thanks to their financial ties to pandemic vaccine companies. Meanwhile, a third has vowed to stick around, arguing her investments in Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson are out of date...READ MORE

The role of pharmacy technicians in immunizations has evolved rapidly, particularly over the past 2 years because of COVID-19. Prior to the pandemic, pharmacy technicians for the most part were limited to assisting pharmacists in basic tasks related to immunizations. These included screening patients, preparing for the immunization, and performing administrative tasks required for immunization programs...In 2016, Idaho led the way in expanding the role of pharmacy technicians to include administering immunizations...the results were clear: All pharmacy technicians taking part in the study passed their assessments on the first attempt...The momentum for pharmacy technician-administered immunizations continued in Michigan, Washington state, Rhode Island, Utah, and Nevada...READ MORE

Gov. Steve Sisolak signed an executive order...implementing protections for anyone seeking or providing abortion services or other reproductive health care within the Silver State...The order arrives after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a 50-year-old constitutional right to abortion last week and seeks to provide refuge for those seeking such services. It also addresses the adoption of laws by other states that have imposed civil or criminal liability for those who seek abortions...“Reproductive health care is a basic human right, and Nevada stands firm in its commitment to ensuring there is safe and equitable access for Nevadans and anyone seeking refuge from the restrictive laws in their state,” Sisolak said in a press release...“No one should be punished for providing or receiving necessary medical care, including abortions, contraception and other reproductive health care services.”...READ MORE

A Stanford University team has created the amphibious all-terrain vehicle of the drug delivery world. The researchers designed the millimeter-scale robot to roll, flip and spin past obstacles and through liquids to navigate complex biomedical environments...Multiple papers have described the creation of wirelessly operated millimeter-scale origami robots that can move through narrow spaces and change shape to complete specific tasks. Potential applications for the robots include targeted drug delivery, in which context the vehicles would carry a payload for release at a specific site...Operated magnetically, the millirobot is designed to adapt itself to the environment, autonomously switching between rolling and flipping to get over some obstacles. Applying a magnetic field causes the millirobot to jump over bigger barriers...READ MORE

The anticipated Greek lawsuit against Novartis has been filed, with the country asking for 214 million euros in compensation from the pharmaceutical giant...Greek Health Minister Thanos Plevris said in a statement that the Greek state is seeking compensation for the damage it has suffered “from the actions that Novartis itself has admitted to in the USA that concerns payments to doctors.” The minister added that the state reserves the right to claim any damage it has suffered with a newer lawsuit and is clear that “all sanctions against Novartis for its illegal practices will be applied,”...READ MORE

In the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned, a legal battle over access to abortion-inducing medication is brewing...Medication abortion...is already used in more than half of recent abortions in the U.S., is preferred by many because it’s cheaper, less invasive and offers more privacy than the surgical alternative...The pills can be obtained through the mail and taken at home after a patient meets with a doctor in-person, over video or phone, or by filling out an online form...Those consultations must take place in a state where abortion is permitted, and clinics can use the IP address of the computer or phone a patient uses to identify their location...States angling to ban all forms of abortion may have a difficult time stamping out medication abortion, however, which would be far more complicated than simply shutting down a clinic...READ MORE

Two and a half years in, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to drag on the FDA’s oversight of drug manufacturing plants...In fiscal year 2021, the FDA sent out 70% of follow-up letters to manufacturing facilities within 90 days of an inspection. Over that same stretch, the regulator completed 48% of regulatory actions for facilities in need of follow-up within six months of inspection closing, the agency said in a new report...To put those stats in perspective, the agency in fiscal year 2020 sent 78% of classification letters within the 90-day time frame and knocked out 63% of regulatory actions required over a six-month span. And in 2019, it sent out 87% of letters and completed 74% of regulatory actions during those time frames...READ MORE

The U.S. Supreme Court...rejected bids by Insys Therapeutics Inc founder John Kapoor and another former executive of the drugmaker to overturn their convictions for conspiring to bribe doctors to prescribe addictive opioids and defraud insurers into paying for them...Kapoor, 78, is serving a prison sentence of 5-1/2 years and is the highest-level corporate executive convicted at trial of crimes related to the opioid epidemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans in the past two decades...READ MORE