The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday sharply criticized pharmacy benefit managers, saying in a scathing 71-page report that “these powerful middlemen may be profiting by inflating drug costs and squeezing Main Street pharmacies.” The regulator’s study signals a significant ramping up of its scrutiny of benefit managers under the agency’s chair, Lina Khan. It represents…
V. Craig Jordan, a pharmacologist whose discovery that a failed contraceptive, tamoxifen, could block the growth of breast cancer cells opened up a whole new class of drugs and helped save the lives of millions of women, died on June 9 at his home in Houston. He was 76. Balkees Abderrahman, a researcher who worked…
The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved a new drug for Alzheimer’s disease, the latest in a novel class of treatments that has been greeted with hope, disappointment and skepticism. The drug, donanemab, to be sold under the brand name Kisunla, was shown in studies to modestly slow the pace of cognitive decline in…
It can take generic makers years to get ready to produce a drug, and they need to have a sense of the potential market in order to commit to investing in production. So, in the meantime, Gilead will aim to to ship “sufficient volumes” of lenacaprivir to low-income countries as soon as it has regulatory…
Sue Clasen kept trying to manage her sleep apnea. She knew a CPAP machine would help her breathe through the night, but none of the masks she wore with it were comfortable enough to actually fall asleep. She bought a special hanger to hold the machine’s hose so she wouldn’t get tangled up in it….
The laboratory at Terray Therapeutics is a symphony of miniaturized automation. Robots whir, shuttling tiny tubes of fluids to their stations. Scientists in blue coats, sterile gloves and protective glasses monitor the machines. But the real action is happening at nanoscale: Proteins in solution combine with chemical molecules held in minuscule wells in custom silicon…
A committee of independent advisers to the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously on Monday that the benefits outweigh the risks of the newest experimental drug for Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s afflicts more than six million Americans. It has no cure, and there is no treatment or lifestyle modification that can restore memory loss or reverse…
Over the last three years, a new class of Alzheimer’s drug, the first to treat a root cause of the disease, has set off a roller coaster of hope and disappointment. But while these so-called anti-amyloid antibodies had a rough start, many patients and their doctors are feeling more optimistic now that one of the…
For the first time on record, cannabis has outpaced alcohol as the daily drug of choice for Americans. In 2022 there were 17.7 million people who reported using cannabis either every day or nearly every day, compared with 14.7 million who reported using alcohol with the same frequency, according to a study, published on Wednesday…
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved an innovative new treatment for patients with a form of lung cancer. It is to be used only by patients who have exhausted all other options to treat small cell lung cancer, and have a life expectancy of four to five months. The drug tarlatamab, or Imdelltra,…
