Health
Biden administration delays ban on menthol cigarettes until 2024
The Biden administration has once again delayed banning menthol cigarettes, infuriating officials of public health groups who say the products are responsible for taking hundreds of thousands of American lives. On Wednesday, the White House quietly updated its Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs website to reflect that any final ban on menthol wouldn’t take place until at […]
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AbbVie to acquire neuroscience drugmaker Cerevel Therapeutics for $8.7 billion
A sign stands outside a Abbvie facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 20, 2021. Brian Snyder | Reuters AbbVie on Wednesday said it will acquire neuroscience drugmaker Cerevel Therapeutics for roughly $8.7 billion. Under the terms of the deal, AbbVie will pay $45 per share for Cerevel. AbbVie said it expects to complete the acquisition in […]
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Senators launch bipartisan probe of private equity's growing role in U.S. health care
Two U.S. senators have launched a bipartisan investigation into secretive and powerful private-equity firms’ involvement in health care in the nation, demanding documents and information from executives associated with two hospital systems to assess how much profit they have generated through their complex financial arrangements and whether the deals harmed patients and clinicians. Sheldon Whitehouse, […]
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CVS to change how it prices prescription drugs with new pharmacy reimbursement model
A sign outside a CVS Health store in Miami, Aug. 1, 2023. Joe Raedle | Getty Images CVS Health on Tuesday said will revamp how it prices prescription drugs and scrap a complex model that typically sets how much pharmacies get reimbursed and what patients pay for those medications. The new effort makes CVS the […]
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Reproductive startup launches test to identify an embryo's genetic defects before an IVF pregnancy begins
Noor Siddiqui, founder and CEO of Orchid, during the web summit for careers during Day 2 of the 2014 Web Summit in Dublin, Ireland, Nov. 5, 2014. Stephen McCarthy | Getty Images Reproductive technology startup Orchid on Tuesday announced a comprehensive new genetic test that may help many prospective parents across the U.S. breathe a […]
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Free ChatGPT may incorrectly answer drug questions, study says
Harun Ozalp | Anadolu | Getty Images The free version of ChatGPT may provide inaccurate or incomplete responses — or no answer at all — to questions related to medications, which could potentially endanger patients who use OpenAI’s viral chatbot, a new study released Tuesday suggests. Pharmacists at Long Island University who posed 39 questions […]
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L.A. poultry firm hired kids as young as 14 to work with sharp knives, Labor Dept. says
The Exclusive Poultry in La Puente, Calif. Google Earth The Labor Department says that a Los Angeles-based poultry processor hired children as young as 14 to debone chicken with sharp knives and hid minors in closets when investigators showed up to ask questions, according to court documents and a new consent decree with the company announced Monday. […]
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Pfizer’s twice-daily weight loss pill joins a long list of obesity drug flops
Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images Pfizer’s twice-daily version of its experimental weight loss pill has now joined a long list of other scrapped drugs that aimed to treat obesity but came with unintended consequences. The drugmaker on Friday said it will stop developing the twice-daily treatment, danuglipron, after obese patients taking the drug […]
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Why Pfizer’s latest stumble in the obesity market is a boon for Eli Lilly
Pfizer (PFE) has suffered another setback in its efforts to develop a weight-loss pill — and that’s good news for Club holding Eli Lilly (LLY) as it looks to maintain an edge in the fast-growing obesity-treatment market. Pfizer said Friday it will discontinue its twice-daily weight-loss pill, danuglipron, after patients in a mid-stage trial experienced […]
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Pfizer to discontinue twice-daily weight loss pill due to high rates of adverse side effects
Pfizer on Friday said it would stop developing the twice-daily version of its experimental weight loss pill after obese patients taking the drug lost weight but had trouble tolerating the drug in a mid-stage clinical study. The drugmaker observed high rates of adverse side effects, which were mostly mild and gastrointestinal, among patients. A significant […]
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