Who Should Prescribe Methadone? Industry Leaders Sound Off At Summit
At issue is a bill from Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) that would wrest methadone from the control of specialized clinics and allow any board-certified addiction doctor or addiction psychiatrist to prescribe the medication directly to patients, Stat reports.
Stat:
At Las Vegas Conference, Methadone Clinics Blast Idea Of Doctors Prescribing Directly
Mark Parrino, the longtime leader of the U.S. methadone clinic industry, kicked off his organization’s conference here last week with a simple message: Allowing addiction doctors to prescribe the medication directly to their patients is “not a good idea.” (Facher, 5/28)
Stat:
Duchenne Drug From Nippon Shinyaku Fails In Rare Confirmatory Trial
Japanese drugmaker Nippon Shinyaku said on Monday that its Duchenne muscular dystrophy drug, Viltepso, part of a controversial class of treatments for the rare disease, had failed to reach its primary endpoint in a placebo-controlled confirmatory trial. (Mast, 5/27)
Stat:
Gene Therapies For Deafness Raise The Question: Do Deaf People Want A 'Cure'?
When Yilai Shu was training to be an otolaryngologist in Shanghai, in the mid 2000s, he often met parents with congenitally deaf kids. “They always asked me, ‘Do you have any drugs to treat our kids?’ said Shu, who is hearing and a professor at Fudan University in China. “That’s what really inspired me to think about developing a drug.” (Broderick, 5/28)
CNBC:
Neuralink Competitor Precision Neuroscience Testing Human Brain Implant
As the lights dimmed in an operating room at The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, Dr. Joshua Bederson prepared to make history. (Capoot, 5/25)
Reuters:
Rite Aid Nears Deal On Post-Bankruptcy Financing
Pharmacy chain Rite Aid is close to reaching a deal on a post-bankruptcy financing package, with a group of lenders preparing to provide interim financing while the company remains in Chapter 11, attorneys said Friday. Rite Aid received court approval in late March to begin voting on a bankruptcy plan that would eliminate $2 billion in debt and hand over the company's equity to a group of lenders including investment funds Brigade Capital and HG Vora. But Rite Aid has struggled to finalize some of the deal's details, delaying its planned exit from bankruptcy by over a month. (Knauth, 5/24)
In obituaries —
The New York Times:
Dr. Paul D. Parkman, Who Helped Identify The Rubella Virus, Dies
Dr. Paul D. Parkman, whose research was instrumental in identifying the virus that causes rubella and developing a vaccine that has prevented an epidemic of the disease in the United States for more than 50 years, died on May 7 at his home in Auburn, New York, about 60 miles east of Rochester in the Finger Lakes region. He was 91. (Roberts, 5/28)
