Apple’s New AirPods Earbuds Win FDA Approval For Use As Hearing Aids
The FDA noted that over-the-counter devices like Apple's latest model AirPods could help more Americans with hearing loss get help. Also in the news: an effective but expensive injectable HIV-prevention drug; a drug that delays brain tumor progression; and more.
The Washington Post:
FDA Approves Apple AirPods As Hearing Aids
If you have mild to moderate hearing loss, your AirPods could soon function as hearing aids. The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday it has approved a piece of software that will transform the latest model of Apple’s AirPods Pro earbuds into over-the-counter hearing aids. The company’s hearing aid feature will be pushed to eligible devices through a software update in the coming weeks, Apple said. The move, which comes two years after the FDA first approved over-the-counter hearing aids, could help more Americans with hearing loss start getting help, the FDA said in a statement. (Hunter, 9/12)
NBC News:
An Injectable HIV-Prevention Drug Is Highly Effective — But Wildly Expensive
The hotly anticipated results are in from a landmark pair of major clinical trials of a long-acting, injectable HIV-prevention drug that only requires dosing every six months. They are sensational. Thrilled over the news Thursday that lenacapavir was 89% more effective at preventing HIV than daily oral preventive medication among gay, bisexual and transgender people, plus previous news that the injectable drug was 100% effective in cisgender women, HIV advocates are looking to the future. They hope that if rolled out broadly and equitably, lenacapavir could be the game changer the nation badly needs. (Ryan, 9/12)
Stat:
A New Drug, Voranigo, Delays Brain Tumor Progression
When Rachel Guberman found out she had brain cancer, she did so much reading and Googling about the disease that she joked she had reached the end of the internet. But she avoided digging into one particular subject: what she might have to endure with chemotherapy and radiation. (Joseph, 9/13)
Stat:
Rare Disease Program, Seen As Lifeline And Pharma Boon, Set To End
After his son Michael was diagnosed with a devastating, ultra-rare disease in 2019, Terry Pirovolakis dedicated himself to eradicating it. Pirovolakis, a Canadian IT director, recruited academics and raised $3 million to design a gene therapy. He got Michael treated, an intervention that seems to have helped the 6-year-old stand on his heels for the first time and slow the course of a disease that can be severely cognitively and physically disabling. (Mast and Wilkerson, 9/12)
Also —
Chicago Tribune:
UIC Pharmacy School Gets $36 Million Donation
University of Illinois Chicago’s pharmacy school is getting a new name, after receiving a $36 million endowment gift from the estate of late Chicago pharmacy owners Herbert and Carol Retzky. The pharmacy school — which will now be called the Herbert M. and Carol H. Retzky College of Pharmacy — is the first college at UIC to be named after a donor. (Schencker, 9/12)
