Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
CVS Experiments With Remote Prescription-Filling By Pharmacists
The Wall Street Journal: CVS Tries Out Remote System To Help Fill Prescriptions
CVS has equipped roughly 8,000 of its more than 9,000 U.S. drugstores with technology that allows pharmacists to review and enter prescription information remotely while still meeting patient-privacy requirements. About 400 of CVS’s 30,000 pharmacists are currently helping prepare prescriptions either at central locations, from their homes or in stores other than where medications will be dispensed, the company said. (Terlep, 12/4)
In other corporate news —
Stat: AAM's Dan Leonard, President Of Generic Drug Lobby, Ousted
The generic drug industry’s lobbying group, the Association for Accessible Medicines, fired its president Dan Leonard Friday, according to five sources familiar with the decision. David Gaugh will move from his position as executive vice president of sciences and regulatory affairs to be the interim head of AAM, three sources said. (Wilkerson, 12/2)
Reuters: Albertsons Dodges Class Action Over 'Rapid Release' Acetaminophen Claims
Grocery store operator Albertsons Companies Inc has won dismissal of a proposed class action lawsuit accusing it of misleading consumers by selling "rapid release" acetaminophen tablets that allegedly dissolved more slowly than its standard version of the over-the-counter pain reliever. (Pierson, 12/2)
More from the pharmaceutical industry —
Reuters: Amgen Says Experimental Obesity Drug Has Promising Durability
Amgen Inc's experimental obesity drug demonstrated promising durability trends in an early trial, paving the way for a larger mid-stage study early next year, company officials said ahead of a data presentation on Saturday. The small Phase I trial found that patients maintained their weight loss for 70 days after receiving the highest tested dose of the injected drug, currently known as AMG133. (Beasley, 12/3)
The Wall Street Journal: Why You Can’t Find Wegovy, The Weight-Loss Drug
Novo Nordisk A/S flubbed the launch of its buzzy new weight-loss drug Wegovy, missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars in sales and squandering a head start before a rival could begin selling a competing product. (Loftus and Roland, 12/4)
Bloomberg: Nestle’s Vitamins Push Tested By Cost-Of-Living Squeeze
Over the past year, however, with the pandemic easing and a cost-of-living crisis squeezing household budgets, the vitamin business has fallen on harder times. In the US, supplement sales fell 3.3% by units in the year through October, following three consecutive years of growth, according to data provider NielsenIQ. (Afanasieva, 12/4)
In research news —
Stat: Image Altering, Alleged In Stanford Leader's Work, Hardly Rare
In 2004, Mike Rossner and Kenneth Yamada, two top editors at the Journal of Cell Biology, wrote an editorial alerting readers to what they saw as an emerging problem in science: Thanks to Photoshop, researchers could prettify the images in their manuscripts in ways that might cross the line into deception in an effort to clear the bar of peer review. (Marcus and Oransky, 12/2)
The Boston Globe: A New Advance In The Quest To Build Proteins From Scratch Using AI
A Somerville startup and an academic lab in Seattle say they have developed a way to use artificial intelligence to design proteins that don’t exist in nature. Proteins help people move, digest food, and fight infections — to name a few of their numerous functions. They’re also the basis of a nearly $300 billion drug industry for treating cancer, immune diseases, and other conditions. Most of these therapies are only slightly altered versions of natural proteins. And for some scientists, nature is too limiting. (Cross, 12/2)
