Drug Companies Ask For Reopening Of Mexican Border For Blood Plasma
Mexican nationals had been allowed to cross into the U.S. in order to be paid for blood plasma donations, but officials have shut off that route, triggering worries over plasma supply. Separately, antibiotic treatments for simple pneumonia and recurrent urinary infections are also in the news.
The Wall Street Journal:
Block On Blood-Plasma Donors From Mexico Threatens Supplies
Pharmaceutical companies and U.S. officials are fighting over whether to allow people to cross the border from Mexico to be paid for giving blood plasma, a critical ingredient in treatments for some neurological and autoimmune diseases. Up to 10% of plasma collected in the U.S. usually comes from Mexican nationals who enter on visitor visas and are paid about $50 to donate, according to legal filings from pharmaceutical companies. Last June, U.S. border officials indicated they would stop the roughly 30-year practice because they viewed it as labor for hire, which isn’t allowed under a visitor visa. (Cherney, Onque and Hernandez, 3/9)
In other pharmaceutical and biotech news —
CIDRAP:
Study: Young Kids With Simple Pneumonia Fare Well Without Antibiotics
A study of children 3 years old or younger who were hospitalized for uncomplicated community-associated pneumonia (CAP) found that a significant proportion did well without a full course of antibiotics, researchers reported yesterday in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. In the retrospective observational study, researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham analyzed data on previously healthy children ages 3 to 36 months who were treated at Children's of Alabama for uncomplicated CAP from September 2011 through December 2019. They compared outcomes in children treated with antibiotics—defined as treated for more than 2 days with an antibiotic or discharged home with an antibiotic prescription—versus those who received 2 days of antibiotics or less or were discharged home with no antibiotics. (3/10)
CIDRAP:
Trial Supports Antibiotic Alternative For Recurrent Urinary Infections
The results of a randomized clinical trial conducted in the United Kingdom suggest a non-antibiotic antiseptic treatment may be as good as antibiotics for preventing recurrent urinary tract infection (UTI), researchers reported yesterday in The BMJ. The drug, methenamine hippurate, has previously been evaluated in systematic reviews for the prevention of recurrent UTI, which occurs in roughly one in four women who have a UTI episode, but the results of those reviews have been inconclusive. This is the largest randomized trial yet to assess its efficacy compared with antibiotics—the current standard treatment. (Dall, 3/10)
Crain's Cleveland Business:
Cleveland Clinic Enters Five-Year Collaboration Agreement With Boston Artificial Intelligence Company
Cleveland Clinic and PathAI, a Boston-based artificial intelligence company, are teaming up to build what they call a "digital pathology infrastructure" and advance the use of AI-powered pathology algorithms in research and clinical care. The health system and the company on Thursday, March 10, announced a five-year strategic collaboration that they said "will focus on leveraging PathAI's quantitative pathology algorithms both to conduct new translational research and for use as clinical diagnostics in multiple disease areas." They said the effort "combines PathAI's AI-based platforms with Cleveland Clinic's clinical expertise and multi-modal data to unlock a broad implementation of next-generation pathology diagnostics." (Suttell, 3/10)
KHN:
Pandemic Medical Innovations Leave Behind People With Disabilities
Divya Goel, a 35-year-old deaf-blind woman in Orlando, Florida, has had two telemedicine doctors’ appointments during the pandemic. Each time, she was denied an interpreter. Her doctors told her she would have to get insurance to pay for an interpreter, which is incorrect: Under federal law, it is the physician’s responsibility to provide one. (Weber, 3/11)
FiercePharma:
Gilead To Boost West Coast Production Muscle After Revealing New Jersey Layoffs
As Gilead Sciences slims down on the East Coast, the company is plotting manufacturing moves out West. The biotech has closed a deal for 27 acres of undeveloped land near its existing facility in Oceanside, California, which it will use to stand up additional manufacturing in the area, Joydeep Ganguly, Gilead’s senior vice president of corporate operations, said in a statement. The company’s current Oceanside outfit supports clinical manufacturing and process development for Gilead and Kite Pharma, the exec said. (Kansteiner, 3/10)
