Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Drug Makers' Funding To Patient Groups Has Stifled Crucial Voice In Cost Debate, Critics Say
USA Today: Patient Groups Funded By Drugmakers Are Largely Mum On High Drug Prices
Drug companies provide so much of the funding for major patient groups that many critics say they've stifled a key voice in the policy debate over soaring drug prices, especially over those for cancer. The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, for example, gets $50 million a year from drugmakers, which comes to about 16% of their funding. The National Patient Advocate Foundation receives 60% of its $2 million budget from the pharmaceutical industry, while the Colon Cancer Alliance gets 15% of its $1.2 million budget. Several other groups get up to 20% of their revenue from drug companies. (O'Donnell, 1/21)
Reuters: J&J Stops Trials Of Drug Similar To One Linked To Brain Death In France
Johnson & Johnson has suspended international trials of a drug in the same class as an experimental drug made by Portuguese pharmaceutical company Bial, whose tests in France left one person brain dead and five others hospitalized. A spokesman for Johnson & Johnson said in an emailed statement that it voluntarily suspended two mid-stage trials and had not received reports of serious adverse events in its studies of patients with social anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder with anxious distress. (Beasley, 1/21)
