Archives: Morning Breakouts

India's patent office "has rejected American drug maker Abbott Laboratories' patent application for an HIV combination drug, allowing low-cost local drug makers to make and sell their generic versions in India and other countries where the medicine is not patented," Economic Times reports (1/4). The drug under consideration was Abbott's "Kaletra, which combines two antivirals, [lopinavir/ritonavir and] is one of the preferred second-line treatments to fight drug-resistant HIV, according to the World Health Organization, which recommends governments include it on their list of essential medicines," Bloomberg/Businessweek writes (Narayan, 1/4).

Though Haiti's cholera "epidemic continues to spread, infecting more than 125,000 people and killing more than 3,200," it seems to have "stabilized in" the town of Mirebalais, which is close to the "U.N. camp of Nepalese peacekeepers who are under investigation as a possible source" of the outbreak, the Seattle Times reports in a story outlining how aid groups and health workers are dealing with the situation.

In the background, news organizations report on the positions being taken by Democrats who may have voted against the measure the first time around and how Republicans plan to explain the budget implications of this repeal effort.

News outlets report that the Food And Drug Administration is getting ready to begin implementing this new measure.

The state's Republican governor gave the attorney general permission to proceed with legal action against the health care law.

News outlets offer analysis of the difficulties involved in the long-term strategy to prevent the health law's implementation - including the difficulties involved in attempts to defund it.

"After a century of progress, the issues that medicine must tackle in the coming year aren't that different from the ones that faced doctors at the start of 1911, according to the observations" published Jan. 1 in a Lancet editorial, LiveScience reports (Parry, 12/30).

"[A] recent study by the World Health Organization and the International Labor Organization identified 72 different 'social pension' plans around the world dedicated to the elderly, the ill, or the down and out," Newsweek writes in an article exploring the growth in welfare programs around the world. "Most countries on the [WHO/ILO] list are developing nations once considered too destitute to help their poor and that, until recently, had little or no welfare coverage at all. ... While fighting inequality and helping the neediest has long been on the docket of Third World leaders, most previous attempts have been sabotaged by inefficiency, corruption, and stagnant or dysfunctional economies," the magazine writes. "Now roaring economies in Asia, Latin America, and even Africa, coupled with better-functioning governments and sound fiscal stewardship, have stretched the policy horizons for many nations that once lived from one crisis to the next," according to Newsweek.

"President Barack Obama is quietly but strategically stepping up his outreach to Africa, using this year to increase his engagement with a continent that is personally meaningful to him and important to U.S. interests," the Associated Press writes in a story looking at how the Obama administration might engage with African countries in the upcoming year.

"With philanthropists funneling billions of dollars into biomedical research and traditional drug discovery efforts producing fewer and fewer therapies, the line between for-profit and nonprofit life science companies is beginning to blur as both sides of the divide look for new options," The Scientist magazine writes in an article that examines the rise in collaborations between nonprofit pharmaceutical companies and for-profit groups. "More and more for-profit enterprises are experimenting with nonprofit models, while nonprofit organizations look to incorporate for-profit business practices to stay afloat."

As the GOP takes control of the House and gains new muscle in the Senate, the Republican to-do list in the House is clear.