Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Report: Johnson & Johnson To Sell 4 Of Its Medications On TrumpRx
CBS News: Johnson & Johnson To Launch On TrumpRx With 4 Of Its Prescription Drugs
Drug-making giant Johnson & Johnson will officially start marketing four of its medications on the Trump administration's TrumpRx website on Friday, CBS News exclusively learned. The pharmaceutical company announced in January that it had entered into a voluntary agreement with the Trump administration to lower costs for Americans by providing Medicaid access to affordable prescriptions and marketing its drugs on TrumpRx in exchange for exemption from the president's tariff agenda. (Rinaldi, 4/24)
In other pharmaceutical industry news —
Bloomberg: Supreme Court Weighs Bayer Appeal Of `Failure-To-Warn' Roundup Lawsuits
Bayer AG is counting on the US Supreme Court to pare down lawsuits over its top-selling Roundup weedkiller and help corral the decade-long litigation that has cost the company more than $10 billion and cast a pall over its stock price. Bayer’s attorneys during arguments Monday will urge the high court to overturn a $1.25 million Missouri jury verdict for a man who claims Roundup caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma and should have had a cancer warning label. The company contends that since US regulators didn’t require a cancer warning, federal law bars those types of suits. (Feeley, Stohr, and Wind, 4/26)
Katie Couric Media: Cancer Vaccines At Risk As 'Turbo Cancer' Lies Spread
Scientists are making rapid progress toward a long-awaited goal that could help to reshape cancer care: mRNA cancer vaccines with the potential to significantly boost the immune system’s ability to fight and eliminate tumors. At the same time, misinformation about so-called turbo cancer began spreading widely on social media, with mainstream media outlets first reporting on it in late 2022. Turbo cancer refers to the false claim that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines cause unusually aggressive cancers. (Boatman, 4/24)
Bloomberg: Lilly’s New Obesity Pill Off To Slow Start In Race With Novo
Eli Lilly & Co.’s new weight-loss pill Foundayo has gotten off to a sluggish start, according to new prescription data, an early sign of the challenge the drugmaker will have as it tries to catch up with rival Novo Nordisk A/S. Foundayo generated 3,707 prescriptions in its second week, according to IQVIA data cited by RBC Capital Markets analyst Trung Huynh. For comparison, an oral version of Novo’s Wegovy drew 18,410 prescriptions in its second week of launch. (Smith and Kresge, 4/24)
The Hill: GLP-1s And Endometriosis: Could Weight Loss Drugs Offer A New Treatment?
Weight-loss drugs like Ozempic could be a possible treatment for endometriosis, with research investigating the possible benefits. Although they were originally developed to treat diabetes, GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy have been found to help with weight loss and have other benefits for the heart, kidneys and brain. Research on GLP-1s and endometriosis is in its very early stages, with few studies and more research needed. However, some women have shared experiences on social media, saying that their endometriosis symptoms improved while on a GLP-1. (Whiteside, 4/25)
On brain implants and brain injury —
Stat: Motif Neurotech Gets FDA Nod To Test Its Brain Implant For Depression
Wake up. Brush your teeth. Wash your face. And put on your lifesaving baseball hat. That’s right. If you have treatment-resistant depression, this could be the regular morning routine in your future. (Broderick, 4/27)
San Francisco Chronicle: ALS Took His Voice. A Brain Implant Helped Him Speak To His Girl Again
At the darkest point of his life, Casey Harrell found a kind of magic. It was the summer of 2023, and Harrell, then 45 and living in Oakland, was battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. The neurodegenerative disease eats away at a person’s muscles, and for Harrell, the devastation was quick and unsparing. He had already lost the ability to mount a bicycle, pick up his daughter or get out of bed on his own. Now Harrell’s voice was breaking down, making each sentence an impossible contortion. (Swan, 4/26)
MedPage Today: Can Gabapentin Improve Brain Injury Outcomes?
Gabapentin administered on the day of traumatic brain injury (TBI) was tied to a reduced risk of durable cognitive impairment and mortality, a retrospective, longitudinal study of 50,000 patients showed. (George, 4/26)
In obituaries —
The New York Times: Eugene Braunwald, Whose Research Reshaped Cardiology, Dies At 96
Eugene Braunwald, a groundbreaking cardiologist whose research helped transform heart disease from a near-certain killer into a condition often manageable with medications, procedures and careful monitoring, died on Wednesday in Newton, Mass. He was 96. His death, at a hospital, was confirmed by his daughter Jill Braunwald Porter. He lived in Weston, Mass. (Kandell, 4/25)
