Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Prisoners Seeking Hepatitis C Drugs Sue Mass. Officials
The Wall Street Journal: Prisoners Sue Massachusetts For Withholding Hepatitis C Drugs
In the latest example of how the high price tags for hepatitis C drugs are limiting use in some of the most infected populations, two inmates in Massachusetts state prisons have filed a lawsuit accusing the state prison system of failing to provide the drugs to most infected prisoners. More than 1,500 inmates in Massachusetts state prisons have hepatitis C, but only three are being treated for it, the lawsuit states, even though Gilead Sciences and AbbVie introduced drugs since late 2013 that have higher cure rates and shorter treatment durations than older hepatitis C regimens. (Loftus, 6/11)
WBUR: Mass. Prisoners Sue For Better Hepatitis Care
The lawsuit says new drugs that can cure Hep C are now standard care, especially for patients at risk of death from the disease. It’s not clear how many of the 1,500 state prisoners with Hep C are in an advanced stage that would warrant use of the $80,000-90,000 treatment. (Bebinger, 6/11)
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Prescription Drug Price Battles Show No Sign Of Letting Up
The decision this week by experts at the Food and Drug Administration to endorse a pair of medicines aimed at combating heart disease brought on the latest round of hand-wringing over prescription drug costs. The drugs, which work to reduce cholesterol, are projected to cost anywhere from $7,000 to $12,000 annually once on the market. Patients will bear some of that cost, but the bulk will be paid by private insurance companies or the government through Medicare and Medicaid. (Shapiro, 6/11)
The New York Times: A Chinese Ebola Drug Raises Hopes, And Rancor
After a nurse who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone was discharged Wednesday from a Rome hospital, a doctor there described the experimental treatments the patient had received as “absolutely miraculous.” They included MIL77, a product from China that was also given to a British Army nurse who recovered from Ebola at a London hospital in March. It is a near copy of what many believed was the most promising Ebola therapy: a cocktail of antibodies known as ZMapp, the result of a collaboration between the United States and Canada. While a limited supply of ZMapp was quickly exhausted, a small private Chinese company, Beijing Mabworks, raced ahead last fall, helping to produce about 100 doses of MIL77. That means more potentially lifesaving treatments for desperate patients. But it has also led to patent infringement concerns by American officials, and to disagreements over when experimental Ebola therapies should be offered to patients only in carefully controlled studies and when they should be made more available for compassionate reasons. (Fink, 6/11)
News outlets also reported on several drug safety issues.
Kaiser Health News: Medicare Drug Plans Favor Generic Opioids Over Those Designed To Avoid Abuse, Study Finds
The abuse of prescription painkillers is a growing problem for seniors, as it is for other age groups. But Medicare drug plans are cutting back on coverage for a specially designated type of painkiller that deters abuse in favor of cheaper generics that don’t have the same deterrent qualities, a new study found. (Andrews, 6/12)
The Houston Chronicle: Some Acid-Reflux Drugs' Safety Questioned
An analysis of millions of electronic health records raises new questions about the safety of certain acid-reflux medications taken by millions of Americans, suggesting they increase the risk of heart attacks. Researchers from Houston Methodist and Stanford University used computer algorithms to scour some 16 million records from nearly 3 million patients to find which of them had taken medications for gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD, and how many of them had heart attacks. (Hawryluk, 6/11)
The Wall Street Journal: FDA Mistakenly Widened The Market For A Rare Sleep Disorder Drug: Petition
Early last year, the FDA approved a drug called Hetlioz to treat non-24 sleep-wake disorder, a rare condition that throws off the internal body clock and causes sleeping problems. But a consumer advocacy group says the agency goofed and may have inadvertently widened the market for the drug by omitting language from the label indicating it was intended only for patients who are also blind. (Silverman, 6/11)
