Prosecutors: Elizabeth Holmes Tried To Leave US After Conviction

The Washington Post: Elizabeth Holmes Attempted 'to Flee The Country,' Prosecutors Allege 
Elizabeth Holmes, the former Theranos CEO, booked a one-way plane ticket to Mexico that was scheduled to depart just weeks after she was convicted of fraud in January 2022, a recent court filing says. In the document, filed Thursday, prosecutors describe the booking as an “attempt to flee the country.” Government attorneys learned of the flight three days before its Jan. 26, 2022 departure, and alerted Holmes’s legal team by email. They replied that she had booked the flight before the verdict hoping to attend a wedding in Mexico. Holmes canceled the ticket, “but it is difficult to know with certainty what Defendant would have done had the government not intervened,” the prosecutors wrote. (Ables, 1/21)

The U.S. government wants to hold 'Pharma Bro' in contempt —

Stat: FTC Wants Martin Shkreli Held In Contempt For Violating Pharma Ban
The Federal Trade Commission asked a federal judge to hold “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli in contempt for failing to provide the agency with information needed to determine whether he is violating an order that permanently banned him from working in the pharmaceutical industry. (Silverman, 1/20)

In other pharmaceutical and biotech news —

Reuters: U.S. Fines J&J $9.75 Mln Over Kickbacks To Surgeon For Overseas Surgeries 
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) and its DePuy Synthes unit will pay $9.75 million to settle U.S. Department of Justice accusations that DePuy illegally provided free products to a Massachusetts surgeon who used them in spinal surgeries in six Middle Eastern countries. According to settlement papers, the surgeon used more than $100,000 of DePuy's implants and instruments between July 2013 and Feb. 2018 in more than 20 surgeries in Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. (1/20)

The New York Times: N.Y.U. Langone Withdraws From Type 1 Diabetes Vaccine Trial In Adolescents
Researchers at N.Y.U. Langone Health have pulled out of a trial investigating the use of an old tuberculosis vaccine to treat children with Type 1 diabetes only months after they began enrolling participants on Long Island. The vaccine, called Bacillus-Calmette-Guerin, or B.C.G., has generated intense interest among various patient advocacy groups, including those focused on Alzheimer’s disease and cancer, as well as diabetes. ... The lead investigators of the pediatric trial, who are at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, are proceeding with the study, but N.Y.U. Langone’s abrupt withdrawal could potentially jeopardize its viability if they are unable to collect data on the children at the N.Y.U. site. (Rabin, 1/20)

Columbus Dispatch: FDA Approval Of Alzheimer's Drug Lecanemab Brings Hope To Many
Bill Goode first began noticing the symptoms surfacing in his wife, Debbie, around 2011 — minor memory issues and a slight inability to make decisions that he dismissed as the natural process of aging. But in the fall of 2016, the hallucinations began. It became apparent to Bill that something much more serious was happening. That’s when, at the age of 60, Debbie was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. (Lagatta, 1/23)

Stat: Researchers Test AI Model To Predict Lung Cancer Risk Using CT Scans
Massachusetts General Hospital is launching a prospective trial of an artificial intelligence tool designed to predict patients’ risk of lung cancer, a crucial area of inquiry amid rising incidence of the disease in never-smokers. (Ross, 1/23)

The Boston Globe: ‘Holding On By Its Fingernails.’ The Biotech Industry In Massachusetts Braces For Another Tough Year
It’s hard to overstate the Boston biotechnology industry’s astronomical growth, which has overflowed from its longtime stronghold of Kendall Square in Cambridge into the Fenway, Seaport, and surrounding suburbs. But by most financial measures, 2022 was a terrible, horrible, no-good year for biotech — here and everywhere else. (Cross, 1/21)

Also —

The Washington Post: Guidelines Suggesting Drugs, Surgery For Child Obesity Get Backlash
Critics on the left have raised concerns about unequal access to treatment, which insurance does not always cover, and worry that earlier medical interventions may create more fat-shaming of vulnerable children. Conservative commentators have suggested that the guidelines offer an easy out for poor lifestyle choices. People on both sides express uneasiness about the potential long-term consequences of putting millions of children on drugs or under the knife, instead of doing more to prevent the condition in the first place. (Cha, 1/20)

The New York Times: New Guidelines Underscore Complexity Of Childhood Obesity 
The American Academy of Pediatrics released new guidance last week about how to evaluate and treat children who are overweight or obese, issuing a 73-page document that argues obesity should no longer be stigmatized as simply the result of personal choices, but understood as a complex disease with short- and long-term health implications. Based on that rationale, the guidelines — the group’s first update in 15 years — say there is no evidence to support delaying treatment for children with obesity in the hope that they will outgrow it. Instead of the gradual, staged approach recommended in the past, pediatricians and primary care physicians should take a more proactive tack, offering prompt referrals to intensive health behavior and lifestyle treatment programs, in addition to prescribing weight loss drugs or advising surgery in some cases. (Pearson, 1/20)