Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Stanford Magnetic Therapy To Treat Depression Has Significant Trials Success
CBS News: SAINT: Hope For New Treatment Of Depression
A new experimental treatment using a fast-acting approach with targeted magnetic stimulation of the brain, called Stanford Accelerated Intelligent Neuromodulation Therapy, has achieved significant success in trials. (11/7)
NPR: Drugmaker Drops Cheaper Version Of Drug, Leaving Patients Stuck With Pricier One
Sudeep Taksali thought his battle to avoid a medication's steep price tag was over. He was wrong. In 2020, he'd fought to get insurance to cover a lower-priced version of a drug his then 8-year-old daughter needed. She'd been diagnosed with a rare condition called central precocious puberty, which would have caused her to go through sexual development years earlier than her peers. NPR and KHN wrote about Taksali and his family as part of our Bill of the Month series. (Lupkin, 11/6)
CIDRAP: Report Highlights Need For Maternal Group B Strep Vaccine
A new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) is calling for more urgency on efforts to develop a maternal vaccine against group B Streptococcus (GBS) to prevent newborn deaths, neurodevelopmental problems, and maternal complications. Although the GBS bacterium is common in the human microbiome and is carried by an average of 15% of all pregnant women worldwide (approximately 20 million women globally), it can be passed to newborns during labor and delivery and cause serious invasive infections, including meningitis, bacterial pneumonia, and sepsis. (Dall, 11/4)
Stat: Q&A: A Bioethicist On The Worrisome Boom In Stem Cell Clinics
In 2016, the Food and Drug Administration put the emerging stem cell cottage industry on notice. At the time, a few hundred clinics were peddling experimental stem cell therapies costing between $2,000 and $25,000 for conditions ranging from chronic pain to autism to multiple sclerosis without solid scientific evidence that they worked. Federal regulators asserted that the stem cells being sold — usually taken from a patient’s body and slightly processed before being re-injected — were drugs, and therefore required a rigorous approval process. (Molteni, 11/8)
Aduhelm is back in the news —
NPR: Cost and controversy are limiting use of new Alzheimer's drug
The new Alzheimer's drug Aduhelm isn't reaching many patients. And doctors say reasons include its high cost, insurers' reluctance to cover it, and lingering questions about whether it actually slows memory loss. "The pendulum of public opinion has swayed strongly against this drug," says Dr. Marwan Sabbagh, an Alzheimer's specialist at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Ariz., who has worked as an advisor to Biogen, which makes the drug. (Hamilton, 11/8)
