Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Venture That Used To Share Drug Price Data Will Stop, To Please Pharma
Stat: Afraid Of Pharma Pushback, A Health Data Broker Puts Up A Barrier To Drug Pricing Information
At a time when many Americans are clamoring for more transparency into prescription drug pricing, one key provider of that data is making it harder to access the information. A new venture called Merative — which was formed recently from the ashes of IBM’s Watson Health division — has decided it will no longer provide the media with pricing changes for specific medicines. (Silverman and Ross, 12/1)
In other pharma and biotech updates —
CBS News: Use Of Drugs For Weight Loss, Such As Wegovy, Cause Supply Shortage
Dramatic stories about weight loss seem to be everywhere on social media. Jennifer Huber, who shared her own story online, has lost more than 50 pounds in five months after starting Mounjaro, an injectable drug approved to treat her Type 2 diabetes. "It's this miracle," Huber said. "I've got to pinch myself sometimes to say, is this real?" (LaPook, 11/30)
Stat: Roche’s Failed Alzheimer’s Studies Lend Weight To An Emerging Idea
The failure of a once-promising Alzheimer’s disease medicine from Roche appears to have a simple explanation: The drug didn’t do its job. (Garde and Wosen, 11/30)
In science news —
St. Louis Public Radio: The VIPER Act Could Support Medical Research To Treat PTSD And Help Disabled Veterans Walk
As ranking member of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Rep. Mike Bost (R. Ill.), has spent more than a year in a bi-partisan push to make more funding available to researchers at the Veterans Administration. The Infrastructure Powers Exceptional Research (VIPER) Act, which he co-sponsored with committee chairman Mark Takano (D-Cal), won full house approval in mid-October. (Cordera, 11/30)
The Boston Globe: Harvard Researchers Uncover How The Brain And Spinal Cord Process Touch
Previously, the brain was thought to be where all such complex sensations were processed. But in a study published Nov. 23 in Nature, the researchers discovered that the spinal cord, formerly thought to simply relay information to the brain, actually plays a role in differentiating one type of touch from another. (Mohammed, 11/30)
The New York Times: Elon Musk Hopes To Test A Brain Implant In Humans Next Year
In a presentation showcasing the Neuralink implant that Elon Musk hopes will someday connect the human brain to a computer, two monkeys were reportedly moving computer cursors with their brains. The feat was first documented by others in a human in 2006 in the pre-YouTube era and with technology that is far more cumbersome, mooring patients to a computer with a cord. (Jewett and Metz, 11/30)
