Medicine

The Hill reports: Democratic lawmakers have reached a deal on legislation to lower prescription drug prices to be included in President Biden’s social spending package, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced Tuesday. The agreement is less far-reaching than earlier Democratic proposals, but still represents progress on an issue the party has campaigned on for years. The agreement would allow …

NPR reports: U.S.-based pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. said it will license drugmakers worldwide to produce its potentially lifesaving antiviral pill for treatment of COVID-19 in adults. The drug, known as molnupiravir, has shown promise in treating the disease, and the agreement to license its production could help millions of people in the developing world gain access to it. Merck …

Forbes reports: People who are vaccinated against Covid-19 are less likely to die for any reason — including from non-coronavirus causes — than the unvaccinated, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study released Friday, which researchers framed as more proof of the vaccines’ safety despite stubborn levels of vaccine hesitancy. Partially and fully vaccinated people died from …

The New York Times reports: Surgeons in New York have successfully attached a kidney grown in a genetically altered pig to a human patient and found that the organ worked normally, a scientific breakthrough that one day may yield a vast new supply of organs for severely ill patients. The transplanted kidney was obtained from a pig genetically engineered to …

Via press release from the FDA: Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a landmark proposal intended to improve access to and reduce the cost of hearing aid technology for millions of Americans. The agency proposed a rule to establish a new category of over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids. When finalized, the rule would allow hearing aids within this category …

The New York Times reports: The Food and Drug Administration is planning to allow Americans to receive a different Covid-19 vaccine as a booster than the one they initially received, a move that could reduce the appeal of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and provide flexibility to doctors and other vaccinators. The government would not recommend one shot over another, …

The New York Times reports: The federal government is expected to take a significant step this week toward offering booster doses to a much wider range of Americans as advisers to the Food and Drug Administration meet on Thursday and Friday to discuss recipients of the Johnson & Johnson and Moderna coronavirus vaccines. On Thursday, the F.D.A.’s advisory panel of …

Bloomberg News reports: Merck & Co. and its partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics LP sought emergency use authorization in the U.S. for molnupiravir, moving the pill closer to becoming the first oral antiviral treatment for Covid-19. An application was submitted with the Food and Drug Administration for molnupiravir to treat mild-to-moderate Covid-19 in adults at risk of developing a severe illness that …

The Washington Post reports: Women were found to generally have higher protection against the coronavirus than men after receiving a second shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to a study released Wednesday — although immunity in both sexes tended to weaken within months after full vaccination. The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, also suggested that people …

The New York Times reports: The World Health Organization on Wednesday endorsed the first ever vaccine to prevent malaria, debuting a tool that could save the lives of tens of thousands of children in Africa each year. Malaria is among the oldest known and deadliest of infectious diseases. It kills about half a million people each year, nearly all of …

The Washington Post reports: The Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine continues to be 90 percent effective in protecting against hospitalization and death from covid-19 up to six months after the second dose, even in the face of the widespread delta variant, a major study has found. The study was based on research from Pfizer and the Kaiser Permanente Southern California health system …

Reuters reports: The first trial of four large pharmacy chains over the deadly U.S. opioid epidemic was set to begin on Monday, as two Ohio counties seek to convince jurors the companies are responsible for flooding their communities with addictive pain pills. The Ohio counties of Lake and Trumbull allege that oversight failures at pharmacies run by Walgreens Boots Alliance …

From the Nobel Prize Committee: Our ability to sense heat, cold and touch is essential for survival and underpins our interaction with the world around us. In our daily lives we take these sensations for granted, but how are nerve impulses initiated so that temperature and pressure can be perceived? This question has been solved by this year’s Nobel Prize …

CNBC reports: Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics plan to seek emergency authorization for their oral antiviral treatment for Covid-19, after the medicine showed “compelling results” in clinical trials. The drug, molnupiravir, reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by around 50% for patients with mild or moderate cases of Covid-19, the companies announced on Friday. Molnupiravir is administered orally and works …

Bloomberg News reports: People who got Covid-19 vaccine boosters after the shots were cleared for people with weakened immune systems had mostly mild to moderate reactions, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some 22,191 booster recipients registered with a federal monitoring system starting Aug. 12, when the doses were first authorized on an emergency basis by …

NBC News reports: Pfizer-BioNTech requested Tuesday that the Food and Drug Administration clear its Covid-19 vaccine for use in children ages 5 to 11. The FDA is expected to take at least several weeks to analyze data collected in a trial that included more than 2,000 children before it would grant emergency use authorization. While the Pfizer vaccine has been …

Reuters reports: Pfizer Inc said on Monday it has started a mid-to-late-stage study testing its investigational oral antiviral drug for the prevention of COVID-19 infection among those who have been exposed to the virus.  The company and its rivals, including Merck & Co Inc and Roche Holding AG, have been racing to develop the first antiviral pill for COVID-19. Pfizer …

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports: A federal judge in Covington on Friday said St. Elizabeth Healthcare can require its more than 10,000 employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19. In a 20-page decision, U.S. District Judge David Bunning said he would abide by a 1905 U.S. Supreme Court decision, which upheld a Massachusetts smallpox vaccination law. “Actual liberty for all of us …

The Associated Press reports: Johnson & Johnson released data showing that a booster dose to its one-shot coronavirus vaccine provides a strong immune response months after people receive a first dose. J&J said in statement Tuesday that it ran two early studies in people previously given its vaccine and found that a second dose produced an increased antibody response in …

USA Today reports: Pfizer is voluntarily recalling all lots of its popular anti-smoking drug Chantix for high levels of nitrosamine, which can increase the risk of cancer. According to the notice posted on the Food and Drug Administration website, the recall is for all lots of 0.5 mg and 1 mg varenicline tablets. The recall notice says that long-term ingestion …