- Oregon hospital threatens to refuse Medicare Advantage patients.
- Ten drugs, mostly used to treat rare diseases cost over $700,000 annually.
- How Big Pharma makes its money: AbbVie blanketed Humira, the best-selling drug in history, with 165 peripheral patents, to deter any possible competition.
- Medicine without doctors: The past several years have seen hundreds of laws proposing to expand non doctor medical professionals’ work, the AMA has spent millions of dollars fighting back. (Washington Post)
Category: Drug Prices & Regulations
The FDA Hinders the Progress of Regenerative Medicine
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sometimes gets lost in a bureaucratic maze of confusion and red tape that deprives patients of beneficial therapies. Innovative products sometimes fall within a gray area and become overly regulated. One of the FDA’s latest targets is regenerative medicine.
An article titled, An MBA in Regulatory Confusion, talks about Florida-based Regenative Labs. The firm manufactures products made from umbilical cords (donated by mothers after a C-section, according to the company website). English physician and anatomist Thomas Wharton first described his namesake umbilical cord jelly in 1656, although he had no way of knowing it is rich in stem cells and regenerative healing properties.
The New Weight Loss Drugs
It’s early, but nothing like these drugs has existed before… In fact, much about the drugs remains shrouded in mystery. Researchers discovered by accident that exposing the brain to a natural hormone at levels never seen in nature elicited weight loss. They really don’t know why, or if the drugs may have any long-term side effects.
Thursday Links
JAMA study: Air pollution associated with dementia. The study is behind a paywall, but if this is a typical medical study, no one asked if the parents or grandparents had dementia.
State CON regulations are hurting patients.
Where the highest-paid doctors live: South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, and Wyoming.
Tyler Cowen has an explanation for this: Rural America has about 20 percent of the U.S. population but about 10 percent of its doctors.