drug prices, mpox, extreme heat, animal research

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On Thursday was my two-year STAT-iversary. I can’t imagine I’ve been right here for that lengthy!

As a present for the event, the STAT staff made a particular code for you: By means of the top of the weekend, the code BRITTANY30 gives you 30% off your first 12 months of STAT+ (I really feel so cool!).

Now on to an enormous deal that I 100% didn’t learn about earlier than working at STAT: the Medicare drug worth negotiations from the Inflation Discount Act.

Medicare unveils its negotiated drug costs

Yesterday was a giant day within the pharma and well being coverage worlds: Medicare launched the costs of the primary 10 medication it has scrutinized beneath the 2022 Inflation Discount Act. The medication embrace drugs for blood clots, diabetes, coronary heart failure, and arthritis.

Our D.C. bureau was busy bringing you STAT+ protection:

• The negotiated medication included Januvia, Entresto, and Enbrel, which every noticed greater than 30% reductions in comparison with their 2021 checklist costs. However that doesn’t imply seniors will see a 30% discount in what they pay. See Rachel Cohrs Zhang’s story for all the particulars.

• President Biden tweeted out a graphic displaying how a lot the negotiations saved Medicare in comparison with the checklist costs for the medication. However Rachel tells us that the president is exaggerating: Medicare doesn’t pay checklist worth, and its present costs are secret.

• Talking of bragging rights, who will get them? John Wilkerson and Rachel (who was a busy beaver yesterday) inform us about how Harris and Trump are framing the offers.

When animals have solved well being points people haven’t

STAT’s Nicholas St. Fleur has an interesting Q&A with heart specialist and evolutionary biologist Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, who thinks about medication by a “zoobiquitous” lens: tough-to-solve human medical issues and asking whether or not animals have already solved that drawback in methods people’ our bodies haven’t.

“[Evolution] is R&D on the very best dose of steroids ever,” stated Natterson-Horowitz.

She gave the instance of what number of girls cease breastfeeding due to a painful an infection known as mastitis. She turned to dairy consultants for a way they’ve solved this drawback in cows. “There have been 100 instances extra scientific research written about stopping mastitis in cows than in girls,” she instructed Nick.

Learn on for extra about this contemporary perspective on medication, together with seeking to giraffes for coronary heart failure options, elephants for most cancers resistance, and why human delight is retaining us from inspecting these potential cures.

The great, the unhealthy, and the not-great mpox information

• The unhealthy: Swedish authorities have introduced that an individual who lately visited the realm of Africa experiencing the lately declared mpox public well being emergency has contracted a clade I version of the virus. That is the primary reported case of clade I exterior of the African continent. U.S. officers beforehand warned clinicians to be on alert for cases of mpox in individuals who lately traveled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo or close by international locations.
• The not-great: STAT’s Jason Mast tells us {that a} smallpox antiviral that authorities hoped can be efficient in opposition to mpox isn’t any higher than placebo. The drug tecovirimat, accredited by the FDA in 2018 as TPOXX, was a part of an NIH-co-sponsored trial within the DRC, the place mpox is endemic. Folks contaminated with mpox who have been being handled within the hospital responded no sooner to tecovirimat than placebo — however each teams skilled lower than half the common mortality fee, suggesting that merely receiving care within the hospital helped.
• The great: Helen Branswell additionally brings us a Q&A with the CEO of Bavarian Nordic, the maker of mpox vaccine Jynneos, concerning the firm’s vaccine stock. Because the 2022 mpox outbreak, the producer has ramped up its manufacturing capability and says it could provide hundreds of thousands of vaccines subsequent 12 months — although that is determined by orders, of which it solely has one in the meanwhile.

Comply with STAT’s mpox reporting right here.

Summertime and the livin’ isn’t simple

Summertime warmth is a giant drawback for folks with disabilities — usually in methods that aren’t apparent to able-bodied folks.

“While you put on a man-made limb, it encases that residual limb with a sealed, air-tight materials,” stated David Gissen, an amputee. “You don’t wrap your arms or legs in plastic when it’s sizzling exterior. However whenever you’re an amputee, that’s the way you put on a leg.”

A longtime triathaloner, Patty Glatfelter noticed her relationship with the outside change when she was identified with a number of sclerosis, which disrupts the physique’s capability to ship indicators down nerves and is even worse above 80 levels.

She has to know her limits. On a current journey to Santa Fe, N.M., “we have been simply strolling down the road, ready at a cease mild, and I might really feel myself beginning to get weaker, so I began in search of a shady spot,” she stated. “After which, all the sudden, my legs simply went kaput, and I used to be falling to the sidewalk.”

Learn extra from STAT’s Timmy Broderick about how the warmth impacts folks in tangible and onerous methods.

Brat summer season is ending, deer sausage fall is coming (together with renewed dangers)

I grew up in an space the place just a few — however not all — youngsters acquired taken out of faculty when deer season began. Who isn’t jealous of attending to skip college to do one thing enjoyable with your loved ones? New analysis in JAMA Community Open appears to be like at shootings at the beginning of deer hunting season in rural counties to higher perceive the connection between the prevalence of weapons and gun violence — and the outcomes could also be shocking.

The evaluation, which mapped shootings within the Gun Violence Archive to the weeks earlier than and after deer looking season began in every of 854 counties, confirmed that there was a statistically vital enhance in shootings within the first and second weeks after deer season began, which held even when looking accidents have been excluded.

Provided that the rise in shootings wasn’t attributable to looking accidents and in addition was extra pronounced for brief weapons than the lengthy weapons usually used for looking, the authors steered that gun violence isn’t simply attributable to what number of weapons are in a sure place or inhabitants, however the elevated inflow of weapons into private and non-private areas.

How folks with disabilities are locked out of medical trials

Earlier this week, the Nationwide Council on Incapacity launched a report describing how a number of federal companies implicitly and explicitly exclude folks with disabilities from medical trials. For instance, 90% of individuals with Down syndrome also develop Alzheimer’s, however they’re recurrently excluded from drug trials.

“How can this inhabitants profit from these doubtlessly life-changing remedies in the event that they’re excluded from the trials? And the way can anybody know what these therapeutics’ efficacy and security is on this inhabitants — and one of many populations most affected? Exclusion exacts too excessive a worth,” stated NCD Vice Chair Emily Voorde in a press launch.

Learn extra from STAT’s Timmy Broderick, together with the council’s proposed fixes for the issue.

What we’re studying

• A substitute for the Pap smear is right here, no speculum required, New York Times
• Most Black hospitals throughout the South closed way back. Their influence endures, KFF Health News
• Lykos Therapeutics cuts 75% of workers after FDA rejects MDMA-assisted remedy, STAT
• Working the proper cooling heart is more durable than it appears to be like, Bloomberg
• The combat in opposition to DEI packages shifts to medical care, Wall Street Journal
• Gilead have to be held accountable for the hurt attributable to ‘patent hopping’ an HIV therapy, STAT