AJMC Staff

Biogen Inc agreed to pay $900 million to settle allegations about improper physician payments; the American Cancer Society warns that fertility preservation for patients with cancer is at risk after the overturn of Roe v Wade; the Supreme Court will hear a case about Medicaid recipients’ ability to sue their providers.

Nonprofit hospitals pursue profits from low-income patients; the Biden administration announced that $1.5 billion would be set aside to battle opioid overdoses and support recovery; an Arizona judge ruled that a state law that criminalizes nearly all abortions could take effect immediately.

A deal was reached to renew 5-year FDA user fee programs; children and adolescents with COVID-19 had a 60% increased risk of developing type 1 diabetes (T1D); states cannot penalize Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) employees for facilitating abortions permitted by federal law.

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About 200,000 more children have health insurance since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic; if FDA-approved, bivalent COVID-19 vaccines for younger children are expected to become available by early to mid-October; a trial compared metformin plus sitagliptin, liraglutide, glimepiride, and insulin glargine for maintaining blood glucose levels.

HHS declared a public health emergency in Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Fiona; nearly 1 in 10 Americans suffered from depression in 2020, and a task force recommended doctors screen all adults aged younger than 65 for anxiety; advances in cancer research have led to reduced cancer death rates.

The gene therapy is the first treatment for active cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy, a fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects boys.

A recent study found that 1 in 5 households were strapped with medical debt; hospitals and hospital systems in North Carolina proposed a way to expand Medicaid to hundreds of thousands of adults; the CDC reported that more adults sought mental health treatment in 2021 compared with 2019.

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Patients with vitiligo are often impacted mentally, and they can spend a lot of time utilizing cosmetic products, said David Rosmarin, MD, vice chair, education and research at Tufts Medical Center.

The House passed a bill that would streamline prior authorization requirements under Medicare Advantage (MA) plans; last week had the fewest COVID-19 deaths reported globally since March 2020; older Americans who survived COVID-19 had a 69% higher risk of developing Alzheimer disease compared with their uninfected counterparts.

The new therapies for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) have had such a profound impact on disease trajectory that classification terminology has been changed, said Vamshi Rao, MD, attending physician, Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and assistant professor, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

The American Medical Association (AMA) and 2 state medical societies joined a class-action lawsuit against Cigna for underpaying claims filed by providers; 2 cases of monkeypox have led to brain inflammation; for the first time, gay and bisexual men make up less than half of new HIV cases in San Francisco.

340B hospitals are marking up discounted drugs by 4.9 times the cost, per a Community Oncology Alliance report; thousands of nurses in Minnesota are striking due to understaffing and overworking; Amgen’s sotorasib performed better than a common chemotherapy for progression-free survival among patients.

In this interview with The American Journal of Managed Care® (AJMC®), Igor Puzanov, MD, of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Buffalo, discusses the state of treatment selection in the setting of resected advanced melanoma, why sequencing of therapies does not occur in the setting of adjuvant therapy, and best practices to keep in mind for patient education and managing their treatment-related toxicities.

Suresh Ramalingam, MD, FACP, FASCO, a professor in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine, is the executive director of the Winship Cancer Institute and associate vice president for cancer, Woodruff Health Sciences Center, Atlanta, Georgia. Ramalingham spoke with The American Journal of Managed Care® (AJMC®) about the current treatment and research landscape involving EGFR Exon 20 insertion+ NSCLC.

President Joe Biden is set to sign an order to boost biotech as part of his Cancer Moonshot; the health care program for 9/11 survivors and first responders is running short on money; tecovirimat (Tpoxx) has been found to be safe in patients with monkeypox.

The results show the importance of diagnosing lung conditions through spirometry as well the necessity for more effective therapies for patients without COPD.

The Department of Homeland Security is revising a rule that discouraged non–citizen immigrants from using government-funded health services; breast implants may be linked to cancers forming around the scar tissue; the American Medical Association (AMA) calls for guidance on state abortion laws to protect patient health.

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A Texas judge ruled that HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) coverage under the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional; an FDA advisory panel recommended the approval of an experimental drug for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS); Walmart and UnitedHealth Group are collaborating to provide preventive health care for older Americans.

Under a new contract with AmerisourceBergen Corp, HHS will expand access to monkeypox vaccines and treatments; as President Jow Biden encouraged Americans to receive their COVID-19 boosters this fall, the White House signaled toward annual COVID-19 boosters; Juul has reached a settlement with 37 states and Puerto Rico regarding the company’s marketing to teens.

CVS announces its plan to buy Signify Health for $8 billion; government budgets and low reimbursement could limit the ability for new moms to stay on Medicaid for a year after childbirth; the long-lasting symptoms of COVID-19 could be keeping millions of people out of the workforce.

New studies have linked a diet of ultra-processed food to a higher risk of colorectal cancer and to an overall risk of mortality; the CDC endorsed the updated booster shots from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech for use against the omicron variant; South Carolina Department of Corrections and Pear Therapeutics are teaming up to support inmates recovering from substance use disorders.

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Olipudase alfa (Xenpozyme) was granted FDA approval for patients with Acid Sphingomyelinase Deficiency (ASMD); Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech’s bivalent COVID-19 vaccines are each authorized for use as a booster dose; people with type A blood have an 18% higher risk of stroke before age 60, compared with other blood types.

US life expectancy fell by nearly a year in 2021 to 76.1 years; Pfizer’s COVID-19 pill reduced the number of hospitalizations and deaths among older adults during the Omicron surge in Israel; current smokers were found to have thicker, heavier, and weaker hearts compared with nonsmokers.

House members in South Carolina will debate a total ban on abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest; the World Health Organization claimed that the monkeypox outbreak could be eliminated in Europe, citing slowing case counts; a study found that drinking black tea was associated with lower mortality risk.

In this study, researchers reaffirmed the safety and efficacy of using budesonide to treat eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE).

The next step for health care professionals is to teach patients how to act on the data collected by intermittently scanned glucose sensing technologies, according to Viral Shah, MD, an endocrinologist and scientist.