Author: healthadmin

AbbVie is at the forefront of a new battle in drug companies’ long-running fight to reform the federal government’s $340 billion drug discount program, with a lawsuit challenging the definition of “patient” within the program’s framework. AbbVie, which has participated in the 340B system for 30 years, filed the lawsuit to “restore the integrity” of the drug discount program, the company said in a 72-page complaint against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as well as the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and Administrator Thomas Engels. The 340B program is…

Humana has partnered with digital health company b.well Connected Health to give members easy access to their health data across multiple providers, health plans, pharmacies, and digital health apps. The partnership is in line with the Trump administration’s broader push to give patients easier access to their health information. As part of the partnership with b.well, Humana will also have real-time access to member data at the point of claims processing, securely respond to data requests from providers and other health plans, and support care coordination and quality improvement, the insurer said in an April 9 press release. B.well also…

Isabella Cueto focuses on chronic disease, a leading cause of death and disability. Her focuses include autoimmune diseases and diseases of the lung, kidney, and liver. She writes about interesting research, the promises and pitfalls of treatments, and what can be done about the burden of disease. You can access Isabella at the signal isabellaracueto.03.Georg Schette had two things going for him. Two, it was a young patient dying of lupus, and two, some mouse studies raised the possibility that specialized T cells could suppress the condition. The German doctor and scientist was able to manufacture the cells (chimeric antigen…

Scientists at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have developed a bold new approach to drug development and discovery that has the potential to dramatically accelerate the development of new drugs. UVA’s Dr. Nikolay V. Dokholyan and colleagues have developed a suite of artificial intelligence-powered tools called YuelDesign, YuelPocket, and YuelBond. Together, these tools will transform the way new drugs are manufactured. At its core, YuelDesign uses a cutting-edge form of AI called diffusion modeling to design new drug molecules tailored to precisely fit protein targets, taking into account how proteins bend and change shape during binding. A companion…

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. begins his podcast. The Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the show on social media, saying he framed the podcast as a response to a public health issue that led “many of us…to conclude that (the government) is, in fact, lying to us.” The podcast gave RFK Jr., a longtime critic of vaccines and the pharmaceutical industry, a new channel to get his thoughts across. RFK Jr.’s rise to the top of HHS creates an already difficult environment for the biopharmaceutical industry, particularly vaccine makers who are struggling with how to get their message…

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have made a discovery that could change the way doctors approach two of the most serious brain diseases. Their research points to an unexpected role for gut bacteria in disease progression. A research team has identified a clear link between microbes in the digestive system and brain damage seen in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). They discovered that certain bacterial sugars can trigger an immune response that kills brain cells, and importantly, they also identified a way to stop this process. How ALS and FTD affect the brain FTD primarily affects…

Taking a simple sugar pill can improve both physical and mental health in older adults, even if you know the pill doesn’t contain any effective medicine. Research published in International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology These apparently fake treatments have shown they can reduce stress and boost short-term memory, just like the pills we were tricked into giving. These results point to a highly ethical and side-effect-free way to help aging populations maintain their ability to perform daily activities. Medicine often relies on the placebo effect to understand how new drugs work. Placebos are inert substances, such as sugar…

For more than a decade, a class of drugs called BET inhibitors have been tested with great promise in cancer clinical trials. Biologically, it seemed promising. Many cancers rely on oncogenes that ‘bromo-terminal domain and additional terminal domain’ (BET) proteins help activate, so blocking BET proteins should slow tumor growth. This happened often in the lab. For patients, results have been largely disappointing, with limited responses, significant side effects, and no clear way to predict which tumors will respond. A new study by Freiburg’s Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology and Epigenetics (MPI-IE) offers a possible explanation as to why, and…

A proposal to build a giant manure digester in a small community in Washington state has caused an uproar among residents who say the project, which would convert waste from dairy cows into fuel, would add to the region’s already significant pollution problems. At issue is a proposed fertilizer digester project called Sunnyside RNG, LLC, which would be the largest in the United States. The company behind the project, Oregon-based crop residue harvesting and supply company Pacific Ag, says the project will help reduce pollution generated by concentrated community animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and increase local jobs and energy production.…

Research published in molecular psychiatry Our findings suggest that autism and ADHD may be related at a biological level that goes beyond traditional diagnostic labels. Although it is well known that these two conditions often occur together, their common underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Researchers at the Child Mind Institute and partner institutions have found that the severity of autism-related symptoms, rather than whether a child is formally diagnosed with autism or ADHD, is associated with specific patterns of brain connectivity and gene activity. These patterns emerged in children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This discovery…