Viatris warns it will stop selling essential drugs in UK without changes to drug pricing agreement

 Drugmaker Viatris Inc warned on Thursday that it will stop selling some essential medicines in the UK that are already in short supply unless the British government makes changes to its voluntary medicines pricing agreement.

The programme, adopted in 2019, is designed to make branded drugs more affordable for the National Health Service (NHS) by capping annual increases in NHS drug spending at 2%.

If that level is exceeded, the government recoups the excess from suppliers of branded drugs. But as healthcare costs soared during the COVID-19 pandemic, the so-called "voluntary" payback rate jumped from the initial 5% in 2019 to 26.5% this year.

The tax is worsening a business environment in the UK already strained by soaring costs associated with the war in Ukraine amid other inflationary pressures, Viatris' UK country manager Matthew Salzmann said in an interview.

The company has determined that it must prioritize other markets where it can make profit, he added.

His colleague Viatris' Head of Europe Artur Cwiok named Germany and Portugal as countries where governments were weighing changes to drug pricing.

He said that, amid shortages this winter across Europe of some generic medicines, some governments were acknowledging that making these drugs was becoming unprofitable and that was fuelling shortages.

Viatris estimates it will pay the government 60 million pounds ($71.62 million) under the programme this year.

If Viatris opted to leave that pricing scheme, it would have to pay a rate in the statutory scheme the government says will rise to 27.5%.

The UK government's Department of Health and Social Care said in a statement it is engaging with industry to inform design of the two programmes "for 2024 and beyond".

Salzmann said Viatris is making a loss in the UK on some of its branded off-patent drugs, but is continuing to make them to prevent worsening shortages and in hopes the government will consider changes to the schemes.

Pharma companies AbbVie Inc and Eli Lilly and Co withdrew from the pricing scheme in January. AstraZeneca Plc said last month the programme was one of many issues deterring biopharma investment in Britain.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/viatris-warns-stop-selling-essential-213016995.html

Walgreens won't dispense abortion pills in some states

 Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc on Thursday said it will not dispense abortion pills in the states of 20 Republican attorneys general who have told the pharmacy chain it risked breaking the law should it dispense them to the states by mail.

The decision comes after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allowed retail pharmacies to dispense mifepristone pills, including by mail, provided they are certified under special safety rules for the drug.

A Walgreens spokesperson said the pharmacy's decision was in response to a letter from the attorneys general. They said Walgreens intended to become a certified pharmacy and would only dispense in jurisdictions where it was legal to do so.

CVS Health Corp, which also received the letter, did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment.

News website Politico first reported Walgreens' position on Thursday.

Medication abortion, which accounts for more than half of U.S. abortions, has drawn increasing attention since the Supreme Court in June overturned a landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that had recognized abortion as a constitutional right nationwide.

Mifepristone, used in combination with another drug, misoprostol, is approved for abortion within the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/walgreens-wont-dispense-abortion-pills-013948336.html

As China ages, investors bet they can beat retirement home stigma

 Investors are betting big on a major attitude shift among elderly Chinese - that they will warm up to retirement homes as the world's most populous country ages and smaller families struggle to support parents and grandparents.

Who takes care of the elderly in China, where pensions are tiny, is one of the major headaches policymakers face as they deal with the first demographic downturn since Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution.

Costly nursing homes are out of reach for most elderly and are generally frowned upon, with many judging the use of such facilities as a sign children are not fulfilling their duties.

But the hope of companies investing in the sector in China is that those attitudes will change soon, and fast - at least among the small percentage of elderly who got rich before they got old.

China's 1980 to 2015 one-child policy means smaller families are expected to support the old folk, some of whom would have no choice but to seek professional elderly care, investors say.

“You have one child with two parents and four grandparents. To take care of so many people becomes more challenging," said Louis Lim, chief executive of Singapore-based Keppel Land, which is building a 400-bed retirement property in Nanjing that is due to open this year.

Lim says "stigma" around retirement homes in China is quickly disappearing.

The National Development and Reform Commission - the top state planner - and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Total investment in China's senior living market - including housing, caring and equipment - by both public and private entities was about $1 trillion last year, up from $200 billion a decade ago, said Irwin Liu, head of advisory for East China at Colliers. That figure may triple to $3 trillion by 2035, he said.

"Many investors and institutions believe that the true time of the China senior housing market will boom around 2025-2028, so they are accelerating investments in this space," Liu said.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/analysis-china-ages-investors-bet-010413986.html

Musk's bid to implant brain chip into humans was reportedly rejected by feds over safety

 

• The FDA rejected Neuralink's request for approval to begin testing its brain chips in humans, Reuters reported.

• The agency cited dozens of issues with the device, including concerns it could overheat or move in the brain.

• Elon Musk has been promising the company will soon begin testing on humans since 2019.

Neuralink's attempt to receive approval from the US Food and Drug Administration was rejected last year, according to a new report from Reuters.

Since 2019, Musk has repeatedly set and missed his own projections for when Neuralink, his brain chip startup, would begin implanting its devices in human brains. But the company only began requesting the FDA's permission for human trials last year, Reuters reported, citing seven current and former Neuralink employees.

Reuters said the FDA identified "dozens of issues" Neuralink must remedy before it could begin human testing in the US. The FDA said there were a number of safety concerns, per Reuters, including that the brain chip's wires could move into other areas in the test subject's brain and that the chip could overheat and damage tissue, Reuters reported. There were also concerns around how the implant would be removed without damaging the brain, per Reuters.

A spokesperson for Neuralink did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication, and the company has not indicated it's application has been rejected. In December, Musk said that the company would be approved for human trials by the spring of 2023. At the time, the billionaire said he was so confident in the device that he'd have it implanted in his own brain.

To date, Neuralink has yet to test on humans and has instead experimented with the device on animals, including pigs and monkeys. Last year, Musk showed a demo video of a monkey with an implant "telepathically typing."

The Reuters report comes after the US Department of Transportation said it was investigating Musk's startup following a claim from an animal rights group that Neuralink had transported potentially hazardous pathogens by moving the brain chips after they had been removed from animal test subjects without following federal regulations.

Musk cofounded Neuralink in 2016 as a brain-computer interface company. The firm plans to implant chips into human brains, which would allow people to perform tasks using only their mind. The billionaire has said in the past that Neuralink's chips — which are coin-sized devices designed to be implanted in the brain via a surgical robot — could one day do anything from cure paralysis to give people telepathic powers, referring to the device as "a Fitbit in your skull."

https://sports.yahoo.com/elon-musks-bid-implant-brain-171748969.html

How China's new No.2 hastened the end of Xi's zero-COVID policy

 As unprecedented protests against China's zero-COVID policies escalated in November, Li Qiang, the man recently elevated to No.2 on the ruling Communist Party's Politburo Standing Committee, seized the moment.

Top Chinese officials and medical experts had been quietly formulating plans over the preceding weeks to dismantle President Xi Jinping's zero-COVID strategy and gradually reopen the country towards the end of 2022, with the aim of declaring a return to normality in March, four people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Li, who is set to be named the country's new premier this month, took a more urgent view.

He abruptly drove a decision to activate the reopening plans sooner than intended, in an effort to contain the economic toll of the zero-COVID campaign and protests that had rattled the leadership, said the four people and another person with knowledge of the matter. The upshot was a chaotic reopening in December, when China suddenly ended lockdowns, mass testing and other restrictions.

Beijing has not publicly explained its decision-making process behind its U-turn on the zero-COVID approach. Xi and Li, as well as the State Council, China's cabinet, did not respond to requests for comment from Reuters submitted via the State Council Information Office (SCIO) about the discussions regarding reopening the country.

Reuters assembled this account of China's path to reopening after speaking to more than half a dozen people with knowledge of the discussions. The previously unreported details offer a rare window into deliberations among top Chinese officials and healthcare experts, including differences between Li and Xi about the pace of reopening. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity or because they weren't authorised to talk to the media.

The protests in November marked a turning point in Xi's handling of COVID management as he started to take a less hands-on approach and allowed Li, his long-time ally, to take charge, two of the people said.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/insight-chinas-no-2-hastened-030000743.html

Not really comfort food — fave eats linked to depression: study

 It turns out comfort foods could be making you feel a whole lot worse.

A new study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders found that rates of depression are 80% higher in people whose diets include large amounts of ultra-processed foods.

The study’s authors — from Brazil’s Universidade Federal de Viçosa — defined ultra-processed foods as those that feature “five or more components for the exclusive use of the food industry, such as anti-humectants, emulsifiers and flavor simulators.”

Most types of chocolate, chips, ice cream, cake, premade meals and sodas sold at US grocery stores meet those criteria.

A new study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders has determined that rates of depression were 80% higher in people whose diets include high amounts of ultra-processed foods.

Getty Images

“The relationship between our diet and our mental health is complicated. The Brazilian research offers another important piece in the jigsaw,” David Crepaz-Keay, from the Mental Health Foundation in the UK, told the Daily Mail.

“Our minds and bodies need a healthy, balanced diet, and this is something we don’t get from ultra-processed foods alone,” he added. “Sugary snacks and caffeinated drinks can give us a temporary boost — but this is short-lived, can disrupt sleep and has a knock-on effect on our mental wellbeing.”

For the study, researchers questioned 2,572 graduate and undergraduate students in Brazil about their eating and lifestyle habits every two years between 2016 and 2020.

Participants self-reported how often they ate 144 different types of foods — including ultra-processed foods such as frozen pizzas and chips, as well as fruits and vegetables — and how big their portions were.

They were also asked to report on their body mass index, alcohol consumption, if they smoked, how many hours of TV they watched, if they had diabetes and if they have been previously diagnosed with clinical depression. 

Over the duration of the study, 246 cases of depression were discovered. Those with depression included 66 men (27% of the cases) and 180 women (73% of the cases). 

Results were broken down into four groups in order to differentiate diets between the volunteers.

Those that had ultra-processed foods making up at least 31% of their diets daily — the worst of the diets — were up to 82% more likely to be diagnosed with depression over the course of the study, compared to people who ate the least amount of ultra-processed foods, at less than 16% of their daily diets.

It’s noted that the study relied on self-reported data, so some of the conclusions may not be completely accurate.

Additionally, one dietary expert pushed back on the findings, saying it’s impossible to know if it’s a one-way relationship between ultra-processed foods and depression.

People who already have depression may be more likely to turn to processed foods, meaning the study does not convincingly conclude that those foods contribute to depression.

“Many of the foods that this study suggests are associated with depression aren’t ones considered to be regular components of healthy diet,” Duane Mellor, of Aston University in Birmingham, England, told the Daily Mail.

“It could be that factors linked to the depression might also lead to an individual not eating an ideal dietary pattern. Therefore, it is not possible to say ultra-processed foods are linked to depression.”

Meanwhile, another recent study found that people could be at a higher risk of cognitive decline if more than 20% of their daily caloric intake comes from ultra-processed foods. 

In addition to cognitive decline, ultra-processed foods can be linked to an increased risk in obesity, heart and circulation problems, diabetes, cancer and a shorter life span.

https://nypost.com/2023/03/02/its-not-really-comfort-food-fave-eats-linked-to-depression-study/

NYC eyes 5 new ‘safe injection’ sites by 2025

 New York City wants to have five “safe” drug injection sites up and running by 2025 – even though the Empire State is experiencing an all-time high in recorded drug overdoses. 

Mayor Eric Adams’ proposal would add three of the facilities to neighborhoods like the South Bronx, where addicts can bring their own drugs and use clean needles to shoot up under the watch of medical professionals. 

It’s part of a multi-part plan to address mental health and rising overdose deaths, a key tenet of Adams’ second year in office. 

“We must ramp up our efforts to prevent fatal overdoses, and get treatment to people who need it. This plan would expand proven harm reduction in treatment strategies with the goal of reducing overdose deaths in New York City by 15 percent by 2025,” he said Thursday during a City Hall-based press conference.

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New York City wants to have five “safe” drug injection sites up and running by 2025.

AP

Mayor Eric Adams’ proposal would add three of the facilities to neighborhoods like the South Bronx.

Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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At safe injection sites, addicts can bring their own drugs and use clean needles to shoot up under the watch of medical professionals. 

AP

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“Saving lives, dreams, and families. We’re going to increase the availability of overdose reversal drugs, especially in high-risk areas, provide more medication for opioids use disorder, as well as clean syringes and other safety supplies, and reduce the risk of overdose by expanding the distribution of fentanyl test strips, that will alert users to dangerous levels of the drugs, before it’s too late.”

If approved, City Hall’s plan would add to the two nonprofit-run centers already up and running – the  New York Harm Reduction Educators on E. 126th Street in Harlem and Washington Heights’ CORNER Project on W. 180th Street – which opened under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, a proponent of relaxing laws governing drug use.

But sanctioned drug use at the so-called “safe injection” is still illegal under state and federal law, barring the current sites from receiving government funding to operate. 

Overdose deaths have been at an all-time high in the state – the vast majority due to fentanyl deaths – and New York accounts for a higher percentage of fatalities.

Fentanyl was found in 80 percent of drug overdose deaths in the Big Apple in 2021.

AP

The city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene released a report last month that found 2,668 overdose deaths in 2021, compared with 2,103 in 2020. Fentanyl was found in 80 percent of drug overdose deaths in the Big Apple in 2021.

The sites have drawn ire from local officials – including Staten Island’s Democratic District Attorney Michael McMahon – who argue the locations harm addicts rather than promote recovery. 

“Staten Island is having a real overdose problem. And so we are going to sit down with the DA. I think DA McMahon is an excellent district attorney. We’re going to sit down. We are going to show them the numbers,” said Adams.  

City Hall will also add a new telehealth and suicide prevention program for high schoolers and expand a program that adds more medical professionals to respond to mental health-related emergency calls.

https://nypost.com/2023/03/02/nyc-wants-to-have-five-new-safe-injection-sites-by-2025/