Walmart is raising wages for pharmacists, opticians in healthcare push

 Walmart is raising wages for thousands of U.S. pharmacists and opticians, the retailer said on Wednesday, part of its broader plan to expand primary care services across the country.

The Bentonville, Arkansas-based chain said about 3,700 pharmacists would get a bump in pay starting on Wednesday, bringing their total annual average pay to more than $140,000, excluding bonuses and incentives. More than 4,000 opticians will also receive fatter paychecks, with their average hourly pay rising to more than $22.50 with this investment, Walmart executives wrote in a blog post.

The company declined to provide details on their wage rates last year or how it will select the employees for the hikes.

Salary rates vary based on location and role, so not all pharmacists and opticians will earn the average annual or hourly salary, Walmart spokesperson Nick DeMoss said.

Walmart is the nation's largest private employer and the salary move comes on the heels of its announcement to double the number of its in-store healthcare centers and expand into new states.

Health clinics in retailers' pharmacies played an outsized role in dispensing COVID vaccines and treatments during the pandemic and the companies are now looking to position themselves to grab a larger share of the healthcare services market.

Walmart's 'Health' centers typically offer primary care, dental care, behavioral health and labs and X-ray services.

Wednesday's hikes come nearly a year after the company raised wages for 36,000 pharmacy technicians, bumping up their average hourly pay to more than $20. Pharmacy technicians, who fill medicine prescriptions, process third-party insurance claims and help patients check out at the pharmacy, are not part of Wednesday's announcement, DeMoss said.

Pharmacists, unlike the technicians, receive higher pay because of their higher level of education and advanced medical knowledge, DeMoss added.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/walmart-raising-wages-pharmacists-opticians-190234426.html

US drugmaker Indivior to pay $102.5 million to settle Suboxone monopoly claims

 Indivior Plc said on Friday it agreed to pay $102.5 million to settle a lawsuit by dozens of U.S. states accusing it of illegally suppressing generic competition for its opioid addiction treatment Suboxone.

The North Chesterfield, Virginia-based drugmaker denied wrongdoing in resolving claims by 41 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., which would end a lawsuit that began in 2016.

Indivior also agreed to make additional disclosures to the states to ensure it does not use anticompetitive tactics.

Suboxone was approved for U.S. sale in 2002, and Indivior had the exclusive right to sell the treatment in tablet form until 2009.

States said Indivior switched to an oral film version of Suboxone from a tablet version to extend its monopoly, just as generic manufacturers were poised to sell their own lower-cost tablets. Generic tablets obtained federal approval in 2013.

Indivior's settlement requires approval by the federal judge in Philadelphia who oversees nationwide antitrust litigation concerning Suboxone. A trial had been scheduled for Sept. 18.

"However long it takes, we will continue to hold companies accountable for alleged anticompetitive activities," Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, whose state led the lawsuit, said in a statement.

Indivior expects to pay the $102.5 million in cash this month. It set aside $290 million last year for potential costs in antitrust litigation.

More than 80,000 people in the United States died in 2021 from overdoses involving opioids, out of more than 107,000 drug overdose deaths overall, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-drugmaker-indivior-pay-102-170108636.html

Grail says over 400 patients incorrectly informed they may have cancer

 Cancer test maker Grail Inc said on Friday that its telemedicine vendor erroneously sent letters to about 400 patients suggesting they may have developed cancer.

Grail's flagship cancer detection blood test Galleri is designed to detect more than 50 types of cancer before symptoms appear.

The company, owned by Illumina Inc, said the letters were mistakenly sent by PWNHealth due to a software issue and that it "was in no way related to or caused by an incorrect Galleri test result".

Grail said it had reached out to the patients immediately after the issue, adding that no patient health information has been disclosed or breached due to this.

The software issue being faced by PWNHealth has now been resolved, it said.

Illumina is currently appealing regulatory orders in the U.S. and EU, which are asking the gene sequencing company to divest Grail after it jumped regulators to close its acquisition of the cancer test maker.

https://news.yahoo.com/grail-says-over-400-patients-200432065.html

J&J secures dismissal of whistleblower case over misuse of confidential info

 A federal appeals court, in a decision unsealed Wednesday, upheld the dismissal of a whistleblower lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson as a sanction for the plaintiffs' misuse of confidential records they obtained through related litigation.

The lawsuit, which accused J&J's DePuy Orthopaedics unit of defrauding the federal government by marketing defective hip implants, was dismissed in December 2021.

J&J has denied wrongdoing.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Page Kelley in Boston found at the time that the plaintiffs, two British orthopedic surgeons who served as expert witnesses in mass tort litigation over the hip implants, violated court orders by using material from that litigation in their whistleblower lawsuit.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Kelley's decision was justified in light of evidence that the plaintiffs, Antoni Nargol and David Langton, wrongly used the confidential information and tried to cover their tracks. The information was shielded by a protective order in the mass tort litigation meant to prevent disclosure of J&J's trade secrets.

"We accordingly find that the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that (plaintiffs) had, once again, violated the protective orders and in imposing the weighty sanction of dismissal with prejudice," Circuit Judge Lara Montecalvo wrote for the panel. Montecalvo was joined by Chief Judge David Barron and Circuit Judge Kermit Lipez.

Ross Brooks, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said his clients were disappointed by the ruling and that "the record plainly shows that Drs. Nargol and Langton offered to prove their good faith compliance with the relevant court orders."

J&J did not immediately have a comment.

J&J's DePuy Orthopaedics Inc unit stopped selling its metal-on-metal Pinnacle hip implant devices in 2013 after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration strengthened its regulations on artificial hips.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/j-j-secures-dismissal-whistleblower-203755343.html

US debt ceiling deal strands $16 billion of defense side-projects

 A $16 billion list of lower-priority defense items like tanks, helicopter upgrades and a ship, that would normally be paid for as part of the defense budget, could go unfunded after the U.S. passed a landmark bill that lifts the debt ceiling but curbs federal spending.

The agreement to avoid default left legislators, the Department of Defense and other agencies wondering how to pay for projects that in past years were last-minute additions to the must-pass defense policy and appropriations bills, that generally get approved with little discussion.

The debt deal capped national security spending in fiscal 2024 at $886 billion, which is what U.S. President Joe Biden requested.

Among the military services' "unfunded priorities" lists are Abrams tanks made by General Dynamics, a plane made by Lockheed Martin, and a ship for the Marines made by Huntington Ingalls Industries.

Each service generates its own list and this years' included new facilities, ship upgrades, munitions, and long-range radars to protect the U.S.

Congressional aides said that prior to the debt deal, the relevant committees were eyeing a national security budget of more than $900 million for fiscal 2024.

Ordinarily, some of the $16 billion worth of unfunded priorities would get tacked on, as well as billions worth of lawmaker initiatives. Ultimately aides said $30 to $40 billion more could have been added to the defense top line.

In recent years Congress has increased defense spending by more than any president requests, generally by tens of billions of dollars.

In 2022 and 2023 Congress increased spending by more than $20 billion each year. Prior to that, the Pentagon used "Overseas Contingency Operations" (OCO) funds for a decade to boost the amount of money available to avoid budget caps passed by Congress.

This year, the debt ceiling deal could make that more difficult.

ADDITIONAL FUNDING

Biden has been widely expected to request additional funding in August or September to support Ukraine against the Russian invasion, after the $48 billion lawmakers approved in December for Ukraine is spent.

That Ukraine supplemental spending request is now expected to include a broader range of military spending and could include some items and pet projects left behind.

After complaints by defense hawks, the Senate's Democratic and Republican leaders made a formal commitment late on Thursday before the debt ceiling bill passed that the spending caps in the measure would not prevent the Senate from passing supplemental spending legislation to provide more money to the Department of Defense.

Mackenzie Eaglen, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute said: "I am certain there will be an emergency supplemental spending bill for Ukraine that includes non-Ukraine defense needs and priorities in it.

"This supplemental will not be enough to entirely make up the spread between what Congress likely would have increased defense above the president's budget and final non-Ukraine enacted toplines," Eaglen added. "But it will be a relief valve for select priorities."

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-debt-ceiling-deal-strands-161746892.html

COVID-19 Testing Resumes In Beijing, Shandong, As Reinfection Cases Surge

 by Alex Wu via The Epoch Times,

China has resumed COVID-19 PCR testing in Beijing and Shandong Province amid rising re-infections, while the regime’s top health advisers have warned of a new wave of mass infections

Since May 29, mainland netizens have posted on Chinese social media platforms that PCR test kiosks in Beijing are quietly back in business.

Mainland media “City Interactive,” a subsidiary of Zhejiang “City Express,” reported on May 30 that one of the PCR testing booths that netizens posted about was in Beijing’s Xicheng District, where the central government and the Beijing municipal government are located.

The staff of that testing kiosk said that the PCR test there has never stopped, reported “City Interactive”, without being clear how long it had been open.

“We have been doing nucleic acid testing in Xicheng District, but I’m not sure about other districts in Beijing,” a staff member said.

The staff member said the laboratory she works for is mainly responsible for nucleic acid testing within Xicheng District. Currently, there are more than ten testing points outdoors, and one person is on duty for each booth from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.

Residents get swabbed during mass COVID-19 testing in the Chaoyang District in Beijing on June 14, 2022. (Andy Wong/AP Photo)

A testing kiosk in Chaoyang District, Beijing’s central business district, has been operating since March, reported “City Interactive.” The testing booth staff said it is in the health center near Jinsong Middle Street.

Ms. Wang, a Beijing resident, told The Epoch Times on May 28 that some people have taken the PRC test while others have chosen not to.

She said many people around her, including her child, have already re-infected twice.

“This time, the symptoms seem to include a high fever and then sore throat, very painful,” she said.

“Most people are just resting at home now. Seeing a doctor is very expensive, and now many medicines are paid for by ourselves.”

Gao Yu, a former senior media person in Beijing, confirmed what Wang said. She told The Epoch Times that the relatives around her have been re-infected two or three times, and most are just resting it off at home.

Shandong Resumes Testing

PCR testing booths in Qingdao City, Shandong Province, have also reopened.

A “Peninsula Metropolis Daily” report included a screenshot of an online notice posted by the Laoshan District Health Bureau in Qingdao, which announced that from May 29, the district will conduct COVID-19 PCR testing for “all people who are willing.”

It also listed the working hours of the testing sites, from 7:00 am to 4:00 pm, seven days a week.

Another mainland Chinese media, “Xinmin Evening News,” reported on May 31 that the staff in the district bureau confirmed that the testing has resumed and is for free.

Next Wave

Zhong Nanshan, China’s top respiratory disease specialist, predicted on May 22 that a new wave of COVID-19 infections in China will likely peak in late June when weekly cases could reach 65 million. Then, one Omicron-infected patient will be able to infect more than 30 people,  Zhong said, adding that the infection is difficult to prevent.

A security personnel in a protective suit keeps watch as medical workers attend to patients at the fever department of Tongji Hospital, a major facility for COVID-19 patients in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, Jan. 1, 2023. (Staff/Reuters)

Chinese citizens across the country have said on social media that infections have been swelling since March.

Zhong also said there had been a small peak in infections at the end of April and early May.

Most COVID-19 infections in mainland China are currently caused by the XBB series mutant strains of Omicron. Among the locally transmitted cases, the percentage of XBB series variants increased to 83.6 percent in early May from 0.2 percent in February.

Zhang Wenhong, China’s top virologist and director of China’s National Center for Infectious Diseases, also warned in late April at a conference that COVID-19 infections would reoccur after six months when immunity gained from prior infections has worn out.

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/covid-19-testing-resumes-beijing-shandong-reinfection-cases-surge

Senseonics: UnitedHealthcare Coverage of Eversense® E3 CGM for Adults with Diabetes

 Senseonics Holdings, Inc. (NYSE American: SENS), a medical technology company focused on the development and manufacturing of long-term, implantable continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) systems for people with diabetes, today announced that UnitedHealthcare, the largest health insurance company in the United States, will begin providing coverage for the Eversense E3 CGM System effective July 1, 2023 for people with type 1 and insulin-requiring type 2 diabetes.

"The policy update from UnitedHealthcare marks an important milestone for increased access to long-term CGM for people with diabetes. With the addition of UnitedHealthcare, we are nearing all insured adults in the United States having access to the Eversense E3 CGM System," said Tim Goodnow, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer for Senseonics. "The Eversense E3 CGM System enables patients and health care providers to effectively manage diabetes for 6 months with sustained accuracy and a removable smart transmitter that provides vibratory alerts and comprehensive data regarding glucose values and trends. We are excited about the expanded opportunity to provide these differentiated benefits of Eversense to more people with diabetes in collaboration with our global commercial partner Ascensia Diabetes Care."

https://www.biospace.com/article/releases/senseonics-announces-unitedhealthcare-coverage-of-eversense-e3-cgm-for-adults-with-diabetes/