Adam's Biotech Scorecard. Plus, generative AI and health care, the world's most expensive drug, and much more
Happy Thursday — April Fools! We know we normally write to y’all on Thursday but took the time off for folks observing the holiday weekend. However, we had a ton of news last week that we still wanted to share with you. Before we do, a friendly reminder that this is the last week to vote for STAT Madness! The winners will be announced on Friday!?
Okay, let’s hop to it …
Adam’s Biotech Scorecard
STAT senior writer Adam Feuerstein just launched a weekly newsletter, Adam's Biotech Scorecard. If you're craving unfiltered, uncompromising analysis of the #biotech industry, then this newsletter is for you. Read the first edition here.?
During the pandemic, were great vaccines bad business?
Our colleague Matthew Herper gives a company-by-company assessment of how major vaccine manufacturers fared in the vaccine race — and how their businesses and stock prices have fared since. He sticks to the major pharmaceutical companies that were active in high-income countries.
Is the world’s most expensive drug really overpriced?
“Here’s another drug that’s taking a bunch of kids who would be dead and giving them a life.? That’s worth a lot of money … I mean, we pay crazy amounts of money for drugs that do almost nothing.” — David Rind, ICER’s chief medical officer
A recently approved treatment known as Lenmeldy is priced at $4.25 million. It may allow some babies born with an ultra-rare neurodegenerative disease called metachromatic leukodystrophy, or MLD, to grow up and live essentially normal lives. Jason Mast looks at whether or not it’s worth the price tag.??
Generative AI and health care
The purveyors of generative AI are now promising to transform everything at once: the discovery of drugs, the treatment of patients, and the collection and analysis of massive amounts of data. But many physicians and scientists are afraid that this is happening way too fast, and that health care will learn the same lesson it did a decade ago with IBM's Watson.
The War on Recovery Part 4?
Switzerland once had a drug overdose crisis. But since making methadone easy to obtain, the country has become a model for a highly effective, evidence-based policy response to a drug epidemic. In roughly a dozen wealthy, developed nations where methadone is far more accessible than in the U.S., public health outcomes are far better.
Why can’t the U.S. follow suit? Read Part 4 of The War on Recovery from Lev Facher .?
领英推荐
Big tax breaks for nonprofit hospitals
Our colleague Brittany Trang has your stat of the week: 80% of 2,425 nonprofit hospitals spent less on charity care and community investment than they got in estimated tax breaks, according to a new study.?
The study reveals just how the general public’s perception of nonprofit hospitals might be vastly different from the organizations’ actual behavior.
Helen Branswell public health corner
“We really got beautiful insight into antibody responses during a primary infection, and also vaccination.” — Rafi Ahmed, director of the Emory University Vaccine Center
Helen Branswell spoke to experts about the Covid’s scientific silver lining: A chance to watch the human immune system respond in real time.
Author picks
New research shows that there are still gender- and race-based disparities in the acceptance rate of a donor heart offer by transplant teams.?
“Anyone who cares for patients with advanced heart failure, this study should give us pause and time for not only self-reflection but also reflection of how programs are run in particular as well as the whole process in general,” said Michelle Kittleson, an advanced heart failure transplant cardiologist and director of Heart Failure Research at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai.?
If you’ve read this newsletter before, you know that I am particularly interested in Covid stories. Well, this week, Liz Cooney looked at a new study that said people in Republican-voting states were more likely to report adverse events after receiving a #Covid19 vaccination than people living in Democratic-leaning states.
That's all for this week!
As always, feel free to DM us (Ryan Fitzgerald and Alexander Spinelli) and let us know your thoughts on our weekly newsletter!
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