Back in November, Merck & Co. said its immuno-oncology star, Keytruda, had topped chemo at lengthening the lives of some esophageal cancer patients. Monday, it showed that the win was a sizable one. The drug reduced the risk of death by 31% in previously treated patients with esophageal or esophagogastric junction carcinoma whose tumors expressed… Read More »

Louisiana will use the ‘Netflix’ model, with the goal of treating 10,000 people with hepatitis C in its Medicaid and prison population by 2020. Louisiana officials announced Thursday that their state would become the first to move forward with a new way to pay for expensive hepatitis C treatments, which could dramatically increase the number… Read More »

A molecule derived from a type of primrose could prove to be a potent inhibitor of metastatic growth for a rare and aggressive cancer. Christmas berry plant (Ardisia crenata) PHILADELPHIA — Doctors diagnose about 2,000 adults with uveal melanoma, a cancer of the eye, every year. In half of cases, the disease metastasizes to the… Read More »

Hoping to earn its share of the $3.5 trillionhealth care market, the medical industry is pouring more money than ever into advertising its products — from high-priced prescriptions to do-it-yourself genetic tests and unapproved stem cell treatments. Spending on health care marketing nearly doubled from 1997 to 2016, soaring to at least $30 billion a… Read More »

The FDA is creating an office of drug development science to cut the cost of bringing new medicines to patients, BioCentury reports. Staff at the office will create tools that sponsors and the FDA can use to streamline the development and regulatory assessment of drugs. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., is due to reveal the… Read More »

Dive Brief: Several major drugmakers, including Allergan, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly, increased prices on a number of their drugs Jan. 1, holding with typical industry practice despite continuing scrutiny of rising pharmaceutical costs. Relative to its pharma peers, Allergan moved most aggressively, upping the list price of Linzess, Lo Loestrin and 25 other medicines… Read More »

The dawn of regulator-approved chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies, such as Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel, Novartis AG), have provided doctors with important new options for treating people with several types of aggressive blood cancers. But how long the new therapies can help and whether their costs can be made sustainable remain open questions. New research presented… Read More »

When researchers announced that a four-drug chemotherapy regimen can add years to the lives of some patients with earlier-stage pancreatic cancer, doctors didn’t wait. Trial results were released last spring, and were immediately “practice-changing,” said Dr. Hedy Kindler, an oncologist at the University of Chicago who was not involved in the trial. Dr. James Biagi,… Read More »

Check-Cap received CE mark for its C-Scan Capsule in January of this year, now the Isfiya, Israel-based company is setting its sights on the U.S. market. Check-Cap is getting one step closer to having its capsule-based screening method for colorectal cancer on the U.S. market. The Isfiya, Israel-based company has received FDA conditional approval for… Read More »

Breast implants — used for both cancer and cosmetic surgeries — give a glimpse into how hospitals mark up prices of medical devices to increase their bottom lines. Kim Daniels didn’t have to pay a penny for her double mastectomy or the reconstructive surgery she had after treatment for breast cancer in June 2018. Her… Read More »