Good morning, everyone, and welcome to another working week. We hope the weekend respite was refreshing and inspiring, because that oh-so familiar routine of online meetings, phone calls, and deadlines has predictably returned. But you knew this would happen, yes? So to cope, we are firing up the trusty coffee kettle to brew some needed cups of delicious stimulation. Our choice today is pistachio creme. Please feel free to join us. Meanwhile, we have assembled the latest line-up of interesting items to help you on your journey, which we hope is meaningful and productive. Have a wonderful day, and do stay in touch. …
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is weighing the first-ever request to make a birth control pill available without a prescription, the Associated Press writes. An FDA advisory panel will meet this week to review an application by Perrigo to sell a decades-old pill over the counter. In an initial review, agency staffers raised several concerns about studies of Opill, citing problems with the reliability of certain data and raising questions about whether women with certain other medical conditions would correctly opt out of taking it. The agency also noted signs that study participants had trouble understanding the labeling instructions.
The rollout of long-awaited Alzheimer’s treatments looks set to start as a case of the haves and the have-nots, The Wall Street Journal says. Clinics and academic hospitals in large cities are recruiting neurologists and buying screening equipment on a bet that Biogen and Eisai’s drug, Leqembi, will win full approval this summer and draw a flood of new patients. Eli Lilly’s treatment, donanemab, could also be up for approval this year or next and could draw more patients seeking care. Some rural health systems, meanwhile, will wait to see if Medicare covers the drugs and whether more evidence supports their efficacy before adding them to workloads of thinly staffed hospitals and clinics.
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