Research News and Research

RSS

Employer-provided health insurance to remain dominant under health law

News outlets report on employer-provided health insurance and suggest that the overall number of Americans who are insured through their workplace is unlikely to change substantially under the health law.

18 May 2010

Echo Therapeutics first-quarter net loss increases to $1.9 million

Echo Therapeutics, Inc., a company developing its needle-free Symphony™ tCGM System as a non-invasive, wireless, transdermal continuous glucose monitoring (tCGM) system and its Prelude™ SkinPrep System for transdermal drug delivery, today announced financial results for the period ended March 31, 2010.

18 May 2010

Insurance groups seek to limit health law damage with medical-loss ratio definitions

Insurance groups are wrangling with regulators on defining a few key terms that will significantly alter how they do business under the new health reform law.

18 May 2010

FibroGen's FG-3019 human monoclonal antibody against CTGF reverses progression of lung fibrosis

FibroGen, Inc. today announced that administration of investigational therapy FG-3019, a human monoclonal antibody against connective tissue growth factor (CTGF), reversed the process of fibrosis in a preclinical model of radiation-induced lung fibrosis, a finding that has implications for treating multiple types of fibrotic disease.

18 May 2010

152 research and training grants awarded to researchers at 93 institutions nationwide

The American Cancer Society, the largest non-government, not-for-profit funding source of cancer research in the United States, has awarded 152 new national research and training grants totaling $50,717,000 in the first of two grants cycles for 2010. The grants, primarily to early career researchers, cover a broad range of investigator-initiated ideas at 93 institutions nationwide, from whether cadmium exposure increases the risk of endometrial cancer, to studies of plant and bacterial-bourne compounds, to a study on a protein called survivin that could lead to novel drugs targeting prostate cancer.

18 May 2010

Four largest insurers in Mass. post first-quarter losses

The Boston Globe's Business Updates: Massachusetts' "four biggest health insurers today posted first-quarter losses totalling more than $150 million, with three of the carriers blaming the bulk of their deficit on the Patrick administration's decision to cap rate increases for individuals and small businesses." Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Tufts Health Plan and Fallon Community Health Plan all reported loses.

18 May 2010

Democrats strategize by touting early benefits but in some areas party is facing tough fight

Democrats enlisted a reliable strategy by "front-loading their legislation with consumer-friendly, insurance industry reforms and other fixes they hope will generate support for the new law in the run-up to the pivotal midterm elections." Democrats are hoping that a skeptical public will come around to their side of the equation, but Republicans say voters will remember all the legislation, not just part of it, when they vote in November.

18 May 2010

BioPharm Asia first-quarter revenues increase 41.6% to $32.1 million

BioPharm Asia, Inc., a producer, distributor and retailer of medical products in China, today announced its financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2010.

18 May 2010

No clear evidence of a mobile phone and brain cancer link

Use of mobile phones has been under scrutiny for a while now with many claiming a link between mobile phone use and brain cancer. The mild radioactive waves generated from mobile phones have so far been poorly understood. There are no known mechanisms by which mobile phone radiation could cause cancer. Unlike x-rays, mobile phone radiation is non-ionising, and is too weak to break apart DNA, which is necessary to induce other cancers. However scientists do agree that this radiation might speed up a growing brain tumor.

17 May 2010

Australian doctors identify new disease and devise its cure

A team of Australian doctors have identified a new disease and its cure. In their report published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases the doctors from The Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR) report a case of a young NSW woman ill for almost a decade with repeated hospitalizations. She is now said to be suffering from a diseases that disabled the signaling processes of her immune system. The diseases is not named yet. Dr Maher Gandhi, head of QIMR's Immunohemotology Laboratory believes there are more cases of this disease. He said this Monday, “I haven't got a name for it other than T-cell signaling defect of which I assume there are quite a few different types… There are no recorded cases of this in the literature. Katie is unique ... I think we're at the tip of the iceberg here.”

17 May 2010

USAID's Shah on six-day visit to Africa

"[O]n his first visit to Africa since taking charge as the administrator of USAID in January," Rajiv Shah said in Nairobi, Kenya on Saturday that the agency "is working to make Africa a bigger priority within the organization," the Associated Press writes. USAID, which "funds and runs programs to improve health, food security, democracy and entrepreneurship in Africa," has offices in 23 countries on the continent, according to the AP (5/15).

17 May 2010

To achieve MDGs, economic policies must help poor, UNDP head says

Economic policies that help the poor will bring the world closer to meeting the Millennium Development Goals [MDGs] - "[g]lobal targets to halve poverty and improve basic health by 2015," Helen Clark, the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) administrator, said Friday at the end of a four-nation tour of Africa, Agence France-Presse reports.

17 May 2010

WaferGen Biosystems first-quarter revenues increase to $389,785

WaferGen Biosystems, Inc., a leading developer of state-of-the-art genome analysis systems, today reported performance results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2010.

17 May 2010

Medicare cuts for physicians loom, yet again

A 21 percent reduction in Medicare reimbursements that has loomed over physicians all year will go into effect on June 1, unless Congress acts to further delay the cuts, CNNMoney reports. "If the proposed cuts go through, physicians are worried their practices will be so strapped that they'll have to drop some of the 43 million Americans who are covered under Medicare."

17 May 2010

Highwoods Properties, INC Research expand relationship

Highwoods Properties, Inc., the largest owner and operator of suburban office properties in the Southeast, today announced that it has expanded its relationship with INC Research®, Inc., a therapeutically focused contract research organization that conducts global clinical development programs.

17 May 2010

KHN Column: The health care cost problem we refuse to see

In his latest Kaiser Health News column, Austin Frakt writes: "I agree with those who think the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act doesn't do enough soon enough to control the rate of increase in health insurance premiums.

17 May 2010

Hawthorn announces licensing deal with University of Pittsburgh for novel monoclonal antibodies for cancer

Hawthorn Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced a global licensing deal with the University of Pittsburgh covering a series of novel monoclonal antibodies for cancer. The antibody portfolio targets a variety of cancers through the cell surface chondrotin sulfate proteoglycan 4 (CSPG4), which plays an important role in signaling pathways regulating tumor cell survival, growth, and motility.

17 May 2010

Health law's affect on ERs, doctors' panel, young adults examined

Officials and stakeholders are examining the new health reform law for changes that the reform will mean for their organizations and industries.

17 May 2010

Today's Opinions and Editorials: Support for Berwick and health reform's next tests

He is well-qualified to make the many crucial decisions surrounding Medicare and Medicaid, and could end up being one of the most significant appointees in the administration (5/17).

17 May 2010

Hospitals to get more bargaining clout for medical devices

The Wall Street Journal: "Hospitals lack leverage when negotiating prices for high-cost implants like defibrillators and replacement hips because individual doctors, rather than hospitals, typically select the products they use in their patients. Since these doctors often aren't hospital employees, they have little incentive to bargain-hunt.

17 May 2010