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ThermoGenesis announces distribution agreement with GE Healthcare for its AXP System

ThermoGenesis Corp., a leading supplier of innovative products for processing and storing adult stem cells, today announced a new enhanced distribution agreement with GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company, for its AXP® AutoXpress ™ (AXP) System used in the processing of cord blood.

5 Feb 2010

Virginia AG works to increase outpatient treatment for mentally ill; Iowa hospitals oppose Medicare fraud bill

News outlets report on health care developments in Virginia, the District of Columbia, California, Iowa, Maryland, Maine and Michigan.

5 Feb 2010

Indiana medical school cuts number of students amid budget cuts

The Louisville Courier-Journal: "Facing a $7 million budget cut, the Indiana University School of Medicine plans to reduce the number of new students next year -- a move that will save money but could reduce the number of physicians when the state is already facing a shortage. After several years of ramping up acceptances of new medical students, IU was forced to cut back after Gov. Mitch Daniels recently ordered state-funded universities to reduce their budgets, said Dr. D. Craig Brater, dean of the school.

5 Feb 2010

Lux Biosciences seeks US and European marketing approval for LUVENIQ

Lux Biosciences, Inc. today announced its submission of simultaneous regulatory filings to both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) seeking marketing approval for its investigational drug LUVENIQ™ (LX211; oral voclosporin) for the treatment of noninfectious uveitis involving the intermediate or posterior segments of the eye.

5 Feb 2010

Majority of rural hospital stays are covered by Medicare

Medicare patients accounted for almost half of all stays (45 percent) at rural hospitals in 2007, while the percentage of Medicare beneficiaries who were admitted to urban hospitals was considerably lower (35 percent) , according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

5 Feb 2010

Progenics Pharmaceuticals to present preclinical data of multiplex PI3K inhibitors

Progenics Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced the presentation of preclinical data on a series of novel compounds that simultaneously blocked two critical pathways involved in the growth and survival of cancer cells.

4 Feb 2010

Michael J. Fox Foundation announces more than $2.8M in awards to discover biomarkers of PD

The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research today announced more than $2.8 million in awards for 13 new projects to speed the discovery of biomarkers of PD.

4 Feb 2010

House to move forward to end antitrust exemption for health insurers

"House Democratic leaders are moving forward with Plan B for passing health care reform by introducing a stand-alone measure to strip the antitrust exemption for health insurance companies — a popular piece of their stalled health care reform package," Roll Call reports. "Freshmen Reps. Tom Perriello (D-Va.) and Betsy Markey (D-Colo.) will file legislation on Friday aimed at barring the insurance industry from fixing prices and setting their own markets without being investigated.

4 Feb 2010

Lux Biosciences files NDA with FDA and MAA with EMA for approval of voclosporin

Isotechnika Pharma Inc. today announced that its partner, Lux Biosciences, Inc., has filed a New Drug Application (NDA) with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and a Market Authorization Application (MAA) with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for voclosporin, under the proposed brand name, LUVENIQ(TM).

4 Feb 2010

Global cancer rates could be reduced by 40% with prevention strategies, report says

"Forty percent of the 12 million people diagnosed with cancer worldwide each year could avert the killer disease by protecting themselves against infections and changing their lifestyles, experts said on Tuesday," Reuters reports.

4 Feb 2010

FDA approves first laser treatment for stretch marks

Palomar Medical Technologies, Inc. is pleased to announce that the Lux1540™ Fractional non-ablative laser handpiece has received the first clearance by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of striae (stretch marks) using a fractional laser. This new clearance will allow aesthetic practitioners to treat the millions of women worldwide who have unwanted stretch marks.

4 Feb 2010

Health spending consumes more of U.S. economy, will tip toward government

A new report by federal actuaries shows government programs will pay for more than half of all U.S. health care spending by 2012, and that total spending on health grew as a share of the economy by 1.1 percent last year to 17.3 percent, the largest leap ever, the Los Angeles Times reports.

4 Feb 2010

Obama tries to bridge Democratic divide on health reform

Speaking with Senate Democrats Wednesday, President Obama "suggested that Republicans could be enlisted to play at least some role in negotiating a final bill, The Washington Post reports.

4 Feb 2010

COBRA extension likely part of Senate Democratic jobs plan

The Wall Street Journal: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today said he plans to move the " first part of a job-creation package next week." In discussing the measure during a Capitol Hill press conference, Democratic leaders were short of specifics "but pledged to make the issue of job creation their top priority in 2010."

4 Feb 2010

VA hospitals urged to accomodate growing number of female veterans

NPR: "The traditionally male-dominated environment often doesn't recognize that women veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have experienced the same psychological, physical and emotional trauma as male veterans." Jill Feldman, manager of the Women Veterans Health Care Program at the Milwaukee VA, says the hospital is working to change a culture that has traditionally been more masculine.

4 Feb 2010

Medicaid cuts, past and proposed, a concern to businesses and patient advocates

Kansas Health Institute: "The Kansas Hospital Association will throw its lobbying clout behind a proposed increase in the state tobacco tax to restore a cut in the Medicaid rates paid to providers" (McLean, 2/3).

4 Feb 2010

CHUM receives $1.25M donation from Pfizer Canada to set up patient health education program

The Fondation du Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM) has received a $1.25 million donation from Pfizer Canada for a patient health education program to be set up at CHUM.

4 Feb 2010

Clinic closure leaves indigent dialysis patients looking for treatment

A clinic closure in Atlanta has patients and clinic officials struggling to find new providers that will treat low-income patients who need kidney dialysis, The Associated Press reports.

4 Feb 2010

"Knowledge deficit" about methadone responsible for resulting deaths

In a unique and comprehensive literature review of poisoning deaths involving opioids from 1999 -- 2009, the deaths involving methadone were found to be disproportionately high. Methadone represented less than five percent of all opioid prescriptions but is responsible for a third of the deaths. After four years of investigation, the major underlying cause was found to be fundamental misunderstandings about the properties of the medicine -- a "knowledge deficit" -- especially when converting patients from other opioids.

4 Feb 2010

Expert available to discuss Lancet’s retraction of paper on autism study

Rae Sonnenmeier, clinical associate professor of communication sciences and disorders at the University of New Hampshire and staff member at UNH's Institute on Disability, is available to discuss the announcement yesterday (Feb. 2, 2010) by the medical journal The Lancet regarding the retraction of a paper that caused a 12-year international battle over the links between the three-in-one childhood vaccine MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) and autism.

4 Feb 2010