Generic Drug News and Research

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Generic Drugs are official nonbrand names by which medicines are known. Generic names usually refer to the chemical name of the drug.

Wait, What’s a PBM?

Pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, are intermediary companies that negotiate the price of prescription drugs.

13 Jul 2023

California picks generic drug company Civica to produce low-cost insulin

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday announced the selection of Utah-based generic drug manufacturer Civica to produce low-cost insulin for California, an unprecedented move that makes good on his promise to put state government in direct competition with the brand-name drug companies that dominate the market.

19 Mar 2023

Confronting anti-vaccine activism by disseminating accurate narratives on life-saving benefits of vaccines

Public and private sector health officials and public policymakers should team up immediately with community leaders to more effectively disseminate accurate narratives regarding the life-saving benefits of vaccines to counter widespread, harmful misinformation from anti-vaccine activists.

3 Mar 2023

Mark Cuban's cost-plus drug pricing model offers significant savings to patients

A new drug company founded by entrepreneur Mark Cuban could save patients $1.29 billion a year based on 2020 Medicare Part D expenditures on just the nine most popular urological drugs, according to a study published in the Journal of Urology.

10 Feb 2023

California Attorney General sues drugmakers over inflated insulin prices

California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Thursday sued the six major companies that dominate the U.S. insulin market, ratcheting up the state's assault on a profitable industry for artificially jacking up prices and making the indispensable drug less accessible for diabetes patients.

12 Jan 2023

Study: Fenofibrate not a useful strategy for decreasing COVID-19 severity

After showing promise in early laboratory research, the cholesterol-lowering drug fenofibrate had no significant effect on COVID-19 outcomes in a multicenter international randomized clinical trial led by Penn Medicine scientists.

8 Nov 2022

‘He stood his ground’: California state Senator will leave office as champion of tough vaccine laws

A California lawmaker who rose to national prominence by muscling through some of the country's strongest vaccination laws is leaving the state legislature later this year after a momentous tenure that made him a top target of the boisterous and burgeoning movement against vaccination mandates.

6 Sep 2022

Newsom pins political rise on abortion, guns, and health care

Gavin Newsom is fed up with Republicans for attacking abortion rights and blocking gun regulations — and with his own Democratic Party for failing to boldly and brashly take on the conservative right and push a progressive agenda.

10 Aug 2022

Listen: Can California lower the price of insulin?

California Healthline senior correspondent Angela Hart appeared on KCRW's "Press Play With Madeleine Brand" and KJZZ, a public radio station in Phoenix, this month to discuss California's plan to reduce the cost of some prescription medications — starting with insulin — by diving into the generic drug market.

27 Jul 2022

California wants to slash insulin prices by becoming a drugmaker. Can it succeed?

California is diving into the prescription drug business, attempting to achieve what no other state has done: produce its own brand of generic insulin and sell it at below-market prices to people with diabetes like Sabrina Caudillo.

7 Jun 2022

FDA requests nearly 34% increase in funding as part of the President’s fiscal year 2023 budget

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced it is requesting a total budget of $8.4 billion as part of the President's fiscal year (FY) 2023 budget - a nearly 34% ($2.1 billion) increase over the agency's FY 2022 appropriated funding level for investments in critical public health modernization, core food safety and medical product safety programs and other vital public health infrastructure.

29 Mar 2022

Big pharma is betting on bigger political ambitions from Sen. Tim Scott

Sen. Tim Scott, a rising star in the Republican Party with broad popularity in his home state of South Carolina, is getting showered with drug industry money before facing voters this fall.

28 Mar 2022

California governor’s big promises on drug prices are slow to materialize

When Gov. Gavin Newsom took office in 2019, he promised to lower prescription drug costs for all Californians.

4 Mar 2022

Combination of rifampicin and resveratrol helps stop dementia, finds study

Dementia is thought to occur when proteins called amyloid-β, tau, and α-synuclein accumulate in the brain and form oligomers. A research group from the Department of Translational Neuroscience, Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine, had previously shown in a study using mice that the antibiotic rifampicin removes oligomers from the brain and improves cognitive function.

29 Dec 2021

How rural communities are losing their pharmacies

Batson's Drug Store seems like a throwback to a simpler time. The independently owned pharmacy in Howard, Kansas, still runs an old-fashioned soda counter and hand-dips ice cream. But the drugstore, the only one in the entire county, teeters on the edge between nostalgia and extinction.

15 Nov 2021

As constituents clamor for ivermectin, Republican politicians embrace the cause

When state senators in South Carolina held two hearings in September about covid-19 treatments, they got an earful on the benefits of ivermectin — which many of the lawmakers echoed, sharing experiences of their own loved ones.

8 Nov 2021

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Delta blues

The U.S. is experiencing another surge of covid-19, particularly in Southern states where vaccination rates are generally lower than in other regions. But partisan fights rage on over what role government should play in trying to tamp down the highly contagious delta variant.

5 Aug 2021

Could fenofibrate be an effective antiviral against SARS-CoV-2?

The resurgence of COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the SARS-CoV-2, has led to renewed efforts to find effective antivirals, both newly developed or repurposed drugs. A study reports the efficacy of the cholesterol-reducing drug fenofibrate in reducing infection rates of SARS-CoV-2 in cultured cells.

13 Jan 2021

FDA approves first generic glucagon for injection to treat severe hypoglycemia

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first generic of glucagon for injection USP, 1 mg/vial packaged in an emergency kit, for the treatment of severe hypoglycemia (very low blood sugar), which may occur in patients with diabetes mellitus.

28 Dec 2020

Early clinical data demonstrates the efficacy of existing drug in treating COVID-19

In what has the potential to significantly change how Corona patients are being treated and the severity of the disease, research spearheaded at Jerusalem's Hebrew University gathered early clinical evidence demonstrating the efficacy of an existing drug in treating COVID-19.

22 Dec 2020