The Food and Drug Administration has approved the first-ever generic version of the Epi-Pen, after the brand-name product saw price hikes of roughly 600% over the past decade.
Why it matters: FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has been vocal about bolstering generics as a way to lower patients' costs. The FDA approved a record number of generic drugs last month, and Gottlieb said the agency is "especially committed" to generic versions of products — like the EpiPen — that have been insulated from competition because they're complex and difficult to copy.
Public health officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are scrambling to contain the Ebola outbreak, as neighboring countries of Burundi, Rwanda, South Sudan and Uganda bolster their readiness in case the hemorrhagic virus spreads past their border.
What's new: Xinhua reported there were 3 people suspected of being infected in Uganda, one of whom died — however, Uganda's health ministry and the World Health Organization say there are no confirmed Ebola cases there. Meanwhile, in DRC, the number of suspected deaths has crept up to 44 (as of Aug. 15) and the growing rate of suspected infections now includes11 health care workers.
President Trump urged Attorney General Jeff Sessions today to bring a new lawsuit against opioid suppliers, and to crack down on the flow of opioids into the U.S. from Mexico and China.
Where it stands: The Justice Department has already lent its support to a massive lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies and distributors. That case is modeled after the landmark tobacco litigation of the 1990s. It pulls together hundreds of complaints from state and local governments and could end up costing the drug industry hundreds of billions of dollars, most likely through a settlement.
"The Department of Justice and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) have proposed a reduction for controlled substances that may be manufactured in the U.S. next year," according to a forthcoming release provided to Axios.
The details: "Consistent with President Trump’s 'Safe Prescribing Plan' that seeks to 'cut nationwide opioid prescription fills by one-third within three years,' the proposal decreases manufacturing quotas for the six most frequently misused opioids for 2019 by an average ten percent as compared to the 2018 amount."
Not-for-profit hospital systems are starting to disclose second-quarter financial documents, and the industry's dominant players are having no problem making money.
The bottom line: The number of people staying overnight in a hospital isn't really going up, but that has not affected the profitability of hospital systems — especially those with a lot of brand and market power.
Drug overdoses killed a record 72,000 Americans last year, driven by a surge in synthetic opioids.
The big picture: "The dominant factor is the changing drug supply," epidemiologist Brandon Marshall told the N.Y. Times' Margot Sanger-Katz. The synthetic opioid fentanyl is increasingly found mixed with other drugs, and its potency is a factor in the uptick in overdoses.
Last year saw a 10% rise in overdose deaths, totaling more than 72,000 people. The increase came largely from a spike in fentanyl and other synthetic opioid overdoses, according to new preliminary estimates from the Centers for Disease Control.
Between the lines: The opioid epidemic has evolved from being primarily driven by prescription drugs and heroin into being driven by synthetics. However, trends vary across the country, with overdose rates dropping in some states and rising in others, per the New York Times.
Large employers from the Rust Belt to Silicon Valley are turning inward as they try to find cheaper, higher-quality health care, embracing ideas like onsite clinics or direct contracts with specific hospitals.
Why it matters: Employer-based benefits are the backbone of the U.S. health care system. But for all the talk about revolutionizing the system, some of their most popular strategies for dealing with rising health care costs are old ideas that don’t exert much pressure on the system overall.
