Sunny Balwani, the former president and chief operating officer of bankrupt blood-testing company Theranos, on Thursday was found guilty of 12 counts of conspiracy and fraud against certain investors and patients.
It's a similar verdict to one handed down in January to Theranos founder and ex-CEO Elizabeth Holmes, who once dated Balwani.
Why it matters: Balwani isn't a household name like Holmes, but he was instrumental in building a billion-dollar house of cards that duped both investors and patients.
Red River Women’s Clinic, the only remaining abortion provider in North Dakota, is suing state officials over the state's trigger ban, which is set to take effect later this summer.
A U.S.-based LGBTQ+ suicide prevention organization hopes a recent expansion to Mexico will be the footprint for the rest of Latin America and the world.
Why it matters: One in 20 Mexicans identify as LGBTQ+, a majority of whom are between the ages of 15 and 29, according to data from the country’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography published last month.
Merck is in advanced talks to acquire cancer drugmaker Seagen in a deal that could be worth at least $40 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Why it matters: This would be the year's largest health care merger, and possibly a top five merger overall (depending on if it tops Elon Musk's $44 billion Twitter bid).
Younger Black leukemia patients were likelier to die early or not go into complete remission than their white peers when receiving the same intensive treatment, according to a new study in Blood Advances.
Why it matters: The findings suggest race may factor into survival from acute myeloid leukemia and that a one-size-fits all approach that includes chemotherapy may not be optimal for some.
Help wanted: Mars Petcare is seeking 10,000 dogs and 10,000 cats for a biobank — an aggregation of biological samples, images and other data — that aims to improve the health of house pets by detecting maladies earlier.
Why it matters: Compared with human biobanking, animal biobanking is in its infancy. This initiative may be the largest and most ambitious so far to try to pinpoint what triggers disease in healthy pets by sifting through genomic patterns.
Democrats are trying again to enact government price negotiations for prescription drugs, with a revised plan that would be wrapped into a broader reconciliation bill.
State of play: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday released updated drug pricing language for review by the chamber’s rules referee, with a goal of passing it through the partisan reconciliation process, which wouldn't need any Republican votes.
The Food and Drug Administration and Juul agreed Wednesday to suspend their court case while the governmental agency conducts a review of Juul's e-cigarettes.
Why it matters: The agreement between the two sides comes after the FDA on Tuesday temporarily paused its order banning Juul from marketing and selling its popular electronic cigarettes.
Jackson Women's Health Organization, which was the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, officially shut down on Wednesday, just a day before the state's trigger ban is set to take effect.
Why it matters: Without the clinic, Mississippi residents will have no other option but to travel out of state in order to access abortion care.
The big picture: The survey, which was conducted the week after the court's opinion was issued, highlights what we already knew — that most Americans support a person's right to choose to end their pregnancy.
The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday it's allowing state-authorized pharmacists to prescribe Pfizer's antiviral treatment Paxlovid.
Driving the news: It's a win for pharmacies, which had been pushing for the FDA to allow them to prescribe the medication, saying that it would ultimately expand access to the antivirals.
Pregnant people who get routine prenatal screening may be at greater risk of prosecution in states with strict, new abortion bans, even if they plan to continue the pregnancy, bioethicists write in the journal Cell Reports Medicine.
The big picture: It's another way the overturning of Roe v. Wade is subsuming other forms of reproductive health care.
Whole Woman's Health, one of the leading abortion providers in Texas, announced Wednesday that it is closing down its four locations due to the near-total bans that have been enacted in the state.
Driving the news: Last week, the Texas Supreme Courtblocked an order allowing clinics to provide abortions by letting the state's 1925 pre-Roe ban — which makes performing the procedure punishable by 10 years in prison — be civilly enforced.
Medicare patients were readmitted to hospitals less frequently in communities with more nursing home beds and primary care physicians, a new Health Affairs study shows.
Why it matters: Hospitals can be penalized when patients cycle through their doors repeatedly under the federal Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program. But that program does not account for the continuum of care within each community that hospitals rely on to take their discharged patients, the study authors write.
An intra-state bidding war has broken out for the chance to house the headquarters of a multibillion-dollar new science agency aimed at curing major diseases — before the agency's structure has even been finalized by Congress.
Why it matters: The Advanced Research Project Agency for Health, or ARPA-H, is a pet project of President Biden's that would focus on breakthrough health care and technology innovations, looking for and funding ways to cure cancer, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes and more.
COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2020 and 2021, accounting for 1 in 8 lives lost, according to a new review of death certificate data in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Why it matters: The virus exacted a huge human toll even after vaccines became widely available and indirectly affected other causes of death like heart attacks and strokes, in part by discouraging some Americans from seeking care.
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