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What We’re Reading: Developing Psychedelic Treatments; Shifting Temperatures Jeopardize Health; Breakthrough Designation for New Cancer Treatment
Wall Street investors pour money into developing new psychedelic treatments for mental illnesses; extreme temperature fluctuations around the country can pose health risks; Moderna and Merck's combination skin cancer treatment receives breakthrough designation from the FDA.
Wall Street Supports Psychedelic Drug Venture
Tens of millions of dollars are being invested into psychedelic drugs that supporters say could treat mental illness for much less than the cost of better-known traditional treatments, reports The Wall Street Journal. Venture capitalists invested $40 million with Transcend Therapeutics Inc in January to create a post-traumatic stress disorder treatment, with CEO Blake Mandell noting this would need half the amount of therapy as MDMA (ecstasy). Other companies have following suit; both Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals Inc and Lusaris Therapeutics Inc have raised approximately $100 million since November. Traditional psychedelics cost more for reasons like needing therapists to administer medication and psychotherapy before and after administration.
Weather Extremes Can Worsen Health
Major fluctuations in temperature can worsen human health problems, especially for people currently dealing with medical conditions, said The Washington Post. The extreme changes in temperature being experienced across the United States can worsen allergies, potentially cause infections, and exacerbate heart disease, according to experts. Especially with the latter, rapid temperature changes can be detrimental to heart health, with heat stressing the body and causing the release of harmful stress hormones and cold leading to hypothermia, said Aaron Bernstein, MD, MPH, interim director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
FDA Grants Breakthrough Designation to Moderna/Merck Skin Cancer Treatment
Moderna and Merck have announced that Moderna's experimental personalized mRNA skin cancer vaccine combined with Merck's Keytruda (pembrolizumab) has secured a breakthrough therapy designation from the FDA as a supplementary treatment for high-risk patients, reported Reuters. The designation is based on midstage study data that demonstrate that the combination reduced the risk of skin cancer recurrence or death by 44% compared with Keytruda alone.
Urticaria Diagnosis Challenged by Overlapping Pruritic Skin Conditions
April 23rd 2025Urticaria is complicated to diagnose by its symptomatic overlap with other skin conditions and the frequent misclassification in literature of distinct pathologies like vasculitic urticaria and bullous pemphigus.
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New Research Challenges Assumptions About Hospital-Physician Integration, Medicare Patient Mix
April 22nd 2025On this episode of Managed Care Cast, Brady Post, PhD, lead author of a study published in the April 2025 issue of The American Journal of Managed Care®, challenges the claim that hospital-employed physicians serve a more complex patient mix.
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Personalized Care Key as Tirzepatide Use Expands Rapidly
April 15th 2025Using commercial insurance claims data and the US launch of tirzepatide as their dividing point, John Ostrominski, MD, Harvard Medical School, and his team studied trends in the use of both glucose-lowering and weight-lowering medications, comparing outcomes between adults with and without type 2 diabetes.
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ACOs’ Focus on Rooting Out Fraud Aligns With CMS Vision Under Oz
April 23rd 2025Accountable care organizations (ACOs) are increasingly playing the role of data sleuths as they identify and report trends of anomalous billing in hopes of salvaging their shared savings. This mission dovetails with that of CMS, which under the new administration plans to prioritize rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse.
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