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What We're Reading: Medicare Part D Cost Strategy; Drug Pricing Not in Budget Deal; Norovirus at Olympics
President Trump will reportedly unveil a Medicare Part D cost strategy next week; a bipartisan drug pricing measure was left out of the budget deal; hand sanitizer is popping up all over the Winter Olympics in South Korea in an effort to fight back against a norovirus outbreak.
Trump Reportedly to Unveil Medicare Part D Cost Strategy Next Week
President Donald Trump will propose lowering prescription drug costs for Medicare Part D by allowing beneficiaries to share in rebates that drug companies pay to insurers and pharmacy benefit managers, an administration official told the Associated Press. The White House will release its 2019 budget plan next week.
Bipartisan Drug Pricing Bill Left Out of Budget Deal
A bipartisan drug pricing measure was left out of the budget deal signed by Trump on Friday morning, The Hill reports. The bill would keep branded drug companies from using delay tactics to prevent cheaper generic competitors from coming onto the market. Drug pricing advocates blamed the bill's omission from the budget deal on the pharmaceutical industry, which had lobbied hard against the measure.
Hand Sanitizer Used to Combat Winter Olympics Norovirus Outbreak
A required item at the Winter Olympics, according to The New York Times, are bottles and bottles of 62% ethanol hand sanitizer. An outbreak of norovirus in Pyeongchang, South Korea, has infected 128 so far. Anyone entering the cafeteria in the athletes’ village is required to use sanitizer before going to the buffet, the paper reported.
Elevated Inflammatory Marker Levels Associated With Increased Overactive Bladder Risk
April 15th 2025Systemic immune inflammation index, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, and systemic inflammation response index levels may offer a noninvasive method to identify individuals at increased risk of developing overactive bladder.
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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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SGLT2 Inhibitors Show Renal Benefits in HF and CKD as Prescribers Target Uptake Gaps
April 15th 2025Abstracts featured at the National Kidney Foundation Spring Clinical Meeting highlighted the renoprotective benefits of SGLT2 inhibitors in heart failure and diabetic kidney disease while emphasizing the need for strategies to increase their uptake in primary care.
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