June 7, 2010 at 12:28 p.m.
Filed under:
Government,
Health care
Associated Press | The Obama administration is making $51 million
available to states that want to beef up oversight of health insurance
rate increases.
Outrage over premium hikes was a turning point in the national health
care debate this year, after Anthem Blue Cross proposed increases of up
to 39 percent in California. The company ultimately withdrew the plan,
but not before President Barack Obama used it to help revive his stalled
legislation. The $51 million announced Monday is the first installment
of a five-year, $250 million program created under the health care
overhaul law to help state regulators challenge unreasonable rate hikes.
The Health and Human Services department said states can get $1 million
each this year.
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June 7, 2010 at 9:43 a.m.
Filed under:
Health care,
Investing,
Stock activity
From Dividend.com | Health care products maker Abbott Laboratories saw its rating cut on Monday by analysts at Goldman Sachs. The firm lowered its rating on ABT to “Neutral” from “Buy,” but maintained its $69 price target on the stock. That target represents a more than 48% upside to Abbott’s Friday closing price of $46.53.
Get the full story: dividend.com.
June 3, 2010 at 10:47 a.m.
Filed under:
Health care
Associated Press | Abbott Laboratories said Thursday the Food and Drug Administration
cleared its new diagnostic test for the monitoring of ovarian cancer.
The FDA approved the company’s Architect HE4 blood test, which is used
to monitor the recurrence or progression of ovarian cancer.
The current test most widely used to monitor ovarian cancer, CA125,
measures levels of a protein in the blood as an indication that the
disease is possibly recurring or spreading. While 80 percent of ovarian
cancers express CA125, 20 percent of all ovarian cancers do not. Abbott
said using its new HE4 test in conjunction with methods such as CA125
gives physicians a more comprehensive clinical picture.
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June 3, 2010 at 9:40 a.m.
Filed under:
Health care,
Litigation
By Ameet Sachdev | Hospira Inc.’s stalled $145 million acquisition of Javelin
Pharmaceuticals has gone to court.
Javelin said Thursday that it has sued Hospira to compel the Lake Forest
company to complete a merger agreement signed in April. The lawsuit was
filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery.
Hospira has twice extended its tender offer to purchase the shares of
Javelin for $2.20 a share, citing unsatisfied merger conditions. The
last offer expired at midnight Wednesday. The new deadline is midnight
on June 16.
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June 3, 2010 at 8:23 a.m.
Filed under:
Health care,
Pharmaceuticals,
Retail
A Walgreens in New York. (AP Photo/Yanina Manolova, file)
By Ameet Sachdev | Walgreens
reported Thursday that it will record an after-tax charge of $44 million, or 5 cent a share, in the third quarter after a tax benefit was repealed in the health-care reform legislation passed in March.
The company said it will no longer receive a tax benefit for a Medicare subsidy for retiree drug benefits. The loss of the tax benefit will increase the company’s annual taxable income by about $13 million.
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June 2, 2010 at 3:30 a.m.
Filed under:
Health care,
Sports
By Ameet Sachdev | South Africa will distribute 3.5 million female condoms manufactured by
Chicago-based Female Health Co. during the World Cup soccer tournament.
The World Cup will bring millions of visitors to South Africa and health
organizations are concerned about the impact on public health. An
international agency, which does not want to be identified, procured the
condoms from Female Health and is working with South Africa’s health
ministry to distribute them, a company spokesman said.
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June 1, 2010 at 6:57 a.m.
Filed under:
Health care,
Pharmaceuticals
Reuters | Americans prefer drugs to talk therapy for depression,
with nearly 80 percent taking a pill for the condition, Consumer
Reports said on Tuesday. The most popular class of drugs remain the
so-called SSRIs such as Prozac, the group found. People found newer,
pricier antidepressants less desirable because of side-effects.
Patients benefited just as much from therapy — almost any kind of
therapy, the consumer group found in its survey of 1,500 readers.
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May 28, 2010 at 7:31 a.m.
Filed under:
Health care,
International,
Pharmaceuticals
From Bloomberg News | In a side-by-side test involving 900 British children, Baxter’s Celvapan swine flu vaccine for children was found to produce fewer antibodies than GlaxoSmithKlein’s Pandemrix.
Get the full story: businessweek.com
May 27, 2010 at 5:41 a.m.
Filed under:
Health care,
Pharmaceuticals
Dow Jones Newswires | Abbott says it plans to file FDA application by year-end seeking approval to use Acculink carotid stent system, used to prop open plaque-filled neck arteries, in patients considered at “standard risk” for surgery.
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May 26, 2010 at 12:48 p.m.
Filed under:
Health care,
Pharmaceuticals
Associated Press | Federal health officials are warning
consumers that the weight loss pill alli may cause severe liver damage
in rare cases. The Food and Drug Administration says it has added a
warning about the risk to the label of the drug, which is sold
over-the-counter by GlaxoSmithKline. A prescription version called
Xenical is marketed by Roche.
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May 26, 2010 at 8:27 a.m.
Filed under:
Health care,
Stock activity
By Mary Ellen Podmolik | Accretive Health, Inc. announced Wednesday the closing of of its 11.5 million-share initial public offering at a price of $12 a share.
The Chicago-based provider of healthcare revenue cycle management services said it sold about 7.7 million shares and shareholders sold an additional 3.8 million shares of common stock, including the underwriters’ option to buy additional shares that was fully exercised.
May 25, 2010 at 6:39 a.m.
Filed under:
Health care,
Pharmaceuticals
Dow Jones Newswires | An Abbott Laboratories device designed to
clip together leaky heart valves without major surgery showed similar
performance among patients with different causes of valve problems in
new study data, Abbott said Tuesday.
The company said these results suggest the MitraClip, sold in Europe and
under review by the Food and Drug Administration, could benefit a broad
swath of patients. Other data from the company-funded “Everest II”
study showed that clip and traditional surgery patients didn’t see any
difference in the need for additional surgery at two years.
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May 24, 2010 at 7:59 a.m.
Filed under:
Health care,
Labor
From Crain’s Chicago Business | Nurses at the University of Chicago Medical Center have left the Illinois Nurses Association to join National Nurses United.
Though the nurses ratified a new contract with the medical center last month, they plan to use the “clout” of the national union to reopen the pact to seek changes in staffing levels and shift work.
Read the full story: chicagobusiness.com
May 21, 2010 at 7:13 a.m.
Filed under:
Health care,
International,
M&A,
Pharmaceuticals
By Bruce Japsen | Abbott Laboratories said it will pay $3.72 billion for a unit of drug
giant Piramal Healthcare, a maker of popular generic medicines in
emerging markets, in a deal that will establish it as the largest
seller of prescription drugs in India.
The North Chicago-based drug giant said the move to buy Piramal’s
Healthcare Solutions business allows Abbott to tap into the
second-largest country and one of the fastest growing markets in the
world. Pharmaceutical sales alone in emerging markets are growing three
times the rate of developed countries, say industry analysts.
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May 20, 2010 at 5:43 p.m.
Filed under:
Health care,
Restaurants
By Noam N. Levey
and Tom Hamburger | The National Restaurant Association
and insurance giant UnitedHealth Group Inc. are teaming up in a bid to
make coverage more accessible to millions of restaurant workers without
health benefits — three years ahead of when the new health care
overhaul would require everyone to have insurance.
The initiative, though limited at the outset, marks one of the largest
private-sector efforts to expand health insurance coverage.
And its architects said it could ultimately help cover the 4 million to 6
million restaurant employees without health benefits, or some 10 percent of
the nation’s current population of uninsured.
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