Medical devices and equipment
Death of medical device tax in Republican ACA replacement plan a big win for a big Minnesota industry | MinnPostOver the past eight years, the medical device industry, a key sector of the Minnesota economy, often didn’t get what it wanted from Washington, D.C.
Pharmaceuticals
Trump’s latest tweet, pledging a new system to price drugs, dings biopharma stocks | STATPresident Trump’s tweeting still has the ability to rattle biopharma stocks, as a cryptic missive early Tuesday sent company shares south.
Drugs are killing so many people in West Virginia that the state can’t keep up with the funerals | The Washington Post
Deaths in West Virginia have overwhelmed a state program providing burial assistance for needy families for at least the fifth year in a row, causing the program to be nearly out of money four months before the end of the fiscal year, according to the state's Department of Health and Human Resources.
Lower $1,000 pill price? We’d love it, says Express Scripts | Bloomberg
More than two years after Express Scripts Holding Co. helped kick off a debate over U.S. pharmaceutical costs by starting a price war over Gilead Sciences Inc.’s expensive hepatitis C pills, the companies are fighting again.
Safety, quality and clinical practice
Dentists work to ease patients’ pain with fewer opioids | Kaiser Health NewsDentists have long been frequent prescribers of immediate-release opioids like Vicodin and Percocet for the pain from tooth extractions. That’s a lot of pills and teeth; annually more than 3.5 million people, mainly young adults, have their wisdom teeth removed.
As obesity keeps rising, more Americans are just giving up | The Los Angeles Times
It stands to reason that if you know you’re overweight or obese, and you know your extra pounds are unhealthy, that you’ve made a stab at losing weight. Right? Not so much anymore, new research shows.