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A study of patient data from the 2019-20 US flu season found that the MF59-adjuvanted flu vaccine was more effective than the high-dose flu vaccine at preventing serious flu complications in older adults with risk factors, researchers reported late last week in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. (Dall, 8/19)

When the Federal Trade Commission started to investigate pharmacy benefit managers in 2022, the agency asked the country’s largest PBMs to provide employee data, including names, responsibilities, and contact information. One of the PBMs responded by mailing the FTC a general company phone book; the agency was expecting the PBM to give organized, detailed information suited to its requests, not a random directory of names. (Lee, 8/20)

A Philadelphia-based biotech company exploring new cell therapy applications said that a patient receiving CAR-T for an autoimmune disease experienced a serious adverse event. The patient has a form of lupus that affects the kidney, and in late June, developed a neurological side effect that is a known risk of CAR-T from the therapy that the company is testing, called CABA-201. The company, Cabaletta Bio, said earlier this month the condition “resolved rapidly following standard management.” (McCook, 8/19)

For a third year, back-to-school preparations will include a scramble to find popular drugs used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Despite signs from the Food and Drug Administration that manufacturers were catching up to outsized demand, the stimulants remain hard to track down with pharmacies out of stock and the Drug Enforcement Administration taking a harder line policing them. (Reed, 8/20)

Was Matthew Perry, whose struggles with substance abuse were widely known, a good candidate for a drug used to relieve depression? Doctors say his case raises thorny questions. (Stevens and Hamby, 8/19)

For 15 years, Dr. Jeffrey E. Shuren was the federal official charged with ensuring the safety of a vast array of medical devices including artificial knees, breast implants and Covid tests. When he announced in July that he would be retiring from the Food and Drug Administration later this year, Dr. Robert Califf, the agency’s commissioner, praised him for overseeing the approval of more novel devices last year than ever before in the nearly half-century history of the device division. But the admiration for Dr. Shuren is far from universal. Consumer advocates see his tenure as marred by the approval of too many devices that harmed patients and by his own close ties to the $500 billion global device industry. (Jewett, 8/20)

A group representing molecular pathologists sued the Food and Drug Administration on Monday over its plan to regulate lab-developed tests. It’s the second legal challenge to the rule, following the American Clinical Laboratory Association’s suit in May. (Lawrence, 8/19)