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Nearly three out of 10 U.S. drugstores that were open during the previous decade had closed by 2021, new research shows. Black and Latino neighborhoods were most vulnerable to the retail pharmacy closures, which can chip away at already-limited care options in those communities, researchers said in a study published Tuesday in Health Affairs. (Murphy, 12/3)

Spending on healthcare lobbying has ticked up in 2024, with companies and associations in the healthcare sector again spending hundreds of millions and again putting the greatest attention on bills that involve pharmacy benefit managers. According to federal data compiled by OpenSecrets and analyzed by Modern Healthcare, lobbyist spending for the first three quarters of 2024 hit $562 million, up from $553 million in the same period last year. (McAuliff, 12/3)

Swedish pharmaceutical company Orexo will no longer pursue an app for treating depression after many years of struggling to sell it. Orexo announced this week that it will no longer license the product, called Deprexis, from German manufacturer GAIA. (Aguilar, 12/3)

Ian Quigley was employee #13 at AI drug company Recursion until 2021, when he quit and turned the basement of his Utah home into a lab to develop AI models for predicting which proteins small molecule drugs might target — a tool he and co-founder Andrew Blevins found was missing during their time at Recursion. (Trang, 12/3)

For centuries, Thailand has produced premium silk fabrics. Now, researchers at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok have found another use for the fiber: to deliver medicines into the body. (Cairns, 12/2)