Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
To Improve Care Access, Drugstores Are Experimenting With New Designs
America’s drugstores are testing smaller locations and more ways to offer care as price-sensitive shoppers look elsewhere. Customers may see Walgreens stores that are one-fourth the size of a regular location or CVS drugstores with entire primary clinics stuffed inside. If these experiments succeed, the new stores might improve access to care and create a more lasting connection with customers, analysts say. (Murphy, 8/4)
On weight loss drugs —
All doses of Eli Lilly's weight-loss drug Zepbound and diabetes drug Mounjaro are now available, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's updated shortage list showed on Friday. However, the regulator has not yet removed the drugs off its shortage list. (Satija and K, 8/2)
Consumers who try to buy popular weight loss drugs online without a prescription risk being scammed or receiving unsafe products, a new study shows. About 42% of online pharmacies that sell semaglutide, the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk’s anti-obesity drug Wegovy, are illegal, operating without a valid license and selling medications without prescriptions, according to a study published Friday in JAMA Network Open. (Szabo, 8/2)
Cost increases for medical services and specialty drugs, like GLP-1s and other weight loss medications, have U.S. employers looking for ways to change workers' use of healthcare services. In a nationwide survey by insurance broker Gallagher, employers ranked the high costs of medical services and specialty drugs as the top two healthcare cost management challenges. (Asplund, 8/2)
On artificial intelligence —
Technology that identifies people at risk of a heart attack in the next 10 years has been hailed as "game changing" by scientists. The artificial intelligence (AI) model detects inflammation in the heart that does not show up on CT scans, which involve a combination of X-rays and computer technology. (Da Costa, 8/5)
The next time you go to the doctor, don’t be surprised if an artificial intelligence program is listening in and transcribing what you and your doctor say. And if a summary of your next X-ray or MRI scan pops up more quickly than expected in your health app, AI could be the reason why. Technology boosters talk of AI’s potential to improve and accelerate medicine, from constructing new proteins to improving disease diagnostics. (DiFeliciantonio, 8/2)
