Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Walgreens To Shutter 'Significant' Number Of Stores Over Next 3 Years
Walgreens will close a 鈥渟ignificant portion鈥 of its 8,600 U.S. locations over the next three years as it struggles to keep up with a rapidly evolving retail pharmacy industry, the company announced Thursday. 鈥淲e are at a point where the current pharmacy model is not sustainable and the challenges in our operating environment require we approach the market differently,鈥 Walgreens chief executive Timothy Wentworth said Thursday during the company鈥檚 quarterly earnings call. 鈥淲e do not expect an improvement in the U.S. retail environment.鈥 (Peiser, 6/27)
More pharma and tech news 鈥
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration declined to approve Merck (MRK.N) and Japan-based Daiichi Sankyo's (4568.T) lung cancer treatment, which belongs to a lucrative class of cancer therapies that work like "guided missiles". The FDA cited findings from an inspection of a third-party manufacturing facility in its so-called complete response letter, the companies said late on Wednesday. (6/27)
Days after an advisory committee resoundingly voted for the Food and Drug Administration to reject MDMA as medical treatment, the founder of the company that applied for approval was ebullient. Rick Doblin, who has spent decades driving forward MDMA research, told a psychedelics conference in the Netherlands that his dream was not simply possible, but likely. There was 鈥渟ubstantially more than a 50/50 chance鈥 that the FDA would dismiss its advisers鈥 perspective and approve the first currently prohibited psychedelic come August, he said at the Interdisciplinary Conference on Psychedelic Research. (Goldhill, 6/28)
Eisai and Biogen have launched their Alzheimer's treatment Leqembi in China, the third country after the United States and Japan, the companies said on Friday. Leqembi, which works by removing a toxic protein called beta amyloid from the brain, is the first Alzheimer's treatment proven to alter the course of the fatal, brain-wasting disease. (6/28)
A startup selling elective whole-body scans for upward of $1,000 is launching a 10-year, 100,000 person study to attempt to settle doubts within the medical community about its value and potential consequences. (Ravindranath, 6/27)
