Third Covid vax approved

The FDA has approved Novavax’s updated non-mRNA Covid shot for the FLiRT variants circulating nowadays.

While there’s a good argument for waiting on this year’s flu shot — the season doesn’t peak for a couple of months — getting the latest Covid shot now makes sense, what with cases continuing to tick up across the country.

Ozempic shortage to continue

It’s gotten worse, not better, for supplies of Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic, the company said, especially for lower, starter doses. The company also expects intermittent shortages for all strengths to continue “into the final quarter of 2024 due to increased demand and along with capacity constraints at some of its manufacturing sites.”

In other words, while there’s plenty of semaglutide out there (as compounding pharmacists know), Novo can’t seem to get the filling and manufacturing of its spiffy Ozempic pens on track.

How morphine works

It is — well, was — one of the weird bits of medical trivia: Scientists knew that morphine worked, but they didn’t know how. And now they do.

Apparently, Swedish scientists found…

… morphine affects a selected set of neurons in the brain in the part called the rostral ventromedial medulla (RVM). Together, these neurons form a kind of ‘morphine ensemble’. This is a group of neurons whose change in activity leads to pain relief.

They’re hoping that knowing exactly how morphine works can lead to a similar type of pain reliever that doesn’t come with morphine’s baggage.

(If you want more details, the paper’s abstract is available here.)

Say it ain’t so, PBMs

It’s possible — now hear me out here — it’s possible that PBM executives lied in their testimony before Congress when they defended their business models.

I know, shocking, right? Apparently what the PBM CEOs said turns out to contradict what the committee learned on its own, as well as Federal Trade Commission research.

Ruh-ro.

James Comer (R-KY), the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, is Not Happy At All about this.

During the hearing, [PBM CEOs] Conway, Kautzner and Joyner testified that their PBMs treat affiliated and unaffiliated pharmacies equally when setting rates, negotiating contracts and telling patients where to dispense their medications.

Those statements were lies, suggests Comer’s letters, which cite committee and FTC evidence to argue that PBMs increase revenue at their own pharmacies at the expense of other businesses.

Comer has threatened them with fines (i.e., “the price tag for lying to Congress”) or even jail time. So how can they avoid a trip to the Big House? By … correcting their statements.

Bird flu watch

The first cluster of cases has been reported. It’s among workers at two poultry facilities in Colorado. Still no human-to-human transmission, though, and the workers are all doing fine. As you were.

Seniors poised to save big

The AARP is very happy about upcoming annual caps on Medicare out-of-pocket drug costs. The association had the numbers crunched and found that the Biden administration’s $2,000 cap “will lower prices in 2025 for more than 3.2 million people, or around 8.4% of Part D beneficiaries who do not receive other subsidies.”

Even better, more than a million older people will save more than $1,000 a year.

Before the Inflation Reduction Act, beneficiaries who did not qualify for low income subsidies were required to pay 5% of drug costs regardless of how much they had already paid.