Walgreens plans to shrink

After losing another $3 billion, Walgreens says it’s going to close 1,200 retail stores over the next three years to try to become profitable again.

Why the big hit? Well, there was losing billions on VillageMD when the company wanted to get into the primary care business. Then there were the lawsuits for its role in the opioid crisis. And then there was “a non-cash impairment charge related to equity investment in China,” whatever that means.

So now the company is planning to close 14% of its stores under a “transformational cost management program,” starting with 500 stores between now and next August.

Tirzepatide compounding saga continues

Compounding pharmacists, it seems, can continue to make and dispense compounded tirzepatide.

Eli Lilly’s brand-name Mounjaro and Zepbound have officially been in shortage for a couple of years. But there was plenty of the active ingredient, tirzepatide, so compounding pharmacies were able to dispense it to patients, albeit without the fancy injectors. A huge business sprung up filling the need.

On October 3, though, Lilly convinced the FDA that the shortage was over, and the agency removed Mounjaro and Zepbound from its shortage list, meaning compounders could no longer make it. Except that the shortage wasn’t over; wholesalers and pharmacists weren’t actually able to get the drugs.

An organization representing compounders, the Outsourcing Facilities Association, filed suit against the FDA and its decision to remove Mounjaro and Zepbound from the shortage list. It claimed the agency made a “reckless and arbitrary decision — lacking any semblance of lawful process” because it only took Lilly’s word that the drugs were available. In reality, it pointed out, wholesalers barely had any stock.

The latest: Before a federal judge could even make a ruling, the FDA essentially said, “Hold up, we’re going to review our decision.” So the judge put the suit on hold, and tirzepatide is essentially back on the shortage list. Compounders can compound it while the FDA considers what the supply actually looks like, perhaps collecting data from wholesalers and pharmacies, rather than just the manufacturer.

Combo vax trial paused

Novavax was one of several companies working on a combo flu/Covid vaccine. I say “was” because the FDA has paused the company’s trial after one subject reported nerve damage.

Notably, the person got the vaccine in January 2023, and there’s no evidence the vaccine had anything to do with it. Still, the trial was put on hold while Novavax and the FDA look into what happened. (The company’s stock plunged almost 20% by the end of the day.)

Short takes

Covid and flu down

The latest CDC data has good news: Wastewater monitoring shows that both Covid and flu are on the decline. Covid is at “low” levels in the South (and “medium” overall) and continuing to decline, while flu levels remain low and are holding steady.

Whooping cough ‘surging’

On the other hand, the CDC also found that rates of whooping cough (i.e., pertussis) are already four times higher than they were last year, with more than 16,000 cases reported so far this year, including two confirmed deaths. Health officials attribute the rise to missed vaccinations during the pandemic.

Weekly hemophilia treatment

The FDA approved Pfizer’s Hympavzi — the first weekly treatment for hemophilia and “the first antitissue-factor pathway inhibitor.”

Medical stuff:

Pfizer’s new drug is aimed at adult and pediatric patients 12 years of age and older with hemophilia A without factor VIII inhibitors or hemophilia B without factor IX inhibitors (neutralizing antibodies). It is administered via a pre-filled, auto-injector pen.

A simple way to save millions

Medicare could save between $133 million and $336 million a year on the Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab with one minor change: smaller vials.

[B]ecause the drug is currently available only in single-use 500 mg and 200 mg vials, substantial amounts of the expensive medication are discarded when the dose a patient is prescribed is lower than the amount contained in the vials.

UCLA researchers calculated how much patients use (based on average age and weight), and did the math to figure how much of those 200-mg and 500-mg vials are thrown out. The answer: about 5.8%. But that could be cut by almost three-quarters “by adding a third, 75-mg vial without significantly harming quality of care.”

Disney didn’t cover this part

Sanofi wants girls and women in Portugal to be comfortable pooping — there’s apparently a stigma about it — so it’s launched a campaign with AI-generated images called “Pooping Princesses” to promote its Dulcolax laxative.

Really, there’s nothing more to say here^*.

^* Actually, that’s not true. If you miss the letter “A” in the tagline at the bottom, it appears to read “Ducolax — Release.”