Geography isn’t our strong suit

Yesterday we referred to the Pfizer plant in Tennessee that was hit by the tornado. Whoops — it’s in North Carolina. Sorry for any confusion!

PBM bill passes Senate committee

The Senate Finance Committee all but unanimously (25-1) advanced a bill that would regulate PBMs — yet another show of bipartisan support for reining in those bloodsuckers.

Among other provisions, the legislation would delink PBM compensation from the price of the drug, which would remove an incentive for PBMs to favor higher priced drugs.

The legislation would also ban spread pricing, which is when a PBM charges Medicaid more for prescription drugs than they pay.

What’s next: This bill will likely be combined with other committees’ PBM reform bills, as well as those from the House, eventually creating one bill to rule them all.

Mercer grads are succeeding

Big shout-out to the Mercer College of Pharmacy! Its 2022 grads had a whopping 96% “career outcomes” rate — meaning they’re actually putting their shiny new degrees to use.

Click to expandonate:

Metformin for muscle recovery

Metformin can do a lot, and what “a lot” means keeps being discovered. (In January we shared how people on social media think it’s a miracle drug. It does seem to protect against osteoarthritis and long Covid.)

Anyway …

The latest superpower metformin might have is protecting muscles, especially in older people. University of Utah researchers found that it can help clear accumulated senescent cells — i.e., remove the dead bodies so the muscles can recover and function better. The result is less muscle fibrosis and atrophy after disuse, e.g., after a bunch of post-injury bed rest.

They’re still teasing out how best to use this info, but the Utahans are pretty happy so far.

“Metformin is cheap, effective and quite safe, so it’s exciting to see that we can use it to accelerate recovery for older individuals.”

Whooping cough: protection for me but not for thee

The rise in whooping cough cases may have a surprising culprit: vaccinated people.

In 1996 the US adopted a newer whooping cough shot called the acellular pertussis (aP) vaccine. Unlike the original 1948 version, aP only protects against four strains of B. pertussis in order to cut down on side effects.

But when they examined patients, scientists at California’s La Jolla Institute for Immunology noticed that people who got this newer vaccine had immunity to strains that weren’t in it.

“Huh,” they said.

That’s good, right? Yes and no. Upon further review, they discovered that vaccinated people themselves were well protected, but…

[T]he aP vaccine likely produces an immune response to the four main antigens that is effective enough to prevent severe disease, but not very good at preventing subclinical infections. This would lead a large number of people to unknowingly become infected and act as carriers of B. pertussis, spreading the bacteria to those more vulnerable to the disease. (Emphasis ours.)

Semaglutide in the news

Fixing the liver

There are a bunch of new treatments (“a robust marketplace”) coming out for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease — which will soon be called nonalcoholic steatohepatitis or NASH to avoid fat-shaming it. And at the top of the list? Semaglutide.

A majority of both gastroenterologists and hepatologists […] said they would be “very likely” to prescribe semaglutide to patients if it’s approved for either condition in the future. Another 10% to 20% said they would be “moderately likely” to prescribe it.

It’s not that semaglutide treats NASH directly — it’s that patients are often obese as well, and treating that could treat the NASH. “Reducing overall body fat helps reduce fat in the liver, which helps it recover.”

Mounjaro: good news and bad

The FDA seems poised to approve Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro for treating obesity, but there’s one problem: People are already using it off-label, and demand is outpacing supply. The company “is pumping cash into expanded manufacturing capacity,” but some doses are expected to be hard to get at least through September.

Wegovy is probably just fine

The factory that fills Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy injector pens looks like it’s been playing fast and loose with some sterile-safety rules, according to FDA records. Although the plant had “the most serious form of violations,” the agency let it stay open while it fixes the problems.

But like the fry cook who doesn’t always wash his hands, “There is no evidence that Catalent’s compliance failures resulted in harm to users of Wegovy.”

Olive oil might beat dementia

Just half a tablespoon of olive oil a day — especially if it’s a substitute for butter or margarine — “might trim the risk of death from dementia by up to 14%,” according to Harvard researchers. And people who consumed more than that could cut that death risk by 28%.

What’s interesting is that this study focused on olive oil alone, not on the whole Mediterranean diet; they think those good ol’ omega-3 fatty acids and olive oil’s various polyphenols are playing a role.

Caveat: “[S]tudies like this can only show correlations — and not proof that olive oil protects the aging brain.”

Note: A lot of “olive oil” out there is fake. Here’s a list of the real deal. Too lazy to click? California Olive Ranch and Costco Kirkland Toscano are good, inexpensive, and legit. You’re welcome.