CVS won’t be getting a Taylor Swift song just yet

Back in October, Bloomberg and Reuters reported that CVS was considering breaking up, splitting the pharmacy business and the insurance business. Welp, that may have been premature. Per Forbes, CVS CEO David Joyner gave investors “no indication any company breakup was in the cards” in the latest earnings call.

In fact, Joyner committed to forging ahead to improve the diversified portfolio of businesses CVS has that include drugstores and an array of outpatient services and primary care clinics; the Caremark pharmacy benefit management company, and Aetna.

Phrase of the day: Joyner referred to the company’s “omnichannel capabilities.”

… and neither will Cigna

Cigna says that no, it’s not planning to hook up with Humana, saying it’s “focused on acquisitions that are ‘strategically aligned, financially attractive, and have a high probability to close’.”

PPIs seem heart-safe

Proton pump inhibitors have been linked — at least anecdotally — with cardiovascular events. But is there data to back that up? Nope, according to a new meta-analysis out of an FDA lab.

The researchers looked at 52 placebo-controlled trials totalling almost 15,000 patients, and what they found was “no significant association between PPI and cardiovascular events.”

They also looked at 61 other trials that compared PPIs with other treatments (e.g., histamine-2 receptor antagonists) and found the same — “no association between PPI treatment and the risk for cardiovascular events.”

Pharmacies sue GoodRx, PBMs

Could GoodRx be in cahoots with PBMs? That’s what at least three class-action lawsuits by independent pharmacies contend.

Essentially, they say that PBMs — plural — entered into agreements with GoodRx so that GoodRx would steer the purchase to the PBM with the lowest price.

The fee the pharmacies pay to be part of GoodRx is then split between the patient’s PBM and the PBM that handles the purchase.

The PBMs do not reimburse pharmacies for these transactions, meaning the patients’ cash payment represents the pharmacies’ only revenue, and PBMs’ profits increase, the lawsuits say.

Money quote: “CVS Caremark generally reimburses independent pharmacies at higher levels than chain drugstores, including CVS pharmacies.” —CVS Caremark spokesman Mike DeAngelis.

A lupus … cure?

When you think of CAR-T therapy, you think of cancer treatment. Now, though, British and European researchers found that it can treat lupus.

In the UK, three patients have received CAR T-cell therapy for the most serious form of lupus, which can be life-threatening and cause damage to the heart, lungs, brain and kidneys. In Germany, patients who have had the new treatment are now in remission and do not need to take lupus drugs.

A lot more long Covid than we thought

When humans estimated how many people have long Covid, they came up with about 7%. But when AI was given access to the health records of almost 300,000 people in Massachusetts, it found the number was more like 23%. That would be almost 79 million Americans.

The AI looked for people who had Covid-19 and then later reported symptoms associated with long Covid — symptoms that couldn’t be explained by their other diagnoses. (E.g., shortness of breath in someone who had asthma wouldn’t count. “Only when every other possibility was exhausted would the tool flag the patient as having long Covid.”)

Interesting side note: This jibes with a 2-year-old CDC study that suggested “More than 1 in 5 adult Covid survivors in the U.S. may develop long Covid.”

Ignorance is bliss

A new report from the National Center for Health Statistics, based on a detailed 2-year survey of more than 6,000 people, found that 40% of Americans who have hypertension aren’t aware of it. Men were both more likely to have it and to be unaware of it.

Please remember

Tomorrow, Nov. 13, is Tailbone Pain Awareness Day.