DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

An upswing in the use of GLP-1 drugs has had a notable impact on the higher growth of pharmacy benefit costs under such health insurance plans, Mercer said. GLP-1 drugs, which work by suppressing hunger and making a person feel full longer, are typically priced around $1,000 per patient per month. While employers cover the use of GLP-1 drugs as a treatment for diabetes, the debate around providing coverage for them as an obesity treatment lingers. "It may take another couple of years for price increases stemming from higher healthcare sector wages and medical supply costs to be felt across all health plans." Despite rising health-plan costs, large employers have avoided shifting additional costs to employees through higher deductibles, co-pays, or out-of-pocket maximums in 2023.

Persons: Victoria Klesty, Mercer, Health Actuary, Sunit Patel, Eli Lilly's, Patel, Beth Umland, Khushi Mandowara, Leroy Leo, Pooja Desai Organizations: REUTERS, U.S . Food, Drug, Health, Reuters, Novo Nordisk's, Mercer, Thomson Locations: Oslo, Norway, August31, Victoria, United States, Bengaluru

Benefit consultants from Mercer, Aon (AON.N) and Willis Towers Watson (WTW.O) see employer healthcare costs jumping 5.4% to 8.5% in 2024 due to medical inflation, soaring demand for costly weight-loss drugs and wider availability of high-priced gene therapies. Benefit consultants help design insurance plans for medium and large employers. About two-thirds of U.S. workers receive benefits through such plans.Insurers UnitedHealth (UNH.N), Centene (CNC.N), Cigna (CI.N) and Elevance (ELV.N), which manage employer insurance plans, declined to comment for this story. Of its projected 8.5% increase in employer healthcare costs for next year, Aon anticipates 1 percentage point coming from weight-loss drugs alone. Gene therapy treatment of just one employee could significantly raise costs for a company, consultants said.

Persons: Srdjan, Willis Towers Watson, Mercer, Marsh McLennan, Beth Umland, Aon, Novo's Ozempic, Eli Lilly's, Janet Faircloth, Jodi Picoult's, Khushi Mandowara, Leroy Leo, Caroline Humer, Bill Berkrot Organizations: U.S, REUTERS, Reuters Graphics, Novo, Reuters, Employers, Thomson Locations: Ljubljana, Mercer, Aon, United States, Bengaluru

Abbott is the second major company to signal a recovery in medical device sales. Medical devices - Abbott's largest segment - clocked an 8.5% rise in sales to $3.90 billion, with $1.2 billion coming from glucose monitoring device Freestyle Libre. I don't think it's a bolus of backlog," Abbott CEO Robert Ford said about the recovery in medical device sales. The stronger outlook for its non-COVID business was the main takeaway as investors had priced in a fall in COVID testing sales, J.P. Morgan analyst Robbie Marcus said in a note. Abbott lowered its outlook for COVID testing sales this year to $1.5 billion from the $2 billion it forecast in January.

Nov 16 (Reuters) - A panel of advisers to the U.S. health regulator on Wednesday recommended the approval of Ardelyx Inc's (ARDX.O) drug for chronic kidney disease patients on dialysis, more than a year after it was initially rejected. The Food and Drug Administration's advisory panel voted 9-4 in favor of the drug, tenapanor, to be administered as a single therapy for treating high phosphate levels in the blood of patients on dialysis. The advisers also voted 10-2 in favor of the drug's use alongside existing treatment. It is probably better than nothing," said a panel member C. Noel Bairey Merz from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The FDA had called the advisers' meeting due to Ardelyx's appeal against the drug's initial rejection.

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/Oct 26 (Reuters) - GSK Plc (GSK.L) came closer to securing its first drug approval since its consumer health spin-off in July as an expert panel of the U.S. health regulator backed an approval for its drug to treat anemia in some patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). The advisers to the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday voted 13-3 in favor of the oral drug for patients on dialysis, although GSK was expecting approval for a broader CKD population. The panel, hesitant about backing the drug for patients not on dialysis, voted 11-5 against it for that group, citing increased safety risks such as heart failure. read moreGSK's drug, daprodustat, is the first from the HIF-PH inhibitor class to win U.S. FDA panel's endorsement. The FDA, which usually follows the recommendations of its expert panel, is expected to make its final decision on the drug by Feb. 1.

People walk on a street affected by the passing of Hurricane Fiona in Penuelas, Puerto Rico September 19, 2022. Baxter, which makes small bags for intravenous medication, clinical nutrition products and inhaled anesthetics in Puerto Rico, said its facilities have "sustained little to no damage" from the storm. The company took a $70 million revenue hit after Hurricane Maria in 2017, spurring it to diversify manufacturing of key products. Drugmakers with plants in Puerto Rico said they have been able to keep up production and supplies as well. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) said operations were restored at all its sites in Puerto Rico by Wednesday.

Search resuls for: "Leroy Leo Khushi Mandowara"

6 mentions found