Here are the editors' top picks for the week ended March 9.
Cigna, Express Scripts $67B deal does not close door on other insurers: Execs
With Cigna Corp.'s $67 billion purchase of Express Scripts Holding Co., the last large, stand-alone pharmacy benefit manager and its roughly 100 million customers will be absorbed by a major health insurer.
FDA chief tells pharma, payers: Stop the shell games with biosimilar competitors
Brand-name-drug makers are plotting with payers to blunt the market incentives for companies to develop lower-cost versions of biologics, known as biosimilars, the head of the Food and Drug Administration asserted.
Officials urge pharma to drop egg-based flu vaccine, invest in new technologies
With a flu vaccine that was only 36% effective overall this season, the biopharmaceutical industry must move away from the egg-based process and "graduate to the 21st century," the U.S. government's top infectious disease expert told lawmakers.
Lundbeck on the challenge of schizophrenia research
H. Lundbeck A/S
Ore. lawmakers approve disclosure requirements for drug price increases
Oregon lawmakers have sent to Gov. Kate Brown a bill that would require drug companies to disclose certain information when they raise prescription drug prices.
Teva stonewalling Senate opioid probe, top Democrat on Homeland panel charges
The Israeli company has been hampering a Senate investigation into the role drugmakers have played in driving the U.S. opioid epidemic, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee charged.
Battle brews over capping drug prices in Maryland
Pharmaceutical companies are fighting a bill in the state that could create the first-ever law allowing government to put price caps on drugs.
UnitedHealthcare to pass drugmaker rebates to consumers at pharmacy
UnitedHealth Group Inc.
US health chief demands price transparency — or government will force change
It is time for healthcare providers, insurers, pharmacies and drugmakers to be more transparent about their pricing, and if they do not, the U.S. government has "plenty of levers to pull that would help drive this change," the U.S. health chief said.
Arkansas 3rd state to gain Medicaid work approval but held up on expansion cut
Arkansas became the third state in the U.S. to gain a waiver permitting it to require Medicaid beneficiaries who meet certain criteria to work in exchange for receiving health benefits, following Kentucky and Indiana.
Owlstone gains Li Ka-shing as investor in breathalyzer-like cancer diagnostic
The Cambridge, U.K.-based diagnostics company has attracted investment from Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing to help bring its Breath Biopsy Breathalyzer-type testing for detecting lung cancer to market.
