Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½Ò•îl

Skip to main content

The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.

Subscribe Follow Us
  • Trump 2.0

    Trump 2.0

    • Agency Watch
    • State Watch
    • Rural Health Payout
  • Public Health

    Public Health

    • Vaccines
    • CDC & Disease
    • Environmental Health
    All Public Health
  • Audio Reports

    Audio Reports

    • What the Health?
    • Health Care Helpline
    • Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½Ò•îl Health News Minute
    • An Arm and a Leg
    • Health Hub
    • HealthQ
    • Silence in Sikeston
    • Epidemic
    All Audio
  • Special Reports

    Special Reports

    • Bill Of The Month
    • The Body Shops
    • Broken Rehab
    • Deadly Denials
    • Priced Out
    • Dead Zone
    • Diagnosis: Debt
    • Overpayment Outrage
    • Opioid Settlement Tracking
    • Eleven Minutes
    All Special Reports
  • More Topics

    More Topics

    • Elections
    • Health Care Costs
    • Insurance
    • Prescription Drugs
    • Health Industry
    • Immigration
    • Reproductive Health
    • Technology
    • Rural Health
    • Race and Health
    • Aging
    • Mental Health
    • Affordable Care Act
    • Medicare
    • Medicaid
    • Children’s Health

  • Vaccine Policy in Colorado
  • Family Separation
  • Shakeup at U.S. Preventive Services Task Force
  • Ebola
  • ACA Enrollment

WHAT'S NEW

  • Vaccine Policy in Colorado
  • Family Separation
  • Shakeup at U.S. Preventive Services Task Force
  • Ebola
  • ACA Enrollment

Morning Briefing

Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations

  • Email

Tuesday, Nov 8 2022

Full Issue

New Blood Pressure Drug Seems To Tackle Uncontrolled Cases

The new daily oral medication baxdrostat works by targeting a hormone that regulates the amount of salt in the body, NBC News explains. Separately, a medical device from Medtronic is reportedly good at curbing otherwise tough-to-treat hypertension.

Patients who took a daily dose of the drug, baxdrostat, were able to reduce their blood pressure substantially, compared to a people who got a placebo, according to the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the American Heart Association annual meeting on Monday. The new type of oral medication works by targeting a hormone that regulates the amount of salt in the body. (Carroll, 11/7)

A Medtronic PLC medical device reduced the blood pressure of people with tough-to-treat hypertension in a closely watched study, but not significantly beyond what medications achieved. The device cut a crucial measure of blood pressure by only about two points more than the average reduction in study volunteers who didn’t get the procedure, researchers said Monday. (Loftus, 11/7)

In other pharmaceutical news —

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rebuffed a bid by Bristol Myers Squibb Co's Juno Therapeutics Inc to reinstate a $1.2 billion award it won in its patent fight with Gilead Sciences Inc subsidiary Kite Pharma Inc over a lymphoma drug. (Brittain, 11/7)

Verve Therapeutics said Monday that its experimental gene-editing treatment for a common form of heart disease was placed on clinical hold by the Food and Drug Administration, potentially delaying an ongoing, early-stage clinical trial. (Feuerstein, 11/7)

VillageMD, a unit of Walgreens Boots Alliance, will acquire Summit Health-CityMD for $8.9 billion, the companies announced Monday. (Hudson, 11/7)

Pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts Inc has agreed to pay $3.2 million to settle claims that it overcharged Massachusetts' workers' compensation insurance system for prescription drugs, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey announced Monday. (Pierson, 11/7)

KHN: Pfizer’s Covid Cash Powers A ‘Marketing Machine’ On The Hunt For New Supernovas 

For drugmaker Pfizer, a fortune amassed in the covid pandemic is now paving the path to pharma nirvana: a weight loss pill worth billions. The company has reaped nearly $100 billion from selling covid-19 vaccines and treatments to U.S. taxpayers and foreign governments. With that windfall, it plans to get richer, sinking the cash into developing and marketing potential blockbusters for conditions like migraines, ulcerative colitis, prostate cancer, sickle cell disease, and obesity. (Allen, 11/8)

Also —

A federal judge denied Elizabeth Holmes’s bid for a new trial, the latest setback for the Theranos Inc. founder who was convicted of fraud in January. U.S. District Judge Edward Davila, who oversaw Ms. Holmes’s trial which began last year, said in a ruling late Monday that the arguments in her three motions for a new trial didn’t introduce material new evidence or establish government misconduct, adding that a new trial was unlikely to result in an acquittal. (Somerville, 11/8)

This is part of the Morning Briefing, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.
Newsletter icon

Sign Up For Our Newsletter

Stay informed by signing up for the Morning Briefing and other emails:

Recent Morning Briefings

  • Today, June 1
  • Friday, May 29
  • Thursday, May 28
  • Wednesday, May 27
  • Tuesday, May 26
  • Friday, May 22
More Morning Briefings
RSS Feeds
  • Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½Ò•îl
  • Special Reports
  • Morning Briefing
  • About Us
  • Republish Our Content
  • Contact Us

Follow Us

  • RSS

Sign up for emails

Join our email list for regular updates based on your personal preferences.

Sign up
  • Editorial Policy
  • Privacy Policy

© 2026 KFF