All News

Only a few months after Congress enacted some of the most significant federal reforms to date of the business practices oft pharmacy benefit managers, the PBM industry’s chief lobbying group says it has launched the biggest advertising campaign in its history... Read more at Health Care un-covered.

Some of the forces that shape biopharma cluster development are constants year after year, such as the emergence of startups from university and research institute labs to develop new treatments, thanks to ideas backed by the brains of researchers and executives, and the bucks of serial entrepreneurs and other investors... Read more at GenEng News.

Maryland is seeing more people than usual drop out of ACA health care plans after the first quarter after federal subsidies were allowed to sunset by Congress. The state saw an 8% disenrollment rate from people unable to pay for their ACA health care plans from January to the end of March, which translates to about 18,000 residents. Read more at WYPR.

State officials determined that Ozempic, a popular diabetes treatment and weight-loss drug, is unaffordable for Marylanders and voted Monday to limit how much state and local governments will pay for it on state health plans... Read more at Maryland Matters.

Gov. Abigail Spanberger on Tuesday vetoed legislation that would have created a state board to review prescription drug costs, saying that evidence from other states shows that such boards do not achieve the goal of lower prices... Read more from Cardinal News.

Maryland regulators moved to cap the cost of diabetes and weight-loss drug Ozempic on Monday, after taking similar action on Jardiance in April. The move limits the cost paid for Ozempic to $274 per month for local government insurers, based on the Medicare Fair Price negotiated by the federal government insurer. That amount will be adjusted for inflation beginning in 2028, but it does not limit patient out-of-pocket costs set by either public sector or private, employer-prov

Legislation signed by Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) would de-couple the state from following the recommendations of a federal vaccine advisory panel that was remade by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The Vax Act, signed by Gov. Wes Moore (D) Tuesday, directs the state’s health secretary to issue official recommendations for immunizations, screening and preventive services, rather than relying on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immu

AbbVie Inc., Novartis AG, AstraZeneca Plc, and drug industry group PhRMA notched a victory Tuesday after a federal appeals court vacated an order rejecting their request to block a Maryland drug discount law, remanding the decision for review. The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled a lower court “erred” when it denied the drugmakers and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America’s motion for a preliminary injunction against Maryland’s H.B. 1056.

Medical breakthroughs are often measured in lives saved and diseases prevented. That is only part of the story. They are also a powerful driver of economic growth, workforce strength, and long-term public revenue. For communities like Frederick County, that connection is not theoretical. It is visible in our local economy every day... Read more from Rick Weldon, CEO of the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce, at The Frederick News Post .

Maryland’s small businesses and independent pharmacies are the backbone of our communities, yet they are being squeezed by a prescription-drug system that rewards powerful middlemen over the very people it is meant to serve. Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) and the insurance giants that own them dictate prices, reimbursement and access with almost no transparency, driving up costs for employers and threatening the survival of local pharmacies... Read more from Liz League, CEO

Right now, the U.S. is drifting toward a dangerous dependency. America relies on China for a significant share of the raw ingredients used to manufacture medicines — sometimes as much as 80 to 90 percent of active pharmaceutical ingredients. Meanwhile, 477 FDA-registered drug manufacturing facilities operate in China, yet the FDA inspected only 204 foreign drug and device establishments in fiscal 2024... Read more from The Hill .

Last year, America’s pharmacy benefit managers and insurers pocketed a whopping $7 billion in co-pay assistance meant for patients. Through deceptive policies and regulatory loopholes, they have turned patient co-pay assistance into a growing profit center for themselves... Read more at the Washington Times .

Last summer, Lorena Alvarado Hill received a series of unexpected medical bills. A teacher’s aide in Melbourne, Florida, Hill is a single mom who works shifts at J.Crew on the weekends to send her daughter to college. Hill and her mother, who lives with her, had been enrolled in an insurance plan through HealthFirst. Hill paid nothing toward the premiums for the government-subsidized plan, which previously had covered her scans and other appointments. Read more at KFF Health

Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: VNDA) has landed another regulatory approval, this time for a schizophrenia and bipolar treatment - two months after securing a nod to take a motion sickness medication to market... Read more at WBJ .

The program was meant to help hospitals provide for poor patients by offering drug savings. But critics say a Texas company has turned it into a big business, driving up costs for patients and insurers. Read more at NYT .

Across the country, pharmacies are closing at a rapid pace, and advocates are warning it’s a serious life-or-death situation. “We’re starting to see that there's not only issues with access but also issues with the chronic diseases, people [in] emergency rooms, people get sicker and people really dying if we're going to be blunt about it,” said Magaly Rodriguez de Bittner, associate dean at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy... Read the full article at WMAR 2 .

Maryland is becoming the home away from home for British drugmaker AstraZeneca. On Friday, the biopharma powerhouse upped its ante in the Old Line State, saying it will invest $2 billion to increase its manufacturing presence there. The funding will allow AZ to nearly double the production capacity at its flagship biologics plant in Federick, Maryland, and also provide for the manufacture of the company's rare disease products there for the first time, AZ said. Read the full

Gov. Wes Moore wants state-level guidance to bigfoot the new federal vaccine recommendations, which do not universally include flu and other infectious diseases. Moore said Thursday he intends to seek state legislation during the upcoming General Assembly session that would give Maryland’s health secretary more authority over vaccine guidance that is used by parents, doctors and insurers who pay for the shots. Read more at the Baltimore Banner .

For decades, America has led the global biotech industry – thanks, in part, to state-level policies that encourage research and manufacturing investments. But other countries, including China, are sparing no expense in the bid to overtake us. Beijing has officially made biotechnology a national strategic priority and is pouring billions into state-backed research and manufacturing efforts. Read more at Real Clear Health .

Federal health officials on Monday announced dramatic revisions to the slate of vaccines recommended for American children, reducing the number of diseases prevented by routine shots to 11 from 17. Jim O'Neill, acting director for the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, has updated the agency's immunization schedule to reflect the changes, effective immediately, officials said at a news briefing. Read more at the .