Industry Trends

The excellent and informative articles “Want a Test? Depends Where You Live” (The Coronavirus Pandemic, March 12) and “Don’t Jump to Conclusions” (Heard on the Street, March 11) about testing for the new coronavirus didn’t cover some important nuances. The test kits in use in the U.S. described in the articles detect viral genetic material—RNA, in the case of coronaviruses—which can be infectious material or noninfectious fragments. Once the patient has recovered and the RNA has been cleared, the tests will...

The New York Post last week published an article with the ominous headline, “Pharmacists quietly panicking over looming respiratory drug shortage.” The gist was that in addition to the rush on personal protection products such as face masks, hand sanitizers, disinfectants, and rubber gloves, the supply chains for various important prescription drugs, especially generics with components made in China, are fraying. This should come as no surprise. As the number of cases of infection with the novel coronavirus (formally SARS-CoV-2, with the illness it...

Title: As U.S. Sees COVID-19 Infections Spike, Some Worry About 'Grave Errors' By Adam Smith In the beginning, the few reports of a newly discovered virus seemed inconsequential and distant. The coronavirus was causing pneumonia in scores of people, but those patients were in a faraway province of China, Hubei, that most outside that nation had never heard of. “There is no evidence that the new virus is readily spread by humans, which would make it particularly dangerous, and it has not been...

Fractions are taught in elementary school, but adults sometimes still manage to misunderstand how they work in everyday life. I was reminded of that after President Trump’s Saturday press conference, which focused on the federal government’s response to the Wuhan coronavirus (formally SARS-CoV-2, with the illness it causes designated COVID-19). Let me explain. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the articulate, veteran director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, described at the presser how the efforts to prevent the spread—or “contain”...

CDC warns on coronavirus in US: Should you start to worry? By Madeline Farber, Fox News Federal health officials this week warned that community spread of the novel coronavirus in the U.S. is seemingly inevitable, with one Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) official saying it’s no longer “a question of if, but when, and how many people in this country will have severe illness.” In the same vein, officials have maintained that the immediate threat to the public remains low. So how worried should you be?...

Dr. Henry Miller, PRI’s senior fellow for the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation, joins the John Batchelor Show to offer analysis on the search for a vaccine for the coronavirus. Dr. Miller says the United States has a steep learning curve ahead for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic and talks about the latest developments from the World Health Organization.  ...

PRI's Henry Miller, M.S., M.D., joins the nationally-syndicated Lars Larson Show to discuss the latest developments in the spread of the coronavirus. Larson and Dr. Miller look at the rise of coronavirus cases in South Korea and Italy, and what the United States is doing to prepare for the impact of the pandemic. Miller's segment begins at the 47:00 minute mark. ...

The World Health Organization, a part of the United Nations, has proposed an official name, COVID-19, for the illness caused by the Wuhan coronavirus, after the city in China where it emerged. (The new designation stands for coronavirus disease 2019, as the illness was first detected toward the end of last year.) The director-general of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, noted that the name was chosen “to avoid stigma”—or as the woke might say, microaggressions—thus, the new name makes no reference to...

Business impact widens as China fights to get infections under control By: Anjalee Khemlani, Yahoo! Finance Feb. 7, 2020 China’s deadly coronavirus outbreak continues to threaten multi-national companies, as a range of businesses from leisure to retail suffer from the outbreak’s after-effects. The number of confirmed cases in the country surged past 31,000 Friday, well beyond three times the number of cases last week. While the number of new cases daily have dipped slightly, World Health Organization officials said on Friday the organization’s not...

As the cases of the Wuhan coronavirus (formally 2019-nCoV) continue to increase, and China and other countries aggressively perform screening, isolation, treatment and tracking of patients’ contacts, demand for various essential medical items is unprecedented, and shortages have been reported. For example, American dentists, who go through large numbers of surgical masks daily, are already finding their supply chain interrupted. Ironically, most of the world’s supply of masks and respirators, along with other materials essential for health care, comes from manufacturers in...

The outbreak of infections from a novel virus that appears to have originated in Central China has elicited a storm of commentary, much of it uninformed. Opinions have ranged from predictions of a worldwide apocalypse to dismissal of quarantines and “social distancing” as a kind of public relations stunt by the Chinese government—neither of which is likely to be true. Even at this early and rapidly evolving stage of the outbreak, science can and should inform our actions. I have what...

China has become the world's largest producer and exporter of "active pharmaceutical ingredients," the base components drug companies use to manufacture most of the medications we rely on. China's dominance puts both the health of Americans and our national security at risk. According to the findings of a new report from the U.S.-China Economic Security Review Commission, which was established by Congress in 2000, China's pharmaceutical industry "is not effectively regulated by the Chinese government" and has been responsible for a...

[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_empty_space][qode_button_v2 target="_self" font_weight="500" hover_effect="" gradient="no" text="DOWNLOAD THE PDF" link="https://medecon.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/BiosimilarSavings_web.pdf" color="#ffffff" hover_color="#ffffff" background_color="#a21e2c" hover_background_color="#000000" font_family="arial"][vc_empty_space height="12px"][vc_column_text]Biosimilars have the opportunity to bring significant savings to state Medicaid programs and consumers with commercial insurance according to a new study released today by Pacific Research Institute. “Every state would experience significant savings in the state Medicaid programs from expanding the use of biosimilars compared to the more expensive originator biologics,” said Dr. Wayne Winegarden, director of PRI’s Center...

Biosimilars have the potential to realize billions in savings for the health care system if reforms are enacted to incent their market share to grow, according to a new issue brief issued today by the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the California-based, free-market think tank, the Pacific Research Institute. “Biosimilars are innovative medications that can treat patients at lower costs,” said Dr. Wayne Winegarden, director of PRI’s Center for Medical Economics and Innovation and author of the issue brief. ...