Pharmaceuticals

A lot of vaccines and some medications need to be delivered by injection. Two groups of researchers are designing ways of delivering these medications by putting them in pill form.

Some antidepressants inhibit a liver enzyme that converts common opioids into their active form. The interaction may reduce the effectiveness of certain opioids for people taking both medicines.

Loretta Boesing is on a mission to make sure prescription drugs delivered by mail are safe and effective. The life of her son — and others who order medicine by mail — could depend on it, she says.

Booker is introducing a bill this week in response to an investigation by the Center for Public Interest and NPR. He calls drug firms' infiltration into Medicaid's decision process "nefarious."

Patients and doctors should have nuanced conversations about the benefits and risks of statins before deciding to start them. The drugs can reduce heart attack odds but also carry some side effects.

The Government Accountability Office found breakdowns in the way the Food and Drug Administration evaluates drugs for rare diseases. The analysis came after an investigation by Kaiser Health News.

Pharmaceutical companies like Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, often win patents for incremental changes with debatable value. Now there's a twist involving an opioid addiction treatment.

Federal officials will allow private Medicare insurance plans to require patients who are candidates for certain expensive drugs to try cheaper drugs first.

Massachusetts planned to exclude expensive drugs that weren't proven to work better than existing alternatives from its Medicaid plan. Medicaid drug spending had doubled in five years.

A consortium of hospital systems and three foundations is moving ahead with a nonprofit drugmaker that would produce some of the generic medicines health care facilities need the most.

Officials in Texas are responding to the findings of an investigation by NPR and the Center for Public Integrity into drugmakers' influence over medication choices for Medicaid patients.

After an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity and NPR into conflicts of interest in Medicaid decisions about drugs, Arizona's governor added new transparency rules.