Health/Social Services Department

The Biden administration is planning for an end to its practice of paying for Covid-19 shots and treatments, shifting more control of pricing and coverage to the healthcare industry in ways that could generate sales for companies—and costs for consumers—for years to come.The Department of Health and Human Services intends to hold a planning session on Aug. 30 that would bring together representatives from drugmakers, pharmacies and state health departments with a stake in a Covid-19 treatment industry. Both the Trump and…

Eli Lilly & Co. said it plans to begin commercial sales of its Covid-19 monoclonal antibody treatment to states, hospitals and other healthcare providers this month, as the federal government’s supply of the drug is nearly depleted.The move marks a shift away from the way Lilly’s drug and most other Covid-19 treatments and vaccines have been distributed in the U.S. It will likely be the first test of whether the vaccines and treatments would remain accessible if shifted to a commercial…

The Food and Drug Administration signed off on a Bavarian Nordic A/S monkeypox vaccine plant, a move that allows use in the U.S. of 786,000 doses made at the facility in Denmark. The FDA said Wednesday it had validated the quality of the shots made at the plant and they met the agency’s standards. “This action by the FDA is a critical step forward in our plans to strengthen and accelerate our monkeypox response, which includes distributing a…

Governments, drugmakers and vaccination sites are discarding tens of millions of unused Covid-19 vaccine doses amid sagging demand, a sharp reversal from the early days of the mass-vaccination campaign, when doses were scarce.Vaccine manufacturer Moderna Inc. recently discarded about 30 million doses of its Covid-19 shot after failing to find takers, while pharmacies and clinics have had to throw out unused doses from multi-dose vials from Moderna and Pfizer Inc.…

The Supreme Court said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services unlawfully cut lucrative pharmaceutical subsidies to some hospitals, in a victory for hospitals that had disputed the move. The unanimous decision on Wednesday reverses two years of the cuts, which were made starting in 2018 as a centerpiece of the Trump administration’s health-policy agenda. The cuts sharply reduced federal subsidies under a program, known as 340B, created to help buoy hospitals that care for…

U.S. health authorities and researchers are investigating why some people who appeared to recover from Covid-19 after taking Pfizer Inc.’s antiviral pill developed symptoms again soon after. Paxlovid is supposed to treat the newly infected, keeping them out of the hospital. Within two weeks of appearing to get better, however, some users experienced cold-like symptoms such as sore throat and cough, according to physicians and published case reports. The rebound cases haven’t resulted in…