Health News Roundup: Bird flu pushes US dairy farmers to ban visitors, chop trees; Vertex Pharma bets on kidney disease treatment with $4.9 billion Alpine Immune deal and more

Reuters reported in February that Swiss drugmaker Novartis would buy MorphoSys, which had an equity market value of around 1.6 billion euros before the offer was announced. Moderna puts Kenya plant plans on hold as COVID vaccine demand slumps Moderna said on Thursday it had paused its plans to build a vaccine manufacturing facility in Kenya, following a post-pandemic decline in demand for COVID-19 vaccines.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

US accuses Regeneron of fraudulent price reporting for eye drug

The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday accused Regeneron Pharmaceuticals of manipulating Medicare's drug-pricing process by inflating the average sales price for its expensive macular degeneration drug Eylea. The department, in a complaint filed in federal court in Boston, alleged the drugmaker failed for years to report how it paid hundreds of millions of dollars to subsidize Eylea purchases by reimbursing drug distributors for credit-card processing fees.

Bird flu pushes US dairy farmers to ban visitors, chop trees

Dairy farmers in the United States are raising their defenses to try to contain the spread of bird flu: banning visitors, cutting down trees to discourage wild birds from landing, and disinfecting vehicles coming onto their land. North Carolina on Wednesday became the seventh state to report an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in a dairy herd, after the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed infections in Texas, Kansas, Ohio, Michigan, Idaho and New Mexico.

Gerresheimer supplies the top two in weight-loss drugs, CEO says

German packaging and medical equipment maker Gerresheimer has contracts with the leading players in the burgeoning weight-loss drugs sector, CEO Dietmar Siemssen said after the company reported first-quarter earnings on Thursday. While Gerresheimer's first-quarter adjusted core profit rose 3.7% to 80.9 million euros ($86.9 million), the plastics and devices division that makes injector pens stole the show with a 26.5% jump to 59.3 million euros.

Evidence around youth gender care 'remarkably weak', says major English review

Medical evidence underlying gender care for adolescents is “remarkably weak” and provides little clarity on long-term outcomes, according to an in-depth review of care commissioned by England’s state-funded National Health Service. Gender care can include anything from counselling to medications related to gender issues, including drugs that can pause puberty.

Vertex Pharma bets on kidney disease treatment with $4.9 billion Alpine Immune deal

Vertex Pharmaceuticals will buy Alpine Immune Sciences for about $4.9 billion in cash, gaining access to the biotech firm's treatment for an autoimmune disease of the kidney, the companies said on Wednesday. The deal values each share of Alpine at $65, representing a premium of about 67% to the stock's close on Tuesday, a day before Bloomberg News reported that the company was considering options after attracting takeover interest.

Polish parliament to debate divisive issue of abortion

Polish lawmakers will start a debate on liberalising access to abortion on Thursday, a central election campaign promise of Prime Minister Donald Tusk that has opened a rift within his pro-European coalition in recent weeks. Women's rights are high on the agenda in Poland, which introduced a near-total ban on abortion in 2021 and where the previous, nationalist government embedded its conservative social values in law during its eight-year rule.

Arizona ruling puts abortion at center of 2024 presidential election

Democrats wasted little time capitalizing on Tuesday's ruling from Arizona's high court upholding a 160-year-old abortion ban, organizing press conferences in swing states across the country and blaming former Republican President Donald Trump for eliminating a nationwide right to abortion. The decision from the conservative Arizona Supreme Court sent a shockwave through the battleground state, which is poised to play a pivotal role in November's presidential election while also hosting one of the country's most high-profile Senate races.

More produce, less dairy for low-income families under US nutrition program changes

Nearly 7 million low-income women and children will be able to purchase more fruits and vegetables but less dairy after the U.S. Department of Agriculture finalized changes to a key federal nutrition program on Tuesday. The updates to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), the first since 2014, were made to better align the program's food packages with the best dietary science, USDA said.

Novartis begins tender offer for cancer-focused MorphoSys

Novartis said on Thursday it has launched a tender offer to acquire MorphoSys, a German developer of cancer treatments, for an aggregate 2.7 billion euros ($2.9 billion). Reuters reported in February that Swiss drugmaker Novartis would buy MorphoSys, which had an equity market value of around 1.6 billion euros before the offer was announced.

Moderna puts Kenya plant plans on hold as COVID vaccine demand slumps

Moderna said on Thursday it had paused its plans to build a vaccine manufacturing facility in Kenya, following a post-pandemic decline in demand for COVID-19 vaccines. The move is in line with Moderna's strategy of resizing its manufacturing network to cut costs, even as it aims to spend around $4.5 billion this year in research and development of several new vaccines, including for cancer and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

(With inputs from agencies.)