Health News Roundup: BeiGene cancer drug fails in study against AbbVie: J&J's Imbruvica

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. BeiGene cancer drug fails in study against AbbVie: J&J's Imbruvica

BeiGene Ltd said on Monday a late-stage trial failed to show that its cancer treatment Brukinsa was superior to Imbruvica, a rival drug from Johnson & Johnson and AbbVie Inc. The results come merely a month after BeiGene scored a win with Brukinsa's approval to treat patients with mantle cell lymphoma, who have received at least one prior therapy. U.S.-listed shares of BeiGene fell 5.2% to $166.9 in early trading on Monday. U.S. government extends the deadline to sign up for Obamacare insurance plans

The U.S. government said on Monday the deadline for signing-up for 2020 insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been extended by three days to Dec. 18 to accommodate those who experienced issues while attempting to enroll. There were website glitches and call center delays reported on Sunday, the earlier deadline for the 2020 open enrollment, and the extension should help the final enrollment tally, said Evercore ISI analyst Michael Newshel. Bayer asks U.S. appeals court to reverse $25 million Roundup verdict

Bayer AG on Monday said it has asked a U.S. federal appeals court to throw out a $25 million judgment it was ordered to pay to a California man who blamed the company's Roundup weed killer for his cancer. In a filing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit dated Friday, Bayer said the verdict defied regulatory findings and sound science, adding that the "speculative case" should never have made it before a jury. Dengue fever finds a breeding ground in war-weary Yemen

Ibrahim Ali al-Jadari's four teenage daughters lie at home on intravenous drips that will soon run out as they, like tens of thousands of other Yemenis, battle a seasonal surge of dengue fever. Mosquito-borne dengue is the latest challenge facing Yemenis who have endured almost five years of a conflict that has killed thousands, pushed millions to the brink of famine and caused major cholera outbreaks. Declining numbers of Americans have a primary care provider

In a little over a decade, the number of patients in the U.S. with primary care providers dropped by 2%, a new study finds. Between 2002 and 2015, fewer and fewer Americans of all ages, except for those in their 80s, had a primary care provider, researchers report in JAMA Internal Medicine. UK court to decide if negligent hospital must pay for surrogate pregnancies in U.S.

The case of a woman who wants the London hospital responsible for her infertility to pay for four surrogate pregnancies in the United States reached Britain's Supreme Court on Monday. The Whittington Hospital has admitted negligence after failing for four years to detect signs of cervical cancer in the woman, who has not been named for legal reasons. Novartis drops asthma drug fevipiprant after trial failures

Swiss drugmaker Novartis on Monday said it is jettisoning what it had hoped would be a billion-dollar-selling asthma drug, fevipiprant, from its development program after the medicine failed another set of key trials. The drug's star fell in October when the Basel-based company announced it had failed a pair of trials in moderate asthmatic patients. New autism guidelines focus on early diagnosis, treatment

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) on Monday issued its first new autism treatment guidelines in 12 years aimed at helping doctors identify at-risk children and getting them the care they need as early as possible. Since developmental delays are often present in very young children with autism, the report, published in the journal Pediatrics, urges doctors to check for issues during all well-baby visits and refer children for treatment at the first sign of an issue, rather than wait for a formal autism evaluation. Gilead's NASH combination treatment fails mid-stage study

Gilead Sciences Inc said on Monday all combinations of its three drugs to treat NASH were unsuccessful in a mid-stage study, the latest failure in a string of trials seeking to develop the first approved treatment for the fatty liver disease. NASH, or non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, is a fatty liver disease related to obesity that affects about 5% of the global population and is poised to become the leading cause of liver transplants. Malaysia to work with UNICEF on polio vaccination in Sabah state

Malaysia's health authorities on Sunday said they are working with UNICEF to bring polio vaccines to the state of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo, where the country's first polio case in nearly three decades was detected last week. A three-month-old infant was diagnosed with polio on Dec. 6 after being admitted to hospital with a fever and muscle weakness, the first such case since 1992.