Reuters Health News Summary

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. Novartis CEO lauds Trump administration plan to overhaul rebates

Novartis AG Chief Executive Vas Narasimhan said his company's prescription drug prices have been "flat to negative" over the last three years, and directed blame for high costs for U.S. patients on industry middlemen that manage drug benefits. In an interview with Reuters in New York on Wednesday Narasimhan, a 42-year-old U.S. doctor who has headed the Swiss drugmaker since Feb. 2018, threw his support behind a U.S. government proposal to end a system of rebates drugmakers pay to pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and health insurers in order to get products on their lists of covered medicines.. Eli Lilly backs U.S. proposal on drug rebates to lower costs

Eli Lilly and Co on Wednesday embraced a U.S. government proposal to end a decades-old system of rebates drugmakers make to industry middlemen, saying it could lower the cost of insulin and other prescription drugs for patients. Lilly, along with other major insulin makers, Sanofi SA and Novo Nordisk, has been under mounting pressure from patients and politicians over the rising cost of the life-sustaining diabetes treatment. China says tests of possibly tainted medical product show no HIV

China is investigating a manufacturer of medical products following reports that it sold human immunoglobulin for intravenous injection that had possibly been contaminated with HIV, though authorities said tests found no sign of the virus. China has repeatedly vowed tighter oversight and crackdowns on companies and officials after food and drug safety scandals sparked public outrage, such as one last month over expired polio vaccines and another last year over a rabies vaccine. Pennsylvania hospital patient tests negative for Ebola

An unidentified patient who was kept in isolation at a Philadelphia hospital while being tested for Ebola has been confirmed as not infected with the deadly virus, a hospital spokesman said on Wednesday. "Conclusive testing has confirmed that the patient under evaluation at the Hospital University of Pennsylvania is not infected with Ebola virus," Greg Richter, a senior communications officer for the medical center, said in a written statement. Pharmacy stocks run low as Turkey's drug price policy hits supplies

The shelf of heart disease drugs in Hulya Akpinar's Istanbul pharmacy is almost bare, and patients seeking medicine for blood pressure and diabetes leave empty-handed. For months Akpinar says she, and pharmacists across the city, have faced a shortage of critical stocks caused by a government decision to keep the prices it pays pharmaceutical firms for medicines artificially low. Return of French farmer's case keeps Monsanto in legal spotlight

A decade-old lawsuit in which a French farmer with neurological problems accuses Monsanto of not providing adequate safety warnings for a weedkiller returns to court on Wednesday, adding to health claims faced by the Bayer-owned firm. Paul Francois, who says he fell ill after inhaling vapor from weedkiller Lasso in 2004, won rulings in 2012 and 2015 that found Monsanto liable for the intoxication, before France's top court overturned those decisions and ordered a new hearing. On abortion, Trump agenda likely leads to Supreme Court, not Congress

President Donald Trump urged lawmakers in his State of the Union address to put new limits on abortion, but partisan division in the U.S. Congress means the Supreme Court likely will set the agenda on the divisive issue, as it has for decades. Bolstered by Trump's appointment of two conservative justices, the nine-member court could soon begin to pare back abortion rights, starting with a major case from Louisiana that is one of several similar pending appeals. Chronic pain most common reason U.S. patients get medical marijuana

Almost two-thirds of patients in the U.S. who get medical marijuana are using it as a treatment for chronic pain, a new study suggests. That's in line with the large number of Americans who suffer chronic pain and the strong scientific evidence that marijuana is an effective pain treatment, the authors report in Health Affairs. At least four pharma CEOs to testify at Senate drug pricing hearing

Drugmakers Pfizer Inc, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co and Sanofi SA said on Wednesday that their chief executives plan to testify at a Senate hearing on rising prescription drug prices later this month. They join Merck & Co CEO Ken Frazier, who said on Tuesday that he would testify at the Feb. 26 hearing. U.S. sues to block Philadelphia safe drug-injection site

The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday said it had filed a lawsuit seeking to stop a nonprofit in Philadelphia from opening what could become the nation's first supervised drug-injection site in an effort aimed at addressing opioid abuse. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Philadelphia, follows warnings by the Justice Department under Republican President Donald Trump that cities which seek to open so-called safe injection sites could face legal action.

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