Reuters Health News Summary

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. Almost half of U.S. heart disease patients struggle with medical bills

Roughly 45 percent of Americans under 65 who have cardiovascular disease experience financial hardships from medical bills, a U.S. study suggests. And, almost one in five of them can't afford to pay their medical bills at all. Kindergarten teachers' assessments may be linked with pupils' earnings as adults

Boys whose teachers find them antisocial in kindergarten may have lower income as adults than their classmates who don't have behavior problems, a Canadian study suggests. Misbehaving in school has long been linked to lower levels of academic achievement and income in adulthood, researchers note in JAMA Pediatrics. But the current study offers a unique snapshot of this connection by examining behavior assessments done by kindergarten teachers and then looking at students' earning on tax returns three decades later. Gilead misses key goal in NASH liver disease trial, shares sink

Gilead Sciences Inc said on Monday that a late-stage study of a key experimental drug aimed at treating NASH, a progressive fatty liver disease, failed to meet its main goal, sending the company's shares down 4.6 percent in after-hours trading. The study compared the drug, called selonsertib, with a placebo treatment in a trial of nearly 900 patients with compensated cirrhosis, an advanced form of Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis, or NASH. Indivior loses U.S. district court battle, copycat launches imminent

Generic competitors to British drugmaker Indivior Plc's blockbuster opioid addiction treatment are on course to launch sales next week after the firm's attempt to stay a U.S. District court judgement was rejected. The company said on Tuesday it would file a repeat motion to the Supreme Court, after having said last week that it faces rapid losses in market share "in the immediate future" to generic versions of Suboxone. One in six U.S. kids have mental health disorders

Roughly in six U.S. kids have at least one mental health disorder, and only about half of them receive treatment from a mental health professional, a new study suggests. Nationwide, an estimated 7.7 million children ages 6 to 17 have at least one mental health disorder, or about 16.5 percent of school age kids, the study found. The prevalence of childhood mental health problems ranged from a low of 7.6 percent in Hawaii to a high of 27.2 percent in Maine. Catalyst Pharma sees net price of drug, once free, topping $300,000

Catalyst Pharmaceuticals Inc said on Monday that it expects its drug for a rare disease, which had long been available to patients for free, will cost more than $300,000 per year including rebates to insurers and other discounts. The drug, Firdapse, is used to treat Lambert-Eaton Myasthenic Syndrome (LEMS), a rare neuromuscular disorder. Sanofi and Regeneron cut list price of cholesterol drug by 60 percent

Sanofi SA and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc said on Monday that they will slash the U.S. list price of their potent but expensive cholesterol fighter Praluent by 60 percent, as the drugmakers follow a similar move by rival Amgen Inc in hopes of increasing use of the drug. The new list price for Praluent will be $5,850 a year, matching the price Amgen set when it lowered the list of its competing drug, Repatha, in October. FDA rebukes 17 firms for selling fake Alzheimer's drugs

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned more than a dozen companies against selling unapproved products which claim to treat Alzheimer's disease and other serious ailments, the agency said on Monday. Many of these drugs, marketed as dietary supplements and sold online, have not been reviewed by the FDA and their safety and efficacy remain unproven, the agency said in a statement. Merck, Pfizer combo treatment boosts kidney cancer survival

Drugmaker Merck & Co Inc said on Monday that the combination of its cancer immunotherapy Keytruda with Pfizer Inc's Inlyta cut the risk of death nearly in half for patients with the most common form of kidney cancer when compared with treatment with chemotherapy drug Sutent. Merck said the treatments when used as the initial treatment for advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) reduced the risk of death by about 47 percent in its late-stage trial. Dementia patient over-medicated and bruised when he died, widow tells Australian aged care inquiry

An elderly man suffering Parkinson's Disease and dementia was given 10 times his medication and had unexplained bruising when he died at an Australian aged care facility, his widow told an inquiry into the A$20 billion ($14 billion) aged care sector. A Royal Commission inquiry into Australia's aged care industry began hearings on Monday, after a slew of reports of dementia patients being bound in restraints, assaults on patients, overdosing, predatory pricing and poor care.