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OCD Medications: How Antidepressants and Antipsychotics Can Help
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are the first‑line pharmacologic treatment for obsessive‑compulsive disorder, helping roughly 70% of patients achieve a 40‑60% reduction in symptoms. FDA‑approved SSRIs such as fluvoxamine, paroxetine, fluoxetine and sertraline are dosed higher than for depression, and clomipramine is added when SSRIs fail. If adequate improvement isn’t seen after 10‑12 weeks, clinicians often augment therapy with low‑dose atypical antipsychotics like aripiprazole or risperidone. Antipsychotic augmentation can boost response rates but requires careful monitoring for metabolic and movement‑related side effects.
Q&A: Emerging Fungal STI Can Mimic More Common Infections
Minnesota reported the largest U.S. outbreak of Trichophyton mentagrophytes genotype VII (TMVII), a sexually transmitted fungal infection that appears as round, red rashes and can be mistaken for eczema, psoriasis or bacterial skin conditions. More than 30 cases have been confirmed,...
E.P.A. Moves to Weaken Limits on Ethylene Oxide
The Environmental Protection Agency proposed a rule to weaken limits on ethylene oxide emissions from medical device sterilization plants. The change would affect roughly 90 facilities and eliminate the requirement for continuous emissions monitoring. About 2.3 million people, many in low‑income...
Future Leader: Augie Luptak, Vice President of Strategy & Operations, St. Croix Hospice
Augie Luptak, Vice President of Strategy & Operations at St. Croix Hospice, has been honored as a 2025 Future Leader by Hospice News. The award recognizes high‑performing professionals under 40 who demonstrate vision, advocacy for seniors, and operational excellence. In...
CommonSpirit Health's New Virtual Nursing Model Shows ROI
CommonSpirit Health launched a Virtually Integrated Care (VIC) nursing model that embeds remote nurses into bedside teams across its 158 hospitals. The program, built on proprietary telehealth software, has been deployed on 1,075 beds and aims to reach 3,000 by...
Search List of Extended Use Dates to Assist with Drug Shortages
The FDA has released a searchable table of extended use dates for specific drug lot numbers, based on manufacturer‑provided stability data. These extensions allow providers and patients to continue using existing stock beyond original expiration dates, helping to mitigate ongoing...
CRT 2026: Key Takeaways for Interventional Cardiologists
The Cardiovascular Research Technologies (CRT) 2026 meeting showcased a suite of late‑breaking interventional cardiology studies, ranging from long‑term TAVR versus SAVR outcomes to novel radiation‑shielding devices. A seven‑year PARTNER 3 substudy found comparable health‑status results for low‑risk patients after TAVR and...
Money Raised by Biopharma
Researchers at INSERM uncovered hypothalamic tanycytes as a previously unknown tau‑clearing pathway, opening fresh therapeutic avenues for Alzheimer’s and related tauopathies. Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) announced the synthesis and pre‑clinical testing of novel PET tracers that bind α‑synuclein, aiming...
ODs Can Bridge Cultures Among Patients with Empathy, Trust
At Vision Expo, optometry leaders highlighted how empathy and cultural competence can close the trust gap for Hispanic, Latino, and African‑American patients with chronic eye diseases. Panelists urged clinicians to acknowledge patients' fears, involve family members, and leverage multilingual tools...
Planned Parenthood Now Offers Botox—What That Means Exactly
Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, the largest affiliate in California and Nevada, announced it will now offer Botox injections and IV hydration packages alongside its traditional reproductive health services. The move is a direct response to severe budget shortfalls caused by the...
Shilpa Biologicals, mAbTree Program Targets Immune Pathway in Rare Blood Cancers
Shilpa Biologicals and mAbTree Biologics received FDA orphan drug designation for an investigational monoclonal antibody that targets an immune‑evasion pathway in essential thrombocythemia and polycythemia vera. The designation validates the novel mechanism and accelerates plans for IND‑enabling studies and first‑in‑human...
FDA Drug Safety Podcasts
The FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research has expanded its Drug Safety Podcast series, delivering concise audio briefings that coincide with official Drug Safety Communications. Recent episodes address serious liver injury linked to Ocaliva, rare hypocalcemia risks with Prolia,...
March 13 Policy Watch: FDA Streamlines Its Process for Approving Biosimilar Drugs
The FDA released draft guidance that lets biosimilar developers use foreign comparator data and, in some cases, replace clinical studies with chemical analysis, potentially cutting development costs by $20 million. Simultaneously, the agency launched the Adverse Event Monitoring System (AEMS), a...
Bacteria 4D Simulation, Safer Large Gene Insertion, uniQure Roller Coaster
The J. Craig Venter Institute unveiled a 4D, nanoscale simulation that tracks the entire life cycle of a minimal bacterial cell, marking a milestone for synthetic biology. A new gene‑editing platform designs DNA donors that dodge immune detection, enabling safer,...
BlackDoctor Pro Adds Cultural Fluency for Health Care Providers
BlackDoctor, a Black‑owned health media brand, has launched BlackDoctor Pro, a dual‑platform clinical delivery model that equips providers with culturally fluent data and AI tools. The rollout adds a network of more than 20,000 practitioners, a proprietary AI assistant called WellBot,...
Serotonin Centers Unveils Medical Longevity Model for Fitness Industry
Serotonin Centers announced the Serotonin Partner Program, a medical longevity model for U.S. fitness facilities. The turnkey platform lets gyms add medically supervised services—weight loss, hormone optimization, peptide and NAD+ therapies, IV metabolic support—within dedicated longevity suites. Serotonin funds, staffs,...
Insulet Reports 18 Serious Adverse Events with Recall of Omnipod 5 Insulin Pumps
Insulet announced a recall of select Omnipod 5 insulin patch pumps after discovering a small tear in the internal tubing that can cause insulin to leak inside the pod. The defect has been linked to 18 serious adverse events, including hospitalizations...
China Just Approved Its First Brain Implant for Commercial Use, a World First
China’s National Medical Products Administration has granted the first commercial approval for an invasive brain‑computer interface, developed by Shanghai‑based Neuracle Medical Technology. The coin‑sized, wireless implant sits on the brain’s surface and enables users with partial spinal‑cord injuries to operate...
Early Prenatal Care Decreased From 2021 to 2024
CDC data show early prenatal care (first trimester) fell from 78.3% in 2021 to 75.5% in 2024, a 4% drop, while second‑trimester initiation rose 12% and late or no care increased 16% to 7.3%. The shift occurred across age groups...
Why We Need Black Bioethics
A Harvard‑Tuskegee panel called for a distinct Black bioethics to confront persistent health inequities, citing the legacy of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and the COVID‑19 mortality gap. Panelists highlighted that the Belmont Report’s safeguards have not eliminated racial disparities, with...
Federal Drug Price Reforms Are Working, Study Says
A new JAMA Internal Medicine study finds that the Inflation Reduction Act’s 2024 drug‑pricing provisions have reduced cost‑related medication nonadherence among Medicare beneficiaries. Compared with privately insured peers, seniors saw a 4.9‑percentage‑point drop overall and a 7.8‑point decline among those...
Gubra Plots Roivant-Like Model as Partnered Obesity Drugs Take Flight
Gubra, a 300‑employee Danish biotech known for its obesity drug partnerships, announced plans to adopt a Roivant‑style incubation model. The strategy will spin out a series of focused biotech companies, each targeting niche therapeutic areas beyond obesity, such as metabolic...
Can A Single Shot Save Your Heart?
Researchers have developed a self‑amplifying RNA injection that directs skeletal muscle to produce the heart‑healing peptide Nppa, dramatically reducing scar formation in pig models of myocardial infarction. The lipid‑nanoparticle‑delivered RNA sustains protein expression for at least four weeks, far outlasting...
Re: Scarlett McNally: Bone Cement—Relying on Fewer Suppliers May Be Unstable, but Standardisation Is Beneficial Overall
The National Joint Registry (NJR) issued a formal response to a BMJ article that incorrectly claimed the new Zimmer Biomet bone cement had been evaluated using NJR data. The NJR clarified that the cement has not yet been used in the...
Global Diagnostic Imaging Equipment Market Predicted to Reach $82 Billion by 2034
DelveInsight’s new report projects the global diagnostic imaging equipment market to expand from $51.5 billion in 2025 to $82.2 billion by 2034, implying a roughly 5% compound annual growth rate. MRI systems emerge as the largest product segment, while North America retains...
Novel Strategies Can Enable Fair Access to Heart Transplantation
The 2018 heart‑allocation reform removed rigid donor service areas, shifting the primary barrier to transplantation from geography to a center’s ability to deploy modern donor‑utilization tools. Advanced preservation technologies and donation‑after‑circulatory‑death (DCD) protocols have expanded the donor pool, but adoption...
High Altitude Survival Gene Mutation Points to Strategy for Repairing Nerve Damage
Researchers identified a high‑altitude Retsat Q247R mutation that enhances myelin formation under hypoxic stress and accelerates remyelination in mouse models. The variant boosts neuronal production of the vitamin‑A‑derived metabolite ATDR, which activates the RXR‑γ pathway in oligodendrocyte progenitors. Administering ATDR...
Immutep's LAG-3 Drug Fails Phase 3 Lung Cancer Study
Immutep’s LAG‑3 fusion protein eftilagimod‑alpha failed to improve overall survival in a Phase 3 randomized study in non‑small cell lung cancer. The trial, enrolling roughly 600 patients, did not meet its primary endpoint and showed no statistically significant benefit versus standard...
Leveraging Analytics to Improve Mental Health Outcomes
Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Services implemented a near‑real‑time analytics platform to anticipate and manage behavioral health issues. The system leverages AI‑driven predictive models that analyze patient data streams, flagging risk factors before crises occur. This proactive approach cut...
Washington Senate Votes to Send Medical Treatment Bill to Governor
The Washington Senate voted 30-19 to approve amendments to S.B. 5847, sending the bill to Governor Bob Ferguson. The legislation lets network providers deviate from Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) coverage decisions and national treatment guidelines when medically appropriate....
Military Hospitals, Clinics Resume Billing Civilians Following 3-Year Pause
The Defense Health Agency will resume billing civilians for care at military treatment facilities after a three‑year pause, affecting an estimated 137,000 non‑beneficiary patients who received emergency or trauma services since June 21 2023. A new Military Health System Modified Payment and...
Ultragenyx’s Gene Therapy Hits Key Endpoint in Phase 3 Trial for Blood Ammonia Disease
Ultragenyx announced that its investigational gene therapy for ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC) deficiency met a primary endpoint in a Phase 3 trial involving 37 patients. The study demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in blood ammonia levels, the key marker of disease...
Doctors at Irish Hospital Accidentally Operated on Patient’s Wrong Testicle During Surgery
Doctors at three Irish acute hospitals performed four wrong‑site surgeries in the past two years, including an operation on the wrong testicle. The incidents involved a testicle, a leg, oral structures and another genital organ, prompting criticism from patient advocates....
How Colorectal Cancer Treatment Is Evolving in 2026
Colorectal cancer remains a major global health burden, with over 1.9 million new cases and 900,000 deaths in 2022, placing it high on biotech priorities. Treatment has shifted from surgery‑centric approaches to a blend of refined chemotherapy backbones and biomarker‑driven targeted...
Clinical Decision Support an Advancing Frontier for Palliative AI
Artificial intelligence is moving beyond paperwork in palliative care to assist clinical decision making. A 2025 market survey shows 53% of providers use AI for documentation, while 19% employ predictive alerts. PalliCare’s integration of athenaOne’s Patient Summary feature aggregates ambient...
From Idea to First Case, without the Chaos
Ambulatory surgery center (ASC) projects typically span 18‑24 months and succeed when early decisions are anchored to a clear purpose. Medline’s eight‑phase, “why‑first” framework ties feasibility, design, licensure, staffing and technology to concrete workflow outcomes before the first case. A...
Leveraging AI, Automation, and Data Analytics in a Hospice Setting
Chapters Health System, the nation’s largest nonprofit hospice network, is deploying AI, automation, and data analytics to overhaul its revenue cycle management. An AI-driven chart review tool now scans clinical documentation in real time, automatically routing missing signatures or data...
How Hospices Can Better Serve Cardiac Patients
Hospice utilization for cardiovascular disease patients remains low, with cardiac cases representing just 12.7% of hospice admissions in 2024. Dr. Heather Veeder of VITAS Healthcare cites prognostic uncertainty and delayed goals‑of‑care conversations as primary reasons patients enter hospice later than...
What the BrightSpring-Setiva Deal Means for Large Health Care Transactions
BrightSpring Health Services agreed to sell its ResCare Community Living unit to Sevita for $835 million in cash, but the Federal Trade Commission initially blocked the transaction on antitrust grounds. The FTC later cleared the deal after BrightSpring and Sevita consented...
The Aging Crisis Is Here, and Technology Is No Longer Optional
By 2034, roughly one‑fifth of Americans will be over 65, creating the first senior‑majority population and an old‑age dependency ratio above 0.35. The surge strains healthcare staffing, with projected physician shortages exceeding 90,000, and inflates caregiver demand beyond the 50 million...
Re: Health Related Economic Inactivity in Young People in the UK
A letter to the BMJ highlights how a decade of austerity has eroded the UK health service and community support, leaving young people disproportionately affected by COVID‑driven educational disruption and isolation. The author argues that the government’s label of "economically...
Mich. City Adds Fourth Ambulance, Fire Engine as City EMS System Expands
Flint, Michigan, has expanded its emergency services by adding a fourth ambulance and a $1.2 million fire engine to the city’s Fire Department fleet. The ambulance service, launched in 2024, has already completed more than 900 runs this year, and the...
FDA Town Hall: FDA’s Quality Management System Regulation (QMSR) – Medical Device Risk-Based Inspections
The FDA announced a town hall to discuss its updated Quality Management System Regulation (QMSR) that will govern medical device inspections beginning February 2, 2026. The new inspection framework replaces the long‑standing Quality System Inspection Technique (QSIT) and supersedes older...
Rare Disease Sales To Soar to $400B+ By 2032 as Small Molecules Resurgent: Evaluate
Orphan‑drug sales are projected to exceed $400 billion by 2032, more than double the 2025 level. Small‑molecule therapies dominate the pipeline, accounting for 45% of the 20 most valuable orphan candidates, signaling a resurgence after years of biologic focus. The Inflation...
Parkinson’s Research Reaches “Pivotal” Stage, but Barriers Remain
Parkinson’s research has entered a pivotal phase, driven by deeper disease insights and advanced models such as patient‑derived iPSCs. Despite a pipeline of potential disease‑modifying therapies, funding shortfalls and outdated trial endpoints continue to impede progress. Parkinson’s UK’s Virtual Biotech...
This Week in European MedTech and HealthTech: 13th March 2026
The European Commission is pushing a 2026 Health Package that revises the MDR/IVDR framework, introducing risk‑based certification, digital‑only declarations of conformity and tighter cybersecurity reporting. Parallel work on the AI Act will align high‑risk medical AI with the MDR/IVDR pathway,...
FDA Issues Final Guidance on Medical Devices with Indications Associated with Weight Loss
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued final guidance titled “Medical Devices with Indications Associated with Weight Loss – Premarket Considerations.” The document outlines recommended non‑clinical testing and clinical study designs for devices aimed at weight loss, obesity treatment, or...
Trump Policies Set to Increase Rates of Lung Disease and Death, Study Finds
A new study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine finds that policies enacted during Donald Trump's second term are poised to dramatically increase lung disease incidence and premature deaths in the United States. The analysis...
The 510(k) Pathway in 2026: Navigating a Shifting Regulatory and Political Landscape for Medical Devices
The 510(k) premarket notification pathway continues to dominate U.S. medical device approvals, but recent data show escalating safety failures and a persistent “predicate creep” problem. In Q1 2026 the FDA introduced electronic eSTAR submissions and issued draft guidance on predicate selection,...
Immutep Investors Spooked by LAG-3 Failure in Lung Cancer
Australian biotech Immutep saw its ASX shares tumble more than 88% after the independent data monitoring committee recommended halting its pivotal phase‑3 TACTI‑004 trial of the LAG‑3 inhibitor eftilagimod alfa (efti) in first‑line non‑small cell lung cancer. The trial, which...