Reuters - Health Report

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Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Bayer gets FDA priority review for blood cancer drug

FRANKFURT, Germany (Reuters) - German drugmaker Bayer won the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's priority review status for an experimental drug for a difficult to treat type of blood cancer, bolstering its development pipeline.

FDA warns of foot, leg amputations with J&J diabetes drug

(Reuters) - Johnson & Johnson is required to add new warnings to its diabetes drug, Invokana, about the risk of foot and leg amputations, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday.

Most U.S. troops kicked out for misconduct had mental illness: study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A majority of U.S. troops discharged from the military for misconduct during a four-year period ending in 2015 had been diagnosed with mental health conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury, a new study found.

U.S., Mexico bolster efforts to combat deadly tide of fentanyl

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The United States and Mexico pledged to step up efforts to beat the growing threat of fentanyl, a synthetic opiate up to 50 times more lethal than heroin blamed for the deaths of thousands of people in recent years, including rock star Prince.

Spread of combat, cholera wreaks misery, collapse in Yemen

DUBAI/CAIRO (Reuters) - Spilling into the hallways of crowded Yemeni hospitals, children writhe in pain from cholera. Displaced villagers roam baking hot plains and barren mountains to evade warring militias.

U.S. sues UnitedHealth again for mischarging Medicare Advantage

(Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department for the second time in a month sued UnitedHealth Group Inc on Tuesday, accusing the nation's largest health insurer of obtaining over $1 billion from Medicare to which it was not entitled.

Merck, Upsher-Smith to pay $60 million in 'pay-for-delay' drug case

(Reuters) - Merck & Co Inc and Upsher-Smith Laboratories Inc have agreed to pay $60.2 million to resolve a lawsuit that said they entered into a deal to unlawfully delay the availability of generic versions of potassium supplement K-Dur.

ResMed withdraws U.S. trade complaint against Fisher & Paykel Healthcare

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Health appliance firm ResMed Inc has dropped a complaint against New Zealand's Fisher & Paykel Healthcare at the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC), Fisher & Paykel said on Wednesday.

U.S. heart disease deaths drop but wide variation by county remains

(Reuters Health) - Deaths from cardiovascular disease have dropped by half in the U.S. over the past generation, but in some regions the risk of dying from some common heart ailments is twice what it is in other places, a study finds.

CVS's Omnicare to pay $8 million to settle U.S. probe

(Reuters) - CVS Health Corp's Omnicare unit has agreed to pay $8 million to resolve claims that its prescription verification system resulted in false claims being submitted to government healthcare programs.