Major drug buyers getting steep price cuts
WASHINGTON, -- U.S. drug makers are finding stiffer com-
petition as major healthcare providers demand steeper
price cuts for going with a particular brand. The Wall
Street Journal says the U.S. Department of Veterans
Affairs, which provides healthcare to some 5 million
veterans, decided to go with Levitra instead of Viagra
because it has to pay only $2.58 for a Levitra pill
against about $4.90 for Viagara. The Journal reports
competition on prices paid by the biggest customers is
now rising in some categories such as pills for
impotence and osteoporosis. The new Medicare drug pre-
scription plan is seen as one of the reasons why bulk
buyers are demanding steeper price cuts. In addition
to the price cut demand from larger buyers, the situa-
tion is further complicated by a slowdown in new medi-
cines and a number of old big sellers going generic,
the report says. But consumers haven't seen the benefit
largely because the trend has not affected either co-
payments or the price for uninsured buyers.
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Scientists find a new way to build bone
BOSTON, -- Harvard School of Public Health scientists say
they've found eliminating a protein in mice led to bone
mass increases throughout their skeletal system. And that,
say the researchers, may have implications for the treat-
ment of osteoporosis -- a disease characterized by a
decrease in bone mass and density and which makes people
more susceptible to bone fractures and deformities. The
Harvard scientists found eliminating the Schnurri-3, or
Shn3 protein in mice resulted in the bone mass increases.
Osteoporosis afflicts some 10 million Americans over the
age of 50 and can have serious health consequences. One-
fifth of patients with osteoporosis who fracture their
hips will die within a year and, as the baby boomer
generation ages, it's predicted the number of hip frac-
tures may triple by 2020. The study was previously pub-
lished in the journal Science.
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Parkinson's symptoms reversed in study
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., -- U.S. scientists say they have iden-
tified a key biological pathway that, when obstructed,
causes Parkinson's disease symptoms. The researchers at
the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in
Cambridge, Mass., working in collaboration with col-
leagues at several research centers including the
University of Missouri, say they also figured out how
to repair that pathway and restore normal neurological
function in certain animal models. "For the first time
we've been able to repair dopaminergic neurons, the
specific cells that are damaged in Parkinson's disease,"
said Whitehead scientist Susan Lindquist, also a Howard
Hughes Medical Institute investigator. More than 1 mil-
lion U.S. citizens suffer from Parkinson's disease and
that number that is expected to soar during the next
few decades as the population ages. No current therapies
alter the fundamental clinical course of the condition.
Lindquist was senior author of the study that appears
in the journal Science.
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