GeneDx CEO wants genetic testing for every newborn

GeneDx has a big market in mind for its genetic testing: every newborn baby. The 24-year-old-company wants to make the testing common at birth. The goal: Identify potential diseases or conditions so doctors can begin treating them before symptoms appear in some cases. GeneDx specializes in whole genome sequencing. That involves looking at about 20,000 […]

Continue Reading

Diabetes and obesity drugs fuel Eli Lilly profit in the final quarter of 2024

Eli Lilly’s profit doubled in the fourth quarter, propelled by its hot-selling diabetes and obesity treatments, and the drugmaker came out with a mostly better-than-expected 2025 forecast. Sales of Lilly’s top-selling product, the diabetes treatment Mounjaro, jumped 60% to $3.53 billion in the final quarter of 2024 while its obesity treatment counterpart Zepbound brought in […]

Continue Reading

Merck 2025 sales forecast underwhelms as it pauses Gardasil sales in China

Shares of Merck slid Tuesday after the drugmaker surprised Wall Street with a lower-than-expected 2025 sales forecast due partly to a pause in shipments of one of its top-selling products to China. The drugmaker plans to temporarily pause shipments of its Gardasil vaccine to China at least through the middle of the year. Chairman and […]

Continue Reading

Walgreens suspends dividend, breaking 90-plus year streak of shareholder payouts

Shares of Walgreens dove early Friday, a day after the drugstore chain said it was suspending its dividend, breaking a streak of quarterly shareholder payouts that stretches back more than 90 years. The drugstore chain said Thursday after markets closed that it made the move to strengthen its balance sheet and improve free cash flow […]

Continue Reading

UnitedHealth books better-than-expected fourth-quarter profit

UnitedHealth posted a better-than-expected profit in the final quarter of 2024, but revenue fell short as challenges like Medicare funding cuts and a Medicaid enrollment drop hurt. Shares of the health care giant slid early Thursday after it released its first financial report since the brazen shooting of one of its executives outside a New […]

Continue Reading

J&J buys Intra-Cellular in $14.6B deal, delving into central nervous system disorders

Johnson & Johnson will spend more than $14 billion to delve further into the treatment of central nervous system disorders by purchasing Intra-Cellular Therapies. The health care giant said Monday that it will pay $132 in cash for each share of Intra-Cellular. That represents a 39% premium to Intra-Cellular’s closing price of $94.87 on Friday. […]

Continue Reading

Walgreens tops Wall Street’s expectations as drugstore chain continues turnaround plan

Walgreens booked a better-than-expected fiscal first quarter, but the drugstore chain lost $265 million as it closed U.S. stores and continued work to revive its business. The company, beset by shrinking prescription reimbursement, rising costs and other problems, had announced in announced in October a plan to close around 1,200 locations. Walgreens said Friday that […]

Continue Reading

Words on ammo in CEO shooting echo common phrase on insurer tactics: Delay, deny, defend

A message left at the scene of an insurance executive’s fatal shooting — “deny,” “defend” and “depose” — echoes a phrase commonly used to describe insurer tactics to avoid paying claims. The three words were emblazoned on the ammunition a masked gunman used to kill UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a law enforcement official told The […]

Continue Reading

Words on ammo in CEO shooting echo common phrase on insurer tactics: Delay, deny, defend

A message left at the scene of an insurance executive’s fatal shooting — “deny,” “defend” and “depose” — echoes a phrase commonly used to describe insurer tactics to avoid paying claims. The three words were emblazoned on the ammunition a masked gunman used to kill UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a law enforcement official told The […]

Continue Reading

Nearly 30% of US drugstores closed in one decade, study shows

Nearly three out of 10 U.S. drugstores that were open during the previous decade had closed by 2021, new research shows. Black and Latino neighborhoods were most vulnerable to the retail pharmacy closures, which can chip away at already-limited care options in those communities, researchers said in a study published Tuesday in Health Affairs. The […]

Continue Reading