Would your patients and practice benefit from an on-site pharmacist? Jessica Farrell, PharmD, says a pharmacist enhances patient education and frees up a rheumatologist’s time, enabling them to see more patients and provide better all-around care…

Would your patients and practice benefit from an on-site pharmacist? Jessica Farrell, PharmD, says a pharmacist enhances patient education and frees up a rheumatologist’s time, enabling them to see more patients and provide better all-around care…
Caroline Humer |
NEW YORK (Reuters)—Anthem Inc on Wednesday said its plans for selling 2018 Obamacare individual plans are still up in the air because of political and regulatory uncertainty, making it the latest health insurer to say questions about continued funding of government subsidies will affect consumers next year. Anthem, the biggest provider of individual health plans,…
Marilynn Larkin |
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Adding prednisone to methotrexate for early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) results in a lower initiation rate of a biologic, better radiographic outcomes and no steroid-related side effects, researchers in the Netherlands say. Although biological disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) have led to better control of RA and improved functioning and quality of life, they…
Ben Hirschler |
LONDON (Reuters)—Britain’s competition watchdog has accused Merck & Co of operating an unfair discount scheme for its medicine Remicade (infliximab) that it said was designed to restrict competition from so-called biosimilar copies. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) says it had provisionally found the U.S. company’s European unit, Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD), had abused…
Bill Berkrot & Ben Hirschler |
(Reuters)—Amgen Inc. and UCB SA no longer expect their experimental osteoporosis drug to win U.S. approval this year after a higher rate of serious heart-related side effects were observed in a late-stage clinical trial. The drug, romosozumab, which would be sold under the brand name Evenity if approved, is awaiting an approval decision by the…
Lisa Rapaport |
(Reuters Health)—Academic medical centers, increasingly spurned by insurers for being more expensive than community hospitals, appear to have lower death rates for older adults than other facilities, a U.S. study suggests. Researchers reviewed millions of records for patients aged 65 and older and insured by Medicare, the U.S. health program for the elderly. They found…
Reuters Staff |
WASHINGTON (Reuters)—U.S. President Donald Trump’s budget proposal, set to be unveiled on Tuesday, will include cuts to Medicaid and propose changes to other assistance programs for low-income citizens, The Washington Post reported on Sunday. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A Republican healthcare bill that passed the U.S. House…
Lawrence Hurley & Yasmeen Abutaleb |
WASHINGTON (Reuters)—The Trump administration and U.S. House of Representatives Republicans on Monday asked a federal court for more time to decide how to proceed on the cost-sharing subsidies paid to health insurers that play a vital role in the Obamacare healthcare law. In a joint filing submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the…
The FDA has approved infliximab-abda, a biosimilar for treating multiple rheumatic diseases, as well as abaloparatide for treating postmenopausal women with osteoporosis…
In a recent study, researchers examined the osteoclastogenic role of the histamine 4 receptor (H4R), measuring the peripheral blood and synovial fluid monocytes in patients with RA. Results showed that multiple cytokines stimulated H4R expression, suggesting the blockage of H4R may be a useful drug target to decrease the joint damage associated with RA…