Hospitals have been required to post prices for all their services. In theory, the Trump administration rule is meant to increase transparency and competition, but critics say the prices would be difficult for the average person to decipher. (New York Times)
A judge has halted the Trump administration’s changes to the ACA’s contraceptive mandate. The White House weakened the mandate by allowing more employers to get exemptions from the rule that requires they provide coverage for contraceptives. The new rules were to take effect on Tuesday. The injunction only applies to the 13 states, plus the District of Columbia, that brought the lawsuit. (CNN)
The IFPMA has released rules banning gifts to doctors. The guidelines were stricter than anticipated and apply wherever member companies operate, without exceptions, for different cultures of gift-giving. Many big pharma companies, including Novartis, AstraZeneca, Roche, Astellas, Pfizer, and Takeda, adopted a ban on gift-giving last year. (Pharmaphorum)
Americans are more likely to die from opioids than car crashes. For the first time, the number of deaths from vehicle crashes have been surpassed by opioid overdoses, according to a report from the National Safety Council. Americans have a one-in-96 chance of dying from an opioid overdose, while the probability of dying in a motor vehicle crash is one in 103. (NPR)
AstraZeneca chief medical officer Sean Bohen is leaving the company. Bohen is exiting AstraZeneca after it announced a restructuring of its R&D unit. He is the latest in a string of high-level departures that included Bahija Jallal, former head of the Medimmune unit, and ex-product and portfolio strategy chief Mark Mallon. (Bloomberg)
