STAT+: Pharmalittle: We're reading about an Express Scripts lawsuit against FTC, AMR deaths, and more

Top of the morning to you, and a fine one it is, despite the gray skies hovering over the Pharmalot campus. We are doing our best to maintain sunny spirits, though, because once again, we recall some helpful wisdom from the Morning Mayor, who taught us that “every new day should be unwrapped like a precious gift.” To celebrate the notion, we are brewing still more cups of stimulation and inviting you to join us. Our choice today is orange cream, for those tracking our habits. Meanwhile, here are a few items of interest. Hope you have a meaningful and productive day and, of course, do stay in touch. …

Express Scripts, which is one of the largest pharmacy benefit managers in the U.S., filed a lawsuit demanding that a recent Federal Trade Commission report accusing the industry middlemen of raising drug prices should be vacated, STAT tells us. In scathing language, the company argued the report was “seventy-four pages of unsupported innuendo leveled … under a false and defamatory headline.” The lawsuit also alleged the FTC “followed prejudice and politics, not evidence or sound economics, and wrongly concluded that PBMs inflate drug costs and harm independent pharmacies.” FTC Chair Lina Khan was also accused of “anti-PBM bias.”

Antimicrobial-resistant bacterial infections directly caused more than 1 million deaths worldwide annually from 1990 to 2021, and that number is projected to increase by almost 70% over the next 25 years, MedPage Today writes, citing an analysis in The Lancet. In 2021, 1.14 million deaths that were attributable to bacterial antimicrobial resistance occurred across the globe, slightly higher than the 1.06 million AMR-attributable deaths in 1990. Bacterial AMR was also associated with an estimated 4.71 million deaths in 2021, about the same as in 1990. By 2050, the researchers forecast that an estimated 1.91 million AMR-attributable deaths and 8.22 million AMR-associated deaths could occur every year worldwide. From 2025 to 2050, a cumulative 39.1 million deaths attributable to AMR could occur.

Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…