‘We’re Scientists, Not Politicians’: Health Officer Balks At Politicizing Hydroxychloroquine Study
Also: news from Cambridge Biotech and an update on a Department of Veterans Affairs' whistleblower case.
Medicine shouldn't be political, said Dr. Steven Kalkanis, Henry Ford Health System's chief academic officer. But the social media response to a study the Detroit-based health system published Thursday about the use of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 has become just that. (Shamus, 7/7)
COVID-19 has upended the economy, but biotechs with promising medical treatments are still attracting venture capital. Take Vor Biopharma. The Cambridge startup cofounded by Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, the oncologist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, said Tuesday it has raised $110 million in new funding that it hopes to use to start clinical trials of a new approach to treating acute myeloid leukemia, or AML, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. The company raised $42 million in February of last year. (Saltzman, 7/7)
An oncology group in Fort Myers, Fla. has agreed to pay more than $2.3 million to settle the federal government's claim that the Department of Veterans Affairs overpaid for drugs. The VA's Office of Inspector General determined after investigating a whistleblower tip that the VA had been paying Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute its full billed amount for physician-administered drugs instead of the appropriate Medicare rate, which is lower. (Bannow, 7/7)
