Accelerated approval makes sense in concept, but is failing in practice. It results in many drugs - especially cancer drugs - reaping huge profits for manufacturers despite proof of benefit for patients. Here’s how to fix it 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

New @icer-review.bsky.social whitepaper on FDA Accelerated Approval. This pathway is good in theory, and a failure in practice. Here's how to fix it! icer.org/news-insight... @yalecrrit.bsky.social @jsross119.bsky.social

Story in @nature.com about this exact problem: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Revlimid has its origin in a pill that cost patients $7.50 each. Decades later, the cancer drug costs more than $18,000 for a month’s supply — even though it still only costs about 25 cents to manufacture. (Published May 2025)

“My patient is refusing a drug studied in 170,000 people because of side effects that a 124,000-person analysis just confirmed do not exist — while injecting a compound studied in 14 humans, from unregulated sources, based on the recommendation of someone who profits from selling it.”

New report on the impacts of a PhRMA push to delay the time before a drug's price could be negotiated in Medicare: www.citizen.org/article/epic...

Google's AI confusing the CDMRP with the NIH, and giving flatly wrong information on grant applications. (the CDMRP does not allow resubmissions)

Our latest, out today in JCNI: Is private equity ownership associated with increased use of low-value but lucrative cancer care services? Surprisingly, our answer seems to be “no” pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41912420/

In case you’re wondering who is getting rich from GOP decision to purge millions from Medicaid: kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

Impressive ROI on bribes from robot manufacturers to get doctors to use robot-assisted surgery! New study in @jamanetworkopen.com

Today, MSF is going public with something we've been fighting behind closed doors for months: Gilead will not sell us their new HIV drug, lenacapavir. The sticking point isn't even price, they just refuse to sell. Open letter linked + explainer 🧵1/ www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/gilea...

"doctors just give you pills, I only take dozens of wellness pills instead"

Pet peeve: un-self-aware academic junket culture. We spend $2000 to attend conferences where 75% of speakers rail against American inequality, while we splurge on $75 dinners, stay in $300/night hotel rooms, and take a $50 uber ride to avoid a 3-stop subway ride that would cost $2.50.

Remarkable retraction notice.

Update: This paper has now been retracted. cc @stevejoffe.bsky.social

This is an incredible documentation of the systematic, intentional collapse of American health science, by Elizabeth Ginexi. open.substack.com/pub/elizabet...

"This cross-sectional study found that pharmaceutical manufacturers penalized for kickbacks paid only 2.2% of US revenue accrued from selling implicated drugs during years of alleged violations." Great work by Tobias Liu @jsross119.bsky.social @reshmagar.bsky.social jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

New @jama.com commentary by @rachelsachs.bsky.social @dusetzinas.bsky.social &myself on biosimilar drug competition and price declines. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

"Among...prescribers of PAH therapies, drug‐specific industry payments were associated with dose‐response increases in Medicare spending." New study to add to the list - industry payments affect physician prescribing pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41804477/

No one should care about Vinay Prasad’s opinions on anything ever again. There’s no reason at all to invite him on podcasts or invite him to write an article. He spread COVID disinformation, enabled MAHA, and turned the FDA in a soap opera. That’s all that matters.

The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted. What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards. Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.

"Faculty at every school accepted industry payments, including 20 (16.7%) deans and 52 (19.3%) of clerkship directors." Update on COI at US medical schools, out in @plosone.org from Shamik Bhat, @timandersonmd.bsky.social &co pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41790718/

“Nobody wants that product,” said Amitabh Chandra, a Harvard health economist who has studied high-deductible plans. Gift link www.nytimes.com/2026/02/26/h...

The flu and pneumonia kill over 45,000 people a year. Moderna developed a new mRNA flu vaccine for people 50 and older--who are most at risk. Prasad, unilaterally, against the recommendation of experts within the agency, denied Moderna's appplication. www.statnews.com/2026/02/11/m...

🚨🚨🚨 Since we need all the good news we can get these days! CMS reverses plan to end physical data requests and transition all researchers to the VRDC platform: resdac.org/cms-news/res... cc @basucally.bsky.social @aschwartz.bsky.social @academyhealth.bsky.social @wschpero.bsky.social

It is really, really sad and angering when one of your own switches sides and joins Team Disease full-on

Honored to be among this year's cohort of grant awardees from the @nihcm.bsky.social ! Drs. Aaron Winn, Pragya Kakani, and I will be studying trends in provider profit margins on cancer drugs. @mskcancercenter.bsky.social @ascocancer.bsky.social nihcm.org/news/nihcm-a...

New study finding regional variation in adoption of PSMA PET imaging for prostate cancer. As we often see, Southeast is lagging. As this scan is prerequisite to radioligand therapy, could result in treatment disparities ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/... @carygross.bsky.social @ascocancer.bsky.social

The best coffee in midtown @cafegrumpy.bsky.social is donating 10% of proceeds today to the @immdefenseproject.bsky.social

Looking forward to speaking on cancer drug prices at this upcoming symposium at Georgetown. March 5th for those of you in the DC area! cpt.uchicago.edu/program/

New Jersey told doctors to stop accepting more than $10K per year from the drug industry. ...looks like we didn't stop. 😡 Great work by Neeraj Patel, @reshmagar.bsky.social @jsross119.bsky.social academic.oup.com/healthaffair...

New study in @jamanetworkopen.com this week: frequency of post-market safety issues for cancer drugs with accelerated approval. Happy to collaborate on this study with Dr. Mooghali, @reshmagar.bsky.social @jsross119.bsky.social jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Sorry to learn of the passing of David Mitchell, founder and leader of @p4ad.bsky.social who played large role in helping get the Inflation Reduction Act to the finish line. His voice will be very missed. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/h...

Our latest study on physician-industry COI, out last week in The Oncologist. I have often heard the rationale that "if I'm conflicted with all the companies, then I'm unbiased." So we asked, how often DO oncologists receive payments from all competing companies? academic.oup.com/oncolo/advan...

Make it viral.

Oncologists should support - not oppose - Medicare drug price negotiation. Lower drug prices benefit patients; this should supersede revenue concerns. So @dusetzinas.bsky.social @rachelsachs.bsky.social and I argue today in @jamaoncology.com jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... 1/

Oncologists should support - not oppose - Medicare drug price negotiation. Lower drug prices benefit patients; this should supersede revenue concerns. So @dusetzinas.bsky.social @rachelsachs.bsky.social and I argue today in @jamaoncology.com jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... 1/

Y’all I just dug these out of an attic where they have been for the last THIRTY YEARS and they STILL WORK!

The linked study cites an article which lists me as an author, but which does not actually exist. I complained to the journal editors. Over a year later, the study is still there, no retractions or corrections. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39614949/

“Over the past few years, the group has found that hospitals are a hotspot for outsized markups of all kinds. In one case, the plan paid almost $90,000 for a series of oxaliplatin infusions…that’s more than 700 times what Medicare would’ve paid at the time.”

This entire “Cancer Capitalism” series from @bloomberg.com is worth a read! Latest topic: the astronomical markups that hospitals charge on cancer drugs: www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

Very cool!

reality has an unfair anti-Trump bias

Anti-vaxxism is an ideology with maybe the dumbest combination of pointless and evil that has ever existed bsky.app/profile/nyti...

lol this month’s issue of JCO appears to have been resected with positive margins

"One agency source said at least one division is having to pour all of its resources into reviewing drugs that received a voucher, taking time away from other medical products."

I didn’t really get how much “health care contact days” is a meaningful patient outcome until I got sick thank you @ishaniganguli.bsky.social @dusetzinas.bsky.social @jamanetworkopen.com

So, to all the "RFK's got some good ideas" folks (Rachael Bedard, Leana Wen) and Jay Bhattacharya is "an excellent choice for NIH" (Steven Macedo, Frances Lee) and Vinay Prasad "will bring a breath of fresh air to FDA" (Adam Cifu, John Mandrola) groupies--you own this now too.

Government documents obtained by @kffhealthnews.org show the agency overseeing Medicare Advantage does little to enforce long-standing rules intended to ensure about 35 million plan members can see doctors in the first place.