Seventy medical, research and advocacy organizations around the world have agreed to share their genetic and clinical data — with the permission of participating patients —in an effort to accelerate knowledge relating to genetic variation and disease. David Altshuler, HMS professor of genetics at Massachusetts General Hospital, is quoted.
Hospital profits in Massachusetts almost doubled last year, from 2.1% in Fiscal Year 2011 to 3.8% in Fiscal Year 2012. That’s the main point of the latest report from CHIA, the state’s new Center for Health Information and Analysis. Mass Eye and Ear tops the “total margin” chart in a report from the state’s new Center for Health Information and Analysis.
After just three years at Harvard Medical School, Dr. William W. Chin, executive dean for research will leave next month for a job with a pharmaceutical trade group in Washington, D.C.
Shift workers who sometimes work at night are at an increased risk for developing Type 2 diabetes, a new study from the Medical Chronobiology Program of the Division of Sleep Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School found. The results were published in Sleep. Lead author Christopher Morris is quoted. Morris is a research fellow at Brigham and Women’s.
Older people who are eligible to receive prescription drug insurance aren’t applying for the Medicare Part D benefit. J. Michael McWilliams, HMS assistant professor in the Department of Health Care Policy, offers a reason why, based on findings from his recent study: Some older people lack the cognitive ability to understand they qualify and how to apply.
New drugs in the works for muscular dystrophy are showing signs of slowing the disease’s muscle-ravaging impact, raising hopes that patients’ lives may be prolonged for years beyond what current treatments offer. Louis Kunkel, HMS professor of pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital, is quoted.
Despite the more than $50 billion that U.S. pharmaceutical companies have spent every year since the mid-2000s to discover new medications, drugmakers have barely improved on old standbys developed decades ago, a study from Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania found. Aaron Kesselheim, HMS assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and research associate in Health Policy and Management at Harvard School of Public Heath is quoted.
