Fierce Biotech: JPM24 Opens With ADCs The Hottest Ticket In San Francisco
The overall deal flow in biopharma tapered off in 2023 but the big companies sure know what they want (what they really, really want), according to a new report from J.P. Morgan. And that’s antibody-drug conjugates, which drove a fourth-quarter spike in licensing deal proceeds and provided a glimmer of hope to an industry battered by outside forces and grim financing prospects. (Armstrong, 1/8)

Stat: JPM 2024 Day 1 News Roundup
Biotech news from the JP Morgan Conference in San Francisco, with updates on Johnson and Johnson, Ambrx, Merck, Harpoon Therapeutics and more. (Feuerstein, DeAngelis, Garde and Herper, 1/8)

Reuters: Drugmakers Kick Off Industry Conference With Two Cancer Deals
Johnson & Johnson and Merck on Monday announced plans to buy cancer therapy developers on the first day of a major U.S. healthcare conference, igniting what industry participants hope will be a strong year for deals after a solid end to 2023. Deals announced on Monday had a combined equity value of more than $6 billion, including one by medical device maker Boston Scientific for Axonics Inc. That follows roughly $25 billion worth of U.S.-listed biotech deals last month, according to data provider LSEG Deals Intelligence. (Satija and Roy, 1/8)

Modern Healthcare: JPM 2024: CommonSpirit To Focus On Outpatient Expansion
“We will have a greater emphasis on non-acute assets, on ambulatory care and continuum of care,” CommonSpirit CEO Wright Lassiter told the audience Monday at the 42nd annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. “We will continue to expand outside of the acute environment and continue to think about revenue diversification and what is best way for CommonSpirit to diversify around our traditional set of business.” (Kacik, 1/8)

Stat: JPM 2024: Biotech’s Most Prolific Dealmaker Sees A Rosy 2024
Eric Tokat, biotech’s most prolific dealmaker, believes 2024 will be another strong year for acquisitions, driven by Big Pharma’s need to restock pipelines with medicines that can generate sales in the coming years. (Feuerstein, 1/8)

Stat: Hospitals Try A New Pitch To Investors: Other Ways Of Making Money
If you learned anything about nonprofit hospitals on the first day of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, it’s that they’ve all but abandoned the prospect of making significant profit on patient care. Instead, they’re fully throwing their weight into other ways of making money — things like developing drugs or selling insurance. (Bannow, 1/8)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Johnson & Johnson Buys San Diego's Ambrx Biopharma For $2B 
Biopharma conglomerate Johnson & Johnson announced Monday it will buy San Diego-based Ambrx Biopharma for $2 billion to gain access to its promising pipeline of cancer therapies. (Rocha, 1/8)

The Bakersfield Californian: Neurotech Startup Looks To Open Clinical Trials Center In Bakersfield 
The promise of neurotechnology stokes Kern's economic development hopes today with an announcement that a startup out of Cambridge, UK has chosen Bakersfield to locate a high-tech center for clinical trials aimed at developing neural digital therapies. (Cox, 1/8)

ABC News: Red Cross Announces Emergency Blood Shortage, Calls On Americans To Donate
The American Red Cross said Monday it is experiencing an emergency blood shortage. According to the humanitarian organization, it is seeing the lowest number of people giving blood in 20 years. Hospitals are currently receiving blood products -- including whole blood, red blood cells, plasma and platelets -- faster than donations are coming in, the Red Cross said in a release. (Kekatos, 1/8)

The Hill: Sanders, Democrats Launch Investigation Into Asthma Inhaler Pricing
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and a group of Senate Democrats on Monday announced an investigation into the high costs of asthma inhalers. Sanders, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, sent letters to the CEOs of the four biggest manufacturers of inhalers sold in the United States — AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim (BI), GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Teva — demanding information and documents on internal strategic communications, patient assistance programs and the costs involved in the manufacturing of inhalers. (Weixel, 1/8)

The New York Times: The F.D.A. Warned an Asthma Drug Could Induce Despair. Many Were Never Told.
In early 2020, the Food and Drug Administration responded to decades of escalating concerns about a commonly prescribed drug for asthma and allergies by deploying one of its most potent tools: a stark warning on the drug’s label that it could cause aggression, agitation and even suicidal thoughts. The agency’s label, which was primarily aimed at doctors, was supposed to sound an alert about the 25-year-old medication, Singulair, also known by its generic name, montelukast. But it barely dented use: The drug was still prescribed to 12 million people in the United States in 2022. (Jewett and Mueller, 1/9)

Reuters: Canada Says Bulk Importation Not An Effective Solution To High Drug Prices In US 
The Canadian government thinks bulk importation will not provide an effective solution to the problem of high drug prices in the United States after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allowed Florida to import cheaper drugs from Canada, Health Canada said on Monday. Florida on Friday won authorization from the FDA to directly import prescription drugs from Canada, the first state to get such approval for a strategy that could lower prices for medicines. ... The statement noted regulations to prohibit certain drugs intended for the Canadian market from being sold for consumption outside of Canada if that sale could cause a drug shortage in Canada. "The Department will not hesitate to take immediate action to address non-compliance, ranging from requesting a plan for corrective measures, issuing a public advisory or other forms of communication, to taking action on the licenses of regulated parties who contravene the export prohibition if warranted." (Singh, 1/8)

CNBC: Post-Ozempic Patients May Eat More Calories, Deutsche Bank Survey Finds
Investors have cheered a new class of weight loss drugs for their ability to help people shed unwanted pounds, but the findings of a recent poll underscore the challenges patients face if they cease treatment. (Berk, 1/8)

CNN: Insurance Denials For Popular New Weight Loss Medications Leave Patients With Risky Choices 
Some patients have been successful on powerful new drugs for weight loss, but then they lose access to them because insurance won’t cover them. (Goodman, 1/8)

Reuters: Lilly CEO Says Weight-Loss Drug Zepbound Weekly Prescriptions Hit 25,000 In December 
Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks on Monday said the company's powerful weight-loss drug Zepbound hit 25,000 new prescriptions per week at the end of December and that its 2024 supply may not be enough to meet demand. "I think it's important to set expectations, but we're working hard to fulfill demand," he told Reuters at the annual JPMorgan health conference in San Francisco. (Wingrove, 1/8)

Marin Independent Journal: Marin Hires Berkeley Official As Health Director
Berkeley’s health director has been chosen to lead the Marin County Department of Health and Human Services. Marin supervisors were expected to confirm the appointment of Lisa Warhuus at their meeting on Tuesday. (Halstead, 1/9)

Modern Healthcare: Uber Health, Socially Determined To Integrate Platforms
Uber Health and analytics company Socially Determined have begun integrating their platforms and jointly marketing their products, which they expect mostly insurers to adopt to connect patients to supplemental benefits. The companies are collaborating to provide services to connect high-need patients to transportation, prescription and grocery delivery services, and aim to fully connect their capabilities in the future. (Hartnett, 1/8)

Axios: Patients Are Hurt By Diagnostic Errors More Often Than You Think
Hospitalized patients who died or were transferred to the ICU during their stay experienced a diagnostic error nearly a quarter of the time — and in most cases the error caused harm, according to a new study that's prompting calls to rethink how health systems keep patients safe. (Reed, 1/9)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Reports Its First Flu-Related Death Of Season
San Francisco has reported its first flu-related death of the 2023-24 respiratory virus season, public health officials announced Monday. Officials did not disclose the gender or age of the person who died, other than to say they were younger than 65 years old, had not gotten vaccinated and had preexisting medical conditions. The person died last week. Statewide, 126 Californians have died from the flu as of Dec. 30, the most recent date for which data is available, according to the California Department of Public Health. (Ho, 1/8)

San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area Wastewater Data Reveals Alarming COVID Spike
The Bay Area is seeing the highest levels of COVID-19 infections recorded in wastewater surveys since they began in mid-2022. But unlike previous waves of the pandemic, fewer people are becoming severely ill with the disease. Data collected by the public health company Verily indicate elevated concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 particles, the virus responsible for COVID-19, in nearly all Bay Area sewer sheds. Throughout December, these levels more than tripled in most cities, reaching highs at treatment plants in San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Novato around Christmas day. (Vaziri, 1/8)

Los Angeles Times: COVID-19 Intensifies Across California, With The Worst Probably Still To Come
The winter COVID-and-flu season is ramping up in California and nationwide, with doctors and other experts saying the worst of the respiratory illness season is still to come. (Lin II, 1/8)

Los Angeles Times: COVID Tests May Be Taking Longer To Show Positive. Here's Why
With COVID-19 rising this winter, it’s getting more complicated to discern whether you are infected. Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, regional chief of infectious diseases at Kaiser Permanente Southern California, said she has noticed it’s sometimes taking longer after the onset of symptoms for rapid tests to return a positive result. It used to be that someone might test positive for the coronavirus one or two days after the onset of symptoms using a rapid test, Hudson said. Now, positive results might not show up until the fourth day after symptoms start. (Lin II, 1/9)

Bloomberg: Exercise Could Be Harmful For Some People With Long Covid, Study Shows 
Exercise is good for health, but it can be harmful for some long Covid sufferers, new research shows. Those experiencing debilitating crashes after strenuous activity — a condition known as post-exertional malaise — risk severe tissue damage from hardcore exercise, scientists in the Netherlands found. (Gale, 1/9)

The Hill: Fauci Sits Through First Seven Hours Of Questioning With COVID Select Subcommittee
Former chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci sat for a seven-hour closed-door meeting Monday, facing questions regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and offering his expertise on preparing for potential outbreaks in the future. The former government official last year agreed to two days of transcribed interviews back-to-back with the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. The first meeting Monday ran about an hour long. (Choi, 1/8)

San Diego Union-Tribune: After The Pandemic, Fewer Churches Are Able To House Homeless People On Winter Nights 
For years, a group of local congregations have set up beds for homeless people during the winter. The Interfaith Shelter Network of San Diego remains both a lifeline amid dropping temperatures and a way to bolster the region’s increasingly strained system of year-round facilities. (Nelson, 1/8)

CalMatters: Eviction Laws Vary In Bay Area, Leaving Tenants At A Disadvantage
After years of living on the streets and in single-room-occupancy hotels, the cozy studio apartment in San Francisco’s Japantown felt like a sanctuary to Corey Lafayette. He’d moved with no furniture, so friends found him a mattress on Craigslist and contributed a massive globe and a mirror framed in wrought-iron leaves. He bought pots and pans and dreamed of decorating. As he cared for the plants on his sunny patio and walked through the building’s tree-lined courtyard, he could feel stress peeling away. No more stops by police. No more neighbors in his business or strict hotel rules. At the apartment, he was free. (Mello, 1/8)

San Francisco Chronicle: SF Built The Least New Housing In A Decade, But 2024 Brings Hope
Crippled by a seemingly endless pandemic hangover and a lack of investor confidence in the city’s future, 2023 was San Francisco’s weakest year for housing production in a decade, with just 2,024 units completed. The crop of new units represented a 30% decline from 2022, and a 57% drop from 2021. Among the 2,024 new apartments and condos were 805 affordable units, which was 37% less than the prior year. (Dineen, 1/8)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Here's What The New Gas Monitors Are Showing, And Saying, About The Tijuana Sewage Crisis 
It’s only the first of six monitoring stations that will be placed along the border region near where sewage flows through the Tijuana River watershed, but in the three months since it was installed, it has confirmed what South Bay residents long suspected: The air they are breathing is unhealthy. (Murga, 1/7)

CalMatters: Why Gavin Newsom’s Advisers Want Friendlier Prison Guards At San Quentin
Converting a state prison into a rehabilitative center, as the Newsom administration seeks to do with San Quentin, means changing how guards do their jobs. (Duara, 1/8)

CNN: Bottled Water Contains Thousands Of Nanoplastics So Small They Can Invade The Body’s Cells, Study Says
In a trailblazing new study, researchers have discovered bottled water sold in stores can contain 10 to 100 times more bits of plastic than previously estimated — nanoparticles so infinitesimally tiny they cannot be seen under a microscope. At 1,000th the average width of a human hair, nanoplastics are so teeny they can migrate through the tissues of the digestive tract or lungs into the bloodstream, distributing potentially harmful synthetic chemicals throughout the body and into cells, experts say. (LaMotte, 1/8)

CBS News: Bottled Water Contains Up To 100 Times More Plastic Than Previously Estimated, New Study Says
Scientists have known for years that there's plastic in water. A 2018 study detected an average of around 300 particles of plastic per liter of water. At the time, they were measuring microplastics — small plastic pieces less than five millimeters long. In the latest study, researchers examined nanoplastics, which are particles less than 1 micrometer. For reference, the diameter of a human hair is about 70 micrometers. (Chasan, 1/8)

The Washington Post: Here’s What You’re Really Swallowing When You Drink Bottled Water
The new study found pieces of PET (polyethylene terephthalate), which is what most plastic water bottles are made of, and polyamide, a type of plastic that is present in water filters. The researchers hypothesized that this means plastic is getting into the water both from the bottle and from the filtration process. (Osaka, 1/8)

Glossy: California’s PFAS Regulation Brings A Reckoning For The Fashion Industry
PFAS are sometimes referred to as “forever chemicals” due to their persistence in the environment and human body, where they can accumulate over time and cause issues linked to reproduction, allergies and cancer. Starting on January 1, 2025, California will prohibit the manufacturing, selling and distributing of textiles containing PFAS levels exceeding 100 parts per million (ppm), which is now considered the unsafe limit. Therefore, brands that want to get ahead of the chemical ban should act now. Outdoor wear, gorp core and even athleisure brands are set to be particularly affected by the PFAS regulation because many of their items typically feature waterproofing or other chemically-created qualities. (Zwieglinska, 1/8)

Science Alert: It Turns Out Paper Straws Might Pose A Serious Problem, Too
Paper straws are not quite the eco solution many had hoped for. Not only do these liquid slurping alternatives tend to wilt in a frustratingly fast manner, they contain low levels of forever chemicals, according to new research. When researchers tested 39 different straw brands made from plastic, paper, glass, bamboo, or stainless steel, they found PFAS in almost all the materials. Stainless steel was the only consistent exception. (Cassella, 1/6)

Bloomberg Law: EPA Releases Rule To Limit Production Of PFAS Listed As Inactive
Companies seeking to make any of hundreds of PFAS that haven’t been produced for years must first seek an EPA review of the proposed new use of the chemical, under a rule the agency finalized Monday. (Sherwood, 1/8)

The Hill: Speaker Johnson Faces Conservative Unrest Over Funding Deal
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) faces a daunting task in getting a deal to fund the government over the finish line amid strenuous opposition from conservatives in his conference. The Speaker, elected just a few months ago after his predecessor was tossed for working with Democrats to fund the government, is now himself likely to rely on the minority party in the House to get his deal approved over outrage from his right flank. (Brooks and Schnell, 1/9)

Politico: Lawmakers Mull Short-Term Patch As Funding Plan Slowly Advances
As a result, there’s a growing sense inside the Capitol that another funding patch will be needed to buy more time for a broader government funding bargain — even though Johnson has vowed no more short-term funding extensions. “I hate to start talking short-term this early in the process,” Senate Majority Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said of another extension. “We know from history, it's possible.” (Emma and Scholtes, 1/8)

The 19th: Nutramigen Formula Recall Draws Concerns From Congress And Caregivers
It’s been two years since the start of a formula shortage launched a mad dash to keep babies across the country fed and investigations into the formula market. Now, another major recall of a specialty formula is sparking concerns and drawing questions from Congress. (Carrazana and Luterman, 1/8)

The Washington Post: Austin Leaves Intensive Care Amid Growing Scrutiny Of Pentagon Secrecy
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, whose failure to disclose his need for emergency hospitalization has ignited a firestorm, was moved out of intensive care on Monday, as Democrats and Republicans intensified their calls for accountability, and senior officials at the White House and Pentagon struggled to defuse the uproar. Austin, 70, remains under doctors’ supervision at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland. He was taken there by ambulance Jan. 1, while in “severe pain” with undisclosed complications from a Dec. 22 medical procedure that included an overnight stay, administration officials said. (Lamothe, Viser and Ryan, 1/8)

Stat: HHS’ Becerra, Once ‘Invisible,’ Races To Bolster Legacy
He’s been called the “invisible” secretary. So far removed from the White House sphere of influence that he’s rarely spotted there, even at health care events. Once, officials openly discussed who might be better for the job. Now, however, health secretary Xavier Becerra is making inroads with the president’s closest advisers. (Owermohle, 1/9)