Trending News Today: Investigational Lupus Drug Fails in Late-Stage Trial

AstraZeneca’s investigational drug, anifrolumab, failed to meet its main target in a late-stage clinical study treating patients with moderate-to-severe lupus, Reuters reported. According to the article, the drug did not meet the main goal in the final stage of 1 of the 2 clinical trials under the TULIP program. Anifrolumab failed to show a statistically significant reduction in disease activity in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, the article reported.

A new study found that access to insurance under the Affordable Care Act was linked with fewer uninsured patients being hospitalized for serious heart conditions, Reuters reported. According to the article, researchers examined data on more than 3 million hospitalizations for heart attacks, strokes, and heart failure in 30 states between 2009 and 2014. States that expanded Medicaid in 2014 saw the uninsured proportion of hospitalizations for serious heart problems decrease by 5.4% and the proportion of these hospitalizations covered by Medicaid increase by 9.5%, the article reported.

On Wednesday, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, said that California’s law for coffee companies to carry a cancer warning label may be misleading to consumers, NPR reported. According to the article, Dr Gottlieb cited evidence showing that moderate coffee consumption in healthy adults is not associated with an increased risk of major chronic diseases, such as cancer or premature death. Dr Gottlieb stated that the cancer label warning may “mislead consumers to believe that drinking coffee could be dangerous for their health when it actually could provide health benefits.”