The three largest U.S. drug distributors agreed mid-trial to pay up to $1.18 billion to settle claims by New York state and two of its biggest counties over their role in the nationwide opioid epidemic, the state’s attorney general said on July 20.
Regeneron continues to expand the company’s presence in New York. During the next six years, Regeneron will invest $1.8 billion to expand the company’s Tarrytown facilities. The investment will support the addition of 1,000 new jobs.
Pharmacy operators Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., CVS Health Corp., Rite Aid Corp. and Walmart Inc. agreed to pay a combined $26 million to settle claims by two New York counties that they fueled an opioid addiction epidemic.
The highly transmissible Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, first identified in India, has become the most prevalent variant among new Covid-19 cases in the United States, according to California-based genomics company Helix.
New York took Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and other companies – including the largest drug distributors in the United States – to trial on June 29, seeking to hold them liable for fueling an opioid crisis that has caused nearly half a million U.S. deaths over a decade.
Fingerpaint, a full-service health and wellness marketing firm with a global team of more than 580 people, acquired Splice, a healthcare communications business based in Emeryville, California.
New York lifted all state-mandated coronavirus restrictions after reporting that 70 percent of the state’s adults had received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on June 15.
An experimental monoclonal antibody treatment for Covid-19 being developed by Eli Lilly and Co. and AbCellera Biologics Inc. can “potently” neutralize numerous coronavirus variants, including those first identified in the UK, Brazil, South Africa, California and New York, scientists found in test tube experiments. According to another study, some Covid-19 survivors infected early in the pandemic still have detectable antibodies against the virus a year later.
New cases of Covid-19 in the United States rose 9 percent to more than 431,000 for the week ended March 28, the first time since January that cases increased for two weeks in a row, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county data.
The United States crossed 30 million coronavirus cases on March 24, according to a Reuters tally, as states accelerate the vaccination process by lowering age limits.
