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Fewer than half of female workers receive a paid parental leave benefit from their employer, including maternity leave (43%) and family and medical leave to care for a sick family member (44%), according to KFF.

The average monthly premium for Medicare Advantage plans increased to $7 in the first half of the Medicare Annual Open Enrollment period this year, the eHealth report found. Premiums were in the $4 to $5 range for the last three years.

If the medical field wants to make serious progress on the Cancer Moonshot effort, it must expand its definition of personalized medicine and explore fresh approaches to cancer prevention, according to Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and cancer physician at Columbia University Medical Center.

Tecentriq failed to beat chemotherapy in improving overall survival, the main goal of its confirmatory Phase 3 test in bladder cancer. The drug had been granted accelerated approval based on results from a single-arm Phase 2 clinical trial.

Healthcare organizations need to have clear and specific goals in order to make real change in reducing health disparities, executives from SCAN Health Plan and CVS Health said. The insurer is tackling medication adherence in Hispanic members and flu vaccination rates in Black members, while the retailer is taking on women's health, heart health and mental health.

In rejecting Spectrum Pharmaceuticals drug poziotinib, the FDA said the biotech needs to generate more data from another clinical trial. Instead, Spectrum is turning the company’s focus to commercializing its recently approved product for treating a common cancer complication.

FogPharma is preclinical, but not for long. The biotech’s Series D financing round lays the groundwork to bring its lead program into the clinic in mid-2023, as well as support development of the rest of its pipeline of peptide drugs.

Caregiver services and benefits specific to LGBTQ+ populations are some ways employers can support their employees. Executives shared these ideas on a panel at the HLTH conference in Las Vegas.

By leveraging its large membership, Medicare could by embracing value-based contracting significantly influence the pharmaceutical market, pitting competing drugs against each other, or encouraging pharmaceutical makers to figure out ways to deliver drugs more cheaply.

To help address the diabetes epidemic, providers should incorporate remote patient monitoring into the standard of care, according to Kaiser Permanente physician Dr. Sos Mboijana. When treating chronic conditions like diabetes, having access to a continuous flow of patient data is critical, he said.