More than 15 years after starting a similar trial (and nine years after cutting that trial short), Abbott will once again implant electrodes into people’s brains and send up electrical pulses in an attempt to tackle treatment-resistant depression.

On September 4, the medical device company announced a new double-blind, randomized clinical trial of its Infinity deep brain stimulation (DBS) system for patients who have failed a minimum of four different antidepressant therapies.

DBS systems like Infinity have long been used to adjust abnormal activity in areas of the brain that impact Parkinson’s and essential tremor. Infinity has had FDA approval to treat those conditions since 2016.

The FDA granted Abbott breakthrough device designation in 2022 to test if Infinity could help treatment-resistant depression, but so far, no DBS treatment has received FDA approval for this purpose.

“This is a very exciting moment,” Brian Kopell, a principal investigator of the study and director of the Center for Neuromodulation at Mount Sinai Health System in New York, told Healthcare Brew. “As a field, we don’t get very many opportunities to change people’s lives in this way.”

Keep reading here.—CC

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Nearly a year after filing for Chapter 11, Rite Aid announced on September 3 that the company has exited the bankruptcy process and will move forward as a private company.

The retail pharmacy chain filed for bankruptcy in October 2023 as it struggled to keep up with competitors CVS and Walgreens, in addition to mounting debt, falling revenue, and multimillion-dollar opioid settlements.

In a press release, Rite Aid executives said the company “has successfully completed its financial restructuring and emerged from Chapter 11, marking a new beginning as a stronger company with a rightsized store footprint, more efficient operating model, significantly less debt, and additional financial resources.”

The company eliminated roughly $2 billion of its debt during the bankruptcy process and received an additional $2.5 billion in exit financing, according to the press release.

Matt Schroeder, Rite Aid’s CFO, who has been with the company since 2000, was named CEO moving forward. He will replace Jeffrey Stein, who served as CEO and chief restructuring officer during the bankruptcy process.

Keep reading here.—MA

Healthcare comes with its share of mental challenges, especially considering that clinicians often care for patients when they’re in difficult and sometimes tragic situations. New research shows that even the path to getting into the workforce can be a challenge, with some physicians burning out before they make it to graduation.

Medical students face many stressors, from long hours to finances to academic pressures. Last week, MedScape published a study that put some data to these stories, focusing on student relationships, health habits, and mental health. The study included 738 participants around the US and was conducted from March 25 to June 11.

The study found that 15% of students reported having thoughts of suicide at some point during their med school experience. About 35% of students reported feeling depressed “sometimes,” while 16% reported feeling depressed “frequently.”

Keep reading here.—CM