Healthcare Brew covers pharmaceutical developments, health startups, the latest tech, and how it impacts hospitals and providers to keep administrators and providers informed.

Healthcare Brew

Will Peischel

Healthcare Brew delivers the latest news and trends in healthcare.

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A mountain of pharmaceutical pills in front of the US capital building

Could march-in rights drive down drug costs?

The Biden administration’s quest for lower drug costs may lead to a 1980 law.

Could this federal guideline drive down drug costs?

Maia Anderson

Shelves filled with brightly covered products

Nearly a third of independent pharmacies at risk of closure in 2024 

The pharmacies are feeling the strains of a CMS rule that went into effect at the start of the year. 

Shannon Young

A pharmacist measures someone's blood pressure

How the role of pharmacist has changed

Pharmacists take on a lot more clinical responsibility today, like vaccinations and prescribing certain medications. 

Pharma

Cassie McGrath

I like some of Fujifilm’s cameras. But what does it know about pharmaceuticals?

And on Sept. 24, its drug manufacturing arm Fujifilm Biotechnologies made its next big investment: a $3.2 billion facility in Holly Springs, North Carolina, part of the state’s biotech hub—aka the Research Triangle.

Fujifilm Biotechnologies launched as a drug manufacturer in 2011, making a big shift into healthcare as its film business was failing. Over the last almost 15 years, the company has found success in this model, reporting $2.1 billion in revenue for its healthcare segment in Q4 2025.

In 2006, Fujifilm lost a significant portion of its revenue when digital cameras took over and the company could no longer make as much profit from physical film, Lars Petersen, president and CEO of Fujifilm Biotechnologies, told Healthcare Brew.

So the company began to pivot toward healthcare and launched a research lab in Japan in 2006. Then, five years later, Fujifilm had an opportunity to buy two manufacturing facilities reportedly worth 

 from drug company Merck: one in Morrisville, part of the Research Triangle Park, and one in Billingham, England. It also marked Merck’s transition out of the biologics business, 

That marked the official launch of Fujifilm Biotechnologies.

The company now has 10 manufacturing sites across the US, the UK, Japan, and Denmark, including the new site in Holly Springs (its second in the Research Triangle Region).

While it may seem weird for a camera company to manufacture medications, “it’s not strange at all,” Pankit Bhalodia, partner at consultancy West Monroe, told us.

Camera companies like Fujifilm are already good at engineering, he continued, meaning they are well positioned to make other complex products—like medications.

Kodak, for example, took a similar path and entered into pharmaceutical ingredient production in 2020, 

 As a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), Fujifilm Biotechnologies doesn’t work in drug development but instead has contracts with drug companies to make their medications. Those include a $3 billion contract with biotech Regeneron signed in April and a $2 billion deal with Johnson & Johnson in August.

The CDMO industry is currently valued at $139.3 billion, according to 

, and is expected to grow to $273.9 billion by 2034.

“We are actually proud of calling ourselves a pure CDMO,” Petersen said. “We are not competing with our customers [which are biotech companies].”

The camera maker has also had previous partnerships with Eli Lilly as well as Japanese drugmaker Takeda Pharmaceutical Company.

A lot of pharmaceutical companies are announcing 

 in the face of the Trump administration’s tariffs. But this new Fujifilm facility was planned back in 2021, Petersen said, “far before anybody thought about tariffs.”

The building is instead part of the company’s business model, dubbed kojoX, which establishes the concept of facilities designed as replicas of its other buildings around the world, so they can therefore make the same products using the same tactics.

Having an international footprint is also a benefit to biotech companies looking for drug manufacturers, Bhalodia said, as it helps diversification and avoids “geopolitical risk” so companies can make strategic decisions about where in the world would be best to make their product. 

“It gives them the flexibility to leverage, whether it’s the Europe-, Asia-, or US-based facility,” he said. “It’s probably a larger strategic play to become a more global CDMO.”

Cambridge, USA - 26 July 2024. A colorful facade wraps around FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies, blending science and design in a playful, modern exterior and street reflections.

Fujifilm Biotechnologies builds new manufacturing facility in North Carolina’s Research Triangle 

From cameras to drug manufacturing, Fujifilm is staking its claim in the pharmaceutical industry. 

Although the psychedelic medicine industry faced a significant setback in late 2024 when the FDA 

 a front-running MDMA-based treatment, healthcare 

In fact, AbbVie, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the US, 

 in August plans to drop more than $1 billion to acquire a psychedelic drug in development from Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals.

With states continuing to introduce and pass legislation to 

 psychedelics, Healthcare Brew asked leaders from across the industry their thoughts on psychedelic medicines, how they’re being integrated into the healthcare system, and what work still needs to be done.

Rachel Yehuda, endowed professor of psychiatry and neuroscience of trauma at Mount Sinai in New York, told us the healthcare industry is “in a transitional moment with psychedelic medicine.”

“We’re seeing growing interest from traditional institutions, including academic medical centers, government agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs and National Institutes of Health, and pharma,” Yehuda said.

However, it’s still early days, as it’s hard to conduct clinical trials for psychedelic medicines and there are still “too few,” she added.

Mount Sinai in 2021 opened a psychedelic research center, renamed the Parsons Research Center for Psychedelic Healing in 2024, because the hospital believes it’s “essential to bring scientific rigor, clinical safety, and ethical clarity to this emerging field,” Yehuda said.

In order to safely integrate psychedelics into healthcare, key priorities should be making sure clinicians are trained properly, ensuring historically underserved communities 

 to the treatments, and conducting ongoing research, she added.

Jerry Rosenbaum, psychiatrist-in-chief emeritus as well as founder and director of Mass General Brigham’s Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics in Boston, told Healthcare Brew that while there’s uncertainty around the logistics of how psychedelic medicines may be delivered and reimbursed, he thinks it’s very likely several will eventually work their way through FDA approval.

That’s because some research suggests psychedelics are effective in treating or reversing many psychiatric conditions without the need for daily medication and are also often effective for patients who haven’t responded to existing treatments, according to Rosenbaum.

Psychedelics are most poised to treat psychiatric conditions such as treatment-resistant depression, generalized anxiety disorder, PTSD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and substance use disorders, he said.

 on MDMA as a treatment for PTSD, for example, found 71% of 104 patients no longer had symptoms meeting PTSD criteria after treatment. And a 

 from psychedelic medicine company Usona Institute found psilocybin treatment was associated with a “significant sustained reduction” in depression symptoms.

Mass General Brigham founded the Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics in 2021 to “understand how psychedelic molecules act to change the brain in hopes of deepening our understanding of psychiatric conditions and to facilitate the discovery of novel therapies,” Rosenbaum added.

Andrew Whitman, a clinical pharmacist in hematology and oncology at UVA Health in Charlottesville, Virginia, told Healthcare Brew psychedelics have the potential to be particularly impactful for cancer patients.

“A lot of patients are dealing with the distress from cancer diagnosis and existing depression [or] anxiety. There’s a trauma response associated with the cancer diagnosis,” he said.

In his experience, providers in the oncology space are generally open to exploring psychedelic medicines since they work with such a vulnerable patient population, Whitman said.

 from Johns Hopkins found psilocybin therapy helped combat depression and end-of-life anxiety in cancer patients.

A potential benefit psychedelics could have is to allow providers to deprescribe other medications and be more minimalistic when it comes to prescribing, Whitman said. That way, patients don’t have to take medication every day.

“You’re really putting the work into working through the underlying cause…so it shifts that focus from daily use to a more holistic approach to making sure patients are being taken care of,” Whitman said.

However, psychedelics don’t work for everybody. There’s concern for people with conditions such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia because psychedelics may potentially exacerbate their condition, Whitman added.

Leonardo Vando, medical director for Mindbloom, a telehealth company that provides ketamine therapy, told Healthcare Brew that while stigma around psychedelics still exists, he’s starting to see the healthcare system embrace the treatments.

“Academic medical centers are leading clinical trials, and health systems are increasingly exploring what it could look like to integrate psychedelic care responsibly. Even insurers are 

 closer attention,” he said. “We’re still in the early stages, but momentum is building.”

The three areas of focus to bring psychedelics more into the mainstream are research, access, and education, Vando said.

The industry needs to continue conducting rigorous research on psychedelics, as well as make sure the medicines are “affordable, scalable, and available to people from all walks of life, not just those with privilege or proximity to major research institutions,” he said.

And education is needed to combat misconceptions that psychedelic medicines are experimental or risky, Vando added.

“If we can deliver these treatments with compassion, structure, and integrity, they won’t just join the mainstream; they’ll help reshape it,” he said.

Healthcare execs on the state of psychedelic medicine 

While there’s still a long way to go, the industry is starting to embrace psychedelics. 

illustrated headshot of caroline catherman, healthcare brew reporter

Caroline Catherman

Whether you’re a doctor checking on the devices you use, a manufacturer learning from others’ mistakes, or you just like drama, you need to know about recent FDA medical device recalls.

Every year, the FDA gets 2+ million reports of deaths, injuries, and malfunctions suspected of being linked to medical devices. The agency then issues recalls with corrections ranging from making tweaks to pulling a device off the market.

Healthcare Brew provides a monthly summary of some recent Class I recalls, the most dangerous kind.

Without further ado, here is September’s Recall Roundup!

Several components of Medtronic Cardiac Surgery’s DLP left heart ventricle catheter have been recalled because the catheters “may not retain their shape.” Medtronic told users to quarantine affected lots.

Some lots of 3M Company’s Ranger blood- and fluid-warming high-flow sets are labeled as being able to warm blood and plasma at high flow rates, when in fact the system can only keep blood and plasma appropriately warm at lower flow rates. The company has communicated the device’s actual abilities to customers and said they should follow those guidelines.

Abiomed has told users to “quarantine and cease use” of certain brands and product codes of automated Impella controllers because they could lead to decreased performance or even stop the Impella heart pump. This issue has been associated with at least one death, according to an August FDA early alert.

Medline’s medical device reprocessing program, Medline ReNewal, has added to 

 recall of certain St. Jude Medical’s Response and Supreme electrophysiology catheters. Several more Medline ReNewal’s reprocessed electrophysiology and ultrasound catheters may contain “small residual particulates” that could infect patients or cause other issues.

Dexcom has told users to update software on their continuous glucose monitor G7 and One+ iOS, watchOS, and Android apps to the latest version. Past software versions didn’t always alert users when the sensor failed.

 Olympus has told users not to use and to return affected units of its ViziShot 2FLEX (19G) endoscopic single-use aspiration needle because tips could be deformed in an undetected way. There have been 40 reported injuries and a death related to this issue as of Sept. 30, according to the FDA.

A few of Medline’s “sterile” convenience kits were never actually sterilized, and customers were told to return impacted products.

Permobil is warning users and distributors to “immediately” discontinue the use of the Max Mobility/Permobil SmartDrive MX2+ wheelchair speed control dial. There’s a risk of faulty electrical connection between the controller and the wheelchair’s motor, potentially causing the device to lose control

Mashup of hospital symbol, stethoscope, IV bag, oxygen tank, and other medical devices on orange background

Recall Roundup: September 2025

One of this month’s recalls gives new meaning to being “cold-blooded.”

 that it had opened two new national security investigations, also known as Section 232 investigations, into personal protective equipment (PPE) and medical items as well as robotics and industrial machinery imports.

These investigations are a signal of possible tariffs on these products, as they ask companies to report how devices and their parts can, among other things, “meet domestic demand.” The probe began on Sept. 2 but wasn’t reported publicly until last week.

 in a Truth Social post 100% tariffs would be coming for certain imported drugs unless parent companies have started building a facility on US soil by Oct. 1. That’s 

 around whether pharmaceutical tariffs were coming and what they would look like. (In August, President Donald Trump 

As of publication, there are no specific tariffs on medtech or pharmaceuticals, though there 

 on goods from China and 20.8% for the rest of the world. Professional supply chain organization the Association for Health Care Resource and Materials Management reported these tariffs could increase hospital expenses “by at least 15%.”

“At the end of the day, tariffs are essentially a tax on fragility. Without smart exemptions and faster investment in domestic capacity, we risk raising today’s prices without actually protecting tomorrow’s supply,” Pankit Bhalodia, partner at consultancy West Monroe, told us in an emailed statement.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the medtech industry have been down so far this year, 

, which found there were 104 transactions in Q2 2025, compared to 128 in Q2 the year prior.

Managing director at PMCF Bryan Hughes told Healthcare Brew this can be connected to tariff-related market “uncertainty.”

“The tariffs have obviously been all over the place, and what we’ve seen is it’s really paused a lot of discussions around potential M&A activity, as well as other investments,” he said.

While Hughes said he’s watching to see how the Section 232 affects the market, he thinks activity will still remain slow amid the uncertainty. Otherwise, he’s keeping an eye on products like gloves, masks, and gauze, which are 

“I don’t think anyone knows what’s going to happen with tariffs,” he said, but there’s “much less room to absorb some of that cost pressure” from PPE used every day compared to medical devices.

These incoming pharmaceutical tariffs could impact $229 billion in drug imports to the US, the 

Big biotech companies like Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, and GSK are dealing with tariffs by announcing new investments in US manufacturing facilities. Pfizer also 

 with the Trump administration on Sept. 30 to offer discounted drugs in exchange for waived tariffs for three years, so long as the pharma company continues to manufacture in the US.

But Bhalodia said reshoring a facility is a long process. Getting FDA validation for a new drug facility can be “multiyear efforts,” and the benefits “won’t be immediate,” he said.

Bhalodia expects prices for branded medicines will be impacted by tariffs but not as much as generic drugs, which he said will be hit harder. He predicts more market consolidation and M&A as a result.

“Any incremental tariff [for generics] could have a very immediate effect. There’s not enough margin to absorb that kind of shock,” he said.

Otherwise, Bhalodia said he thinks tariffs will drive technology adoption due to the “labor premium” from onshoring.

But, he added, pharmaceuticals “cannot afford to sit back.”

“They should be mapping where tariffs will hit, pressing suppliers to share in the cost burden, building 60 to 90 days of safety stock, and filing for exemptions where possible,” he said.

Cargo container hitting large-scale medical cross symbol.

Medtech, pharma tariffs loom over healthcare industry 

The healthcare industry should start preparing for tariffs, expert says.

It seems like there’s an app for everything these days. You don’t have to leave your house for food, work, or social interaction (though we hope you still do on that last one).Now, we’re getting closer to testing drugs digitally, too.

 in npj Digital Medicine in May that used data from 59,000 Mayo Clinic patients’ 

 (EHRs), combined with computer modeling, to predict whether 17 existing drugs could help treat symptoms of heart failure.

The researchers checked their predictions against existing clinical trial results. They found their digital clinical trials predicted whether or not the drugs could improve several heart failure prognostic markers with about 89% accuracy, according to Nansu Zong, a biomedical informatician at Mayo Clinic and lead author of the study.

Because it uses existing data on real-world outcomes of drugs, an approach like this can’t predict outcomes of drug candidates that haven’t gone to market. But it could one day be a screening tool that helps researchers decide whether to repurpose an existing drug to potentially treat a new disease.

“I don’t think our intention will be to replace the actual clinical trial but to provide some signals so that it will be more effective and more efficient,” Cui Tao, the Nancy Peretsman and Robert Scully chair of the AI and informatics department and VP of Mayo Clinic Platform Informatics, told Healthcare Brew.

The researchers plan to test this model on other health conditions, too, and the “ultimate goal” is to predict how well

drugs will work on a disease, not just whether or not they’ll work, Nansu Zong, a biomedical informatician at Mayo Clinic and lead author of the study, told us. This can help them decide whether a clinical trial will be worth it.

“If you are low risk, low probability to achieve your expectation, maybe you’re going to change your drugs or you’re going to change your trials,” Zong said.

 of studies using observational data to simulate randomized trials, a process called emulation. Randomized clinical trials are considered the most rigorous way to determine a cause-and-effect relationship, but they’re expensive to conduct.

Doing a virtual trial run like this can help save money. The R&D for bringing a new drug to market can cost $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion over an average of 10+ years. R&D for repurposing an existing drug is around $300 million and takes an average of three years, according to a 2024 

 by Duke University research institute the Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy.

Emulation also allows researchers to track real-world drug outcomes after they’re approved and get data from patients typically 

 in clinical trials, like older people, minorities, or people with comorbidities, Tao said.

 According to the study, this research went beyond other clinical trial emulations by incorporating drug-target prediction, an analysis that predicts the probabilities a drug will affect specific genes.

In this case, the researchers predicted the probability each drug would work on genes associated with heart failure.

The researchers found this was a more accurate method than EHR-based emulation alone, which had about 70% predictive accuracy in this study according to Zong. The paper notes, however, “drawing definitive conclusions about the method’s effectiveness at this stage would be premature.”

 The research “offers a great direction for helping to design more targeted trials,” Jimeng Sun, professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s school of computing and data science and co-founder of Keiji AI—a generative AI platform for clinical research—told us.

“I think similar approaches can be expanded to other conditions like 

 if sufficient EHR data can be obtained,” Sun, who was not involved in this study, said.

One limitation, he added, is that outcome measures have to be data EHRs regularly include.

“Diseases with slow progression and without very clear outcome endpoints, like Alzheimer’s, will be difficult to adopt with these approaches,” he said.

The study’s researchers said they want to explore whether advanced simulation methods like AI can allow them to evaluate new, untested drugs as well.

“We are currently investigating the use of advanced simulation technologies to generate synthetic data, which may extend the framework to evaluating new drug candidates,” Zong said.

How Mayo Clinic researchers are using algorithms to predict drug efficacy

The tool may aid the selection of drug candidates in the not-too-distant future.

Nicole Ortiz

Recycling plastics is already difficult for the average household to figure out—so just imagine how tricky it gets at a hospital or other medical facility, where less than 5% of plastic is recycled.

 from London-based sustainability consultancy Systemiq and Bristol-based environmental researcher Eunomia found there are 2.1 million metric tons of single-use plastics used in healthcare across North America and Europe, resulting in 9.3 million metric tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This is an estimated $56 billion in total costs per year, Systemiq partner and plastics lead Yoni Shiran said in an accompanying webinar.

If things remain the same, the researchers estimate this could grow to 2.9+ million metric tons of plastics at $76 billion per year by 2040, a 35% to 40% growth rate.

According to the study, seven categories make up the majority of all plastic waste in healthcare: fluid bags and tubing, gloves, device packaging, rigid devices, PPE, wipes, and pharmaceutical packaging.

“Put simply, without systemic change, the negative impacts of single-use plastics in healthcare will become more severe, will put more pressures on public budgets, on waste streams, and climate outcomes,” Shiran said.

 That being said, Shiran added, there are solutions that won’t negatively impact patient health.

. This economic model calls for keeping products and materials in use through reuse and recycling (or “

” in healthcare) to cut down on excess waste.

By implementing this strategy, the researchers estimate a potential 53% reduction of single-use plastics, a 55% cut in GHG emissions, and a 24% decrease in costs by 2040. For example, Shiran pointed to Chicago-based Northwestern Memorial Hospital, which began recycling nonhazardous IV bags in a recent partnership with manufacturer Baxter International, collecting 170,000+ bags and cutting plastic waste by 6 tons, according to a 2023 Baxter press release.

 To get stakeholders on board, the study outlines a framework for next steps:

Create an environment where behaviors and policies change.

Provide the right data to guide stakeholder investment.

Invest in low-carbon options and circularity projects.

Find proper funding to bring these solutions to fruition.

The report echoes what health sustainability nonprofit Health Care Without Harm said in an April 2024 

 that called for limiting plastic production and eliminating unnecessary plastic use.

“Solutions are possible because technical solutions do exist. It’s about creating the right environment to enable them and to scale,” Shiran said.

“We don’t have to choose between patient safety and sustainability,” he added.

Pile of Microcentrifuge Tubes - Medical Plastic

New study analyzes plastic waste in healthcare, suggests potential solutions

Researchers estimate plastic waste could increase 35%–40% by 2040 if things remain the same.

A new report calls attention to spending in a federal program that requires drugmakers to give discounts to nonprofit hospitals and clinics that treat a large proportion of low-income and uninsured patients.

On Sept. 9, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a 

 program grew an average of 19% annually, ballooning from $6.6 billion in 2010 to $43.9 billion in 2021, according to data from 90% of 50,000 participating facilities.

The report only covered data through 2021, but 340B covered entities purchased a record $66.3 billion in drugs in 2023, per the latest data available from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).

 argue these drug discounts keep them afloat and allow them to pass savings to their low-income patients, Healthcare Brew previously reported. But drug companies and lawmakers have pushed for 

, arguing the program has grown far beyond its intended purpose and some health systems may be abusing it for profit.

About one-third of that growth can be attributed to increased prescriptions of pricey specialty drugs and rising drug costs (spending on brand-name drugs grew an annual average of 4%), the report found.

The CBO thinks the remaining two-thirds can be pinned on three things: the Affordable Care Act, which expanded participation; a 2010 change in guidance that allowed hospitals to contract with more than one off-site pharmacy; and hospitals’ purchase and integration of off-site clinics.

“The largest” of those three factors is the integration of hospitals and off-site clinics like 

 or specialty medicine practices, CBO said. When a hospital acquires an outside clinic, the clinic can start purchasing drugs at 340B prices.

The number of off-site clinics in the program increased from 6,100 in 2013 to 27,700 in 2021, and the share of hospitals with off-site clinics increased from 50% to 76%, according to the CBO report.

 article pointed to nonprofit hospital chains that built satellite clinics in wealthy neighborhoods. The clinics got hefty drug discounts but were miles away from the qualifying 340B hospital.

“In CBO’s assessment, the 340B program encourages behaviors—including the prescription of more and higher-priced drugs, the expansion of services, and the integration of hospitals and offsite clinics—that tend to increase federal spending,” the report reads.

A 2022 analysis in JAMA Network Open found, however, there wasn’t a statistically significant difference between Medicare Part B drug spending between 340B hospitals and others when controlling for differences like patient demographics.

Maureen Testoni, president and CEO of lobbyist group 340B Health, pointed out the CBO’s report itself says evidence is “limited,” and critiqued its methodology.

The report “did not assess the potential costs to the government or taxpayers if 340B were reduced or eliminated,” Testoni told us via email.

Aimee Kuhlman, VP of advocacy and grassroots for the American Hospital Association (AHA), told us the report “doesn’t provide the full picture.” The program “has remained a small share of drug company revenues and has expanded access, allowing more patients to get the care they need when they need it.”

AHA research found the discounts equated to only 7% of drug companies’ US revenues in 2022.

The report comes about a month after the HRSA opened up applications for a pilot program in which, rather than just paying the discounted price, hospitals would pay the full price up front and receive a rebate from manufacturers afterward.

A map of the United States of America with a large pill on top of it with a price tag that reads $$$