Medicare Eases Proposed Restrictions

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Medicare has eased up on some of its proposed restrictions on the use of popular anemia drugs made by Amgen and Johnson & Johnson, the New york Times reports.


The decision, announced late yesterday, could provide some relief for the two companies, which have already experienced steep drops in sales of the drugs because of concerns that the products might be making cancer worse. The new policy is still expected to curtail use of the drugs, however.


The federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services had proposed in May to sharply limit coverage for the drugs , Aranesp from Amgen and Procrit from Johnson & Johnson. Some analysts had predicted at that time that use of the drugs could be cut by as much as 50 percent.


But in a public comment period that followed, the agency received more than 2,600 comments, many of them from doctors, medical societies and patient groups who said the proposed restrictions went too far, were not based on scientific evidence and would possibly harm patients. That prompted yesterday’s pullback.


Read the full New York Times story

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