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Certain cystic-fibrosis patients will now have an FDA-approved treatment that targets an underlying cause of their disease.

But that drug — Kalydeco, from Vertex Pharmaceuticals — won’t come cheap.

As Dow Jones Newswires reports, the annual cost will be $294,000. Vertex has set up a patient-assistance program to help patients pay for the treatment.

Bydureon, the once-weekly injection for treating patients with type 2 diabetes, has finally won the FDA’s okay.

As Dow Jones Newswires reports, it’s been a long, bumpy road to approval for the drug’s developer, Amylin Pharmaceuticals.

(Alkermes is behind the extended-release technology used to deliver the drug, a longer-acting version of Amylin’s twice-daily Byetta.)

Plan B became the week’s big health story when, as the WSJ reported, the head of HHS overruled the FDA and blocked the emergency contraceptive pill from being made available to teens under 17 without a prescription.

President Obama joined the fray yesterday, when he said he didn’t influence HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s decision, but agreed with it. (We heard from plenty of you when we asked whether Sebelius was right.)

Here are answers to some basic questions about Plan B.

When we wrote back in 2008 that Lipitor would face generic competition on Nov. 30, 2011, that date seemed a long way off. Now, it’s imminent.

The Food and Drug Administration’s decision to revoke approval of Roche’s Avastin for advanced breast cancer is likely to curtail use of the $6 billion-a-year drug for such patients. But it’s not likely to put an end to prescribing.

Today’s action doesn’t affect the drug’s other approved uses, which include certain types of colon, lung, kidney and brain cancers, the FDA said. And physicians are free to prescribe an approved drug for any use they see fit.

Human Cells, Rodent Brains: Research published in Nature describes how scientists treated Parkinson’s disease in mice and rats by converting human embryonic stem cells into nerve cells that released the neurotransmitter dopamine, then transplanting the cells into the rodents’ brains, the WSJ reports. Further animal studies are necessary before the technique could be tested in humans, the paper says.

In an interview with WSJ’s Dennis Berman, GlaxoSmithKline CEO Andrew Witty discusses why the drug maker is forgoing profits from the malaria vaccine it’s developing for children in Africa-and why he believes his company has a soul.

Here is the original:  Does a Company Have a Soul?/a>

At first blush, Washington’s tough talk about fiscal austerity doesn’t look good for drug makers. Government programs including Medicare and Medicaid spend $99 billion each year on prescription medicines, according to Washington consulting firm Avalere Health, making for a ripe cost-cutting target.

Ask anyone who’s spent time in the hospital — patients get a lot of blood taken over the course of their stay.