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The FDA raised safety concerns about the popular class of cholesterol-fighting drugs. The drugs have been taken for years by tens of millions of people and include brand names such as Lipitor and Crestor. Ron Winslow reports on the News Hub. Photo: Getty Images.

Here is the original post: FDA Warns on Statin Drugs/a>

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.)

What’s standing in the way of the wider spread of health IT?

Plenty of things, according to a new report from the Bipartisan Policy Center. The report says boosting use of electronic medical records and other health IT “enjoys bipartisan support.” It’s also being pushed by billions of dollars in government incentives.

Central to the drug-shortage issue is a chicken-and-egg question that often leaves legislators scratching their heads at congressional hearings.

Chicken: Are the shortages of crucial drugs caused by factory flaws and shutdowns? Or egg: Are shortages somehow caused by economics, like the thin profit margins of generic drugs?

A federal report to be released Thursday comes down with both feet in the chicken camp.

The good news for Teva: the FDA agreed with the pharma company that Plan B One-Step, a pill intended to prevent potential implantation of a fertilized egg, should be sold over the counter and without a prescription to teens younger than 17.

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.