Huge budget shortfalls are prompting a handful of states including Washington, Texas and South Carolina to begin discussing a once-unthinkable scenario: dropping out of the Medicaid insurance program for the poor, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Indianapolis drug maker Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE:LLY) has agreed to pay up to $800 million for Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, the Philadelphia developer of a tracing agent that can help diagnose Alzheimer's disease. The tracing agent, florbetapir F 18 -- which last week topped the Cleveland Clinic's Top 10 Medical Innovations list for 2011 -- is coupled with a PET scan to allow doctors to see inside patients' brains to detect beta-amyloid plaques, the tell-tale signature of Alzheimer's.
Health care professionals can refer patients to the best options for diagnostic imaging covered by Medicare to give more people the medical assistance they need without extra financial stress.
A radioactive imaging agent that helps doctors detect Alzheimer's disease took the top spot in Cleveland Clinic's list of the Top 10 Medical Innovations for 2011.