Sir Mark Walport, Chief Executive of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the national funding agency responsible for science and research investment in the UK, has announced he is to retire for the role next year.

The decision to leave the organisation in 2020 will mark the end of a three-year tenure at its helm, beginning in 2017 when Walport was appointed to “create a single, ambitious organisation and provide the UK with a world class funding system to keep it at the forefront of global research and innovation”.

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StrideBio have announced the appointment of Maritza McIntyre Ph.D., as its first Chief Development Officer.

The newly created role will see Dr McIntyre oversea the translational development of the company’s research-stage gene therapy programs. This includes regulatory filings, initiating early clinical studies and starting Investigational New Drug enabling preclinical studies.

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The results, if they hold up, are likely to result in many patients getting the medicine, and could upend decades of orthodoxy among cardiologists.

First, let me say thank you to all of the healthcare workers who are putting themselves at risk during this crisis.

As I noted last week, many of the crucial issues for our healthcare system will remain after we all get through this challenging period. In that regard, here’s a look at some noteworthy news from the past month:

• Sanofi discloses new data about insulin prices

• Excellent new academic research on list vs. net drug prices

• Three notable researchers overturn their earlier research on drug costs

• Amazon switches PBM vendors for some of its employees

Plus, we unveil the teaser trailer for Drug Channels Video!

P.S. Join the more than 9,000 followers of my daily links to neat stuff at @DrugChannels on Twitter. My recent tweets have highlighted such topics as:

• How GoodRx shares patients’ prescription data
• 2019 drug trend at Prime Therapeutics
• Controversy about the independent pharmacy market
• A new $5 generic mail order program, Medicare Part D reform
• Retail pharmacy’s future
• Job openings at Amazon 
• Frozen cookie dough
• And much more!

I have also been tweeting many under-the-radar stories about how the coronavirus affects drug channels.
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This week, I’m rerunning some popular posts while I prepare for this Friday’s video webinar: Industry Update and COVID-19 Impact: PBMs & Payers.

I suspect this deal will remain profitable for the participating companies even as COVID-19 alters the US. prescription payer mix. Click here to see the original post and comments from January 2020. National market shares for the largest PBMs in 2019 appears as Exhibit 88 of our 2020 Economic Report on U.S. Pharmacies and Pharmacy Benefit Managers.

P.S. Sorry that today's meme is one day too late for Star Wars day.

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Just before the holidays, Cigna’s Express Scripts business announced a market-changing deal with Prime Therapeutics. Click here to read the press release.

There's been very little written about this transaction, though it has potentially major implications. Below, I share my thoughts on the following topics arising from the deal:

• Implications for manufacturers and pharmacies

• The role of the secretive Ascent Health Services

• What this all means for Walgreens

• Why the Federal Trade Commission won’t challenge the deal

A few weeks ago, I explained why integrated insurer / PBM / specialty pharmacy / provider organizations are poised to restructure U.S. drug channels. The Express Scripts / Prime deal signals that the channel will continue its amazing pace of reinvention.

The scale, scope, and interconnectedness of today’s market participants make the system increasingly resistant to massive disruption from either external players like Amazon or a government takeover. Like it or not, the channel will continue to gain power and extract profit. Read on and see if you agree.
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Rigorous new studies should be able to settle the matter

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

Employee safety and business continuity are top priorities / Wide-ranging humanitarian and social engagement / Group sales increase by 6.0 percent (Fx & portfolio adj.) to 12.845 billion euros / EBITDA before special items up by 10.2 percent to 4.391 billion euros / All divisions report higher sales and earnings – strong demand at Consumer Health / Net income advances by 20.0 percent to 1.489 billion euros / Core earnings per share increase by 9.9 percent to 2.67 euros / Outlook for 2020: impact of COVID-19 not yet reliably quantifiable

Investors shrug off US growth gloom after promising data from remdesivir drug trial

• Coronavirus – latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

Shares have soared on the world’s stock markets after investors shrugged off a deep slump in the US economy and pinned their hopes on a possible breakthrough in treatment for Covid-19.

Despite news that the longest expansion in US history came to an abrupt end in the first three months of 2020, financial markets were buoyed by an update from the American biopharma company Gilead Sciences on its experimental drug remdesivir.

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With substandard medicines already in wide circulation, fears are growing that coronavirus could create a lethal ‘parallel crisis’

When Joana Opoku-Darko’s daughter Anna was 18 months old, she came down with malaria, a disease common in Ghana and especially deadly for children.

She bought medication from a pharmacy in Ghana’s capital, Accra; when Anna’s fever didn’t subside she took her to a hospital, where they ran some tests.

The current focus on curbing Covid-19 spread means there is less focus on routine market surveillance

Related: Fight the fakes: how to beat the $200bn medicine counterfeiters | Helen Lock

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Danish drugmaker Acesion Pharma, which is focused on novel treatments for atrial fibrillation (AF), has…

COVID-19 is having varying effects on different markets within healthcare, with drug delivery systems…

AstraZeneca has watched superstar SGLT2 diabetes med Farxiga nail trial after trial in highly coveted kidney and heart failure indications, with the FDA expediting reviews to back them up. The one thing AstraZeneca was missing? The agency taking Farxiga across the finish line. 

Slovakia on Friday recorded no new cases of coronavirus for the first time since March 10, government figures showed.

Timothy Oldani, 24, of Scott Depot, W.Va., and Joseph Oldani, 21, of Camp Lejeune, N.C., both pleaded guilty today in the Southern District of West Virginia to conspiring to steal military optics from the U.S. Marine Corps and illegally export them from the United States.

Five St. Mary’s County, Md., commercial fisherman pleaded guilty today to illegally overfishing striped bass also known as rockfish.

Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, 43, has been released from detention by the Secretary of Defense and is now in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service. He is scheduled to make his initial court appearance today.

A federal judge in Corpus Christi, Texas, has sentenced General Maritime Management (Portugal), the operator of a fleet of tanker vessels, and two crewmembers of the motor tanker Genmar Defiance for making false statements to the U.S. Coast Guard and failing to maintain an accurate Oil Record Book designed to prevent pollution of the world’s oceans as required by United States and international law.

A stock trader from Jupiter, Fla., pleaded guilty today to engaging in a market manipulation scheme involving several publicly traded companies. Earlier today, Paul M. Gozzo, 33, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Donald L. Graham in Miami to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and one count of securities fraud.

Tax return preparer Lawrence Sperling pleaded guilty today to aiding in the preparation of false tax returns. Sperling was scheduled to begin trial on April 14, 2009 before Judge Deborah Chasanow in Greenbelt, Md. According to the indictment and the plea agreement, Sperling knowingly prepared tax returns for his clients that contained false and fraudulent items, including inflated medial expenses, charitable contributions, miscellaneous employment-related expenses, and child care credits.

Thomas L. Hallock, a commercial fisherman licensed in Maryland, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md., to 12 months in prison, for illegally overfishing striped bass also known as rockfish. He was also fined $4,000 and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $40,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to the benefit of the Chesapeake Bay Striped Bass Restoration Account.

The Department filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Baltimore alleging that the city of Baltimore’s zoning code discriminates against individuals with disabilities by requiring substance abuse treatment facilities to go through a burdensome “conditional ordinance” zoning process in order to locate in any zone.

William Michael King, a fifty-year-old truck driver from Maryland, pleaded guilty today to assault and violating the civil rights of an African American man he encountered while King delivered construction materials to the Pentagon.

STX Pan Ocean Co. Ltd. (STX), headquartered in Seoul, Korea, and the owner of the commercial cargo ship, M/V Ocean Jade, pleaded guilty today to conspiracy as well as falsifying and failing to properly maintain records meant to ensure compliance with maritime pollution laws. The chief engineer of the M/V Ocean Jade, Hong Hak Kang, a Korean citizen, also pleaded guilty today to failing to maintain environmental records and making false statements.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Benjamin Bates pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of obstructing justice today in federal court in San Antonio for tampering with a witness he was transporting to the grand jury to testify about civil rights abuses at the Bexar County Adult Detention Center in Texas.

"Graduates, as you dive head first toward tomorrow, I call upon you to never loosen nor lose your grip on hope. The optimism that seems to come naturally with youth need not be lost as the years pass."

The Department has filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Arkansas against the City of Marion alleging it subjected Stacy D. Allen, an African-American and a former City part-time patrol officer, to discrimination on the basis of his race when he was not selected for either of two full-time patrol officer positions in the Marion Police Department.

The owner of a Costa Rica-based telemarketing call center and two employees of another Costa Rica call center were sentenced for their roles in schemes that targeted and defrauded thousands of American victims of more than $10 million.

The Department filed suit against California mortgage lender Capmark Finance Inc., charging that Capmark violated the False Claims Act by making false statements on applications for federal mortgage insurance covering residential nursing homes.

Following a four-day trial and less than an hour of deliberations, a federal jury today convicted tax return preparer, Marcel J. Toto-Ngosso, of Silver Spring, Md., of 17 counts of preparing false tax returns in connection with a scheme to generate fraudulent tax refunds for client-taxpayers.

Two Baltimore businessmen were indicted today for conspiring to rig bids at tax lien auctions in Maryland for more than five years. The one-count felony indictment filed today in the U.S. District Court in Baltimore alleges that Harvey M. Nusbaum and his business partner, Jack W. Stollof, participated in a conspiracy to rig bids in tax lien auctions conducted by the city of Baltimore and various counties in the state of Maryland beginning in or around the Spring of 2002 and continuing until at least Aug. 9, 2007.

The Department has entered into a consent decree with the city of Marion, Ala., that, if approved by the U.S. District Court in Mobile, Ala., will resolve the Department’s lawsuit filed against Marion on behalf of Cynthia Y. Davis, a member of the state’s Army National Guard.

There is no tension between a sentencing scheme that is effective and fair and one that is tough and equitable. We must work toward these twin goals and we must do so now.

The chief executive officer of a former Virginia marine products company pleaded guilty and has agreed to pay a $100,000 criminal fine and serve time in jail for his role in a conspiracy to rig bids and allocate customers with respect to marine products purchased by the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard, and other public and private entities.

Defendant Paul Raymond Green was sentenced late last week to 52 months in prison and three years of supervised release for his role in a scheme to prostitute minor females. Green, 23, previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking.

Four owners of Costa Rica-based telemarketing call centers, an employee and a Texas-based list broker have been sentenced for their roles in defrauding thousands of U.S. victims of more than $20 million through a phony sweepstakes scheme.

Marcel J. Toto-Ngosso of Silver Spring, Md., was sentenced to 70 months in prison today for preparing and filing false tax returns in connection with a scheme to generate fraudulent tax refunds for his clients.

“It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana, but we will not tolerate drug traffickers who hide behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal,” Holder said.

A Maryland scientist who once worked for the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been arrested for attempted espionage

The department has reached a settlement with the city of Marion, Ark., that, if approved by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, will resolve the department’s lawsuit against the city alleging race discrimination in employment in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended.

Two Chicago men have been arrested on federal charges for their alleged roles in conspiracies to provide material support and/or to commit terrorist acts against overseas targets.

"We must be open to new ideas and new approaches. We must learn from each other what has worked – and what has not. We must acknowledge the cultural diversity among tribal communities and embrace the challenge of providing services that are culturally and linguistically tailored. We must dare to think differently."

Two companies and the city of St. Maries, Idaho, have agreed to clean up a superfund site in St. Maries at a cost estimated more than $12 million.

Charles Paul Edward Jumet of Fluvanna County, Va., pleaded guilty today in connection with his role in a conspiracy to pay bribes to Panamanian government officials to secure a maritime contract.

"I’m honored to participate in ALPACT’s first annual banquet, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to discuss an issue that I care about deeply – fostering collaboration between law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve," said Attorney General Holder.

A Chicago man who was arrested in October for planning terrorist attacks against a Danish newspaper and two of its employees is alleged to have also conducted extensive surveillance of targets in Mumbai for more than two years preceding the November 2008 terrorist attack on India’s largest city that killed approximately 170 people, including six Americans, and injured hundreds more.

A federal grand jury has charged a Virginia Beach, Va., resident with conspiracy to pay bribes to former Panamanian government officials to secure maritime contracts.

"Anyone we find responsible for this alleged attack will be brought to justice using every tool -- military or judicial -- available to our government.”

A federal grand jury today returned a superseding indictment adding three defendants, including Tahawwur Rana, to charges filed last month against David Coleman Headley, alleging that they and others participated in conspiracies involving a planned terrorist attack against a Danish newspaper and the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, that killed approximately 164 people, including six Americans.

“Each year, Martin Luther King Day provides an opportunity for all Americans to rededicate ourselves to Dr. King’s dream of racial, social, and economic justice," said Attorney General Holder.