Trending News Today: Advisory Panel Recommends Depression Drug for Approval

On Tuesday, the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson won endorsement from an independent advisory committee convened by the FDA for its depression treatment esketamine, Janssen announced in a press release. According to Janssen, the panel voted 14 to 2 to recommend the drug for approval. Esketamine, which is delivered in a nasal spray, is a novel type of rapid-acting treatment that is related to the anesthetic ketamine, the press release noted. If approved, it would be the first major depression treatment approved in decades.

A new study found that approximately 45% of Americans under the age of 65 who have heart disease experience financial hardships from medical costs, Reuters reported. According to the article, the researchers studied data from 2013 to 2017 on 6160 adults under 65 with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Additionally, the study showed that almost 1 in 5 of them can’t afford to pay their medical bills at all, the article reported.

Advances in breast cancer treatment and greater usage of preventive screening measures have averted as many as 614,500 breast cancer deaths since 1989, The American Journal of Managed Care reported. According to the article, the study researchers observed that breast cancer mortality rates began to decrease 1.8% per year from 1990 to 1995, 3.4% from 1995 to 1998, and 1.8% from 1998 to 2015. Cumulatively, breast cancer mortality rates among women between the ages of 40 and 84 dropped by 41.6% from 1989 to 2015, the article reported.