Sydney Lupkin
Sydney Lupkin is the pharmaceuticals correspondent for NPR.
She was most recently a correspondent at Kaiser Health News, where she covered drug prices and specialized in data reporting for its enterprise team. She's reported on how tainted drugs can reach consumers, how companies take advantage of rare disease drug rules and how FDA-approved generics often don't make it to market. She's also tracked pharmaceutical dollars to patient advocacy groups and members of Congress. Her work has won the National Press Club's Joan M. Friedenberg Online Journalism Award, the National Institute for Health Care Management's Digital Media Award and a health reporting award from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing.
Lupkin graduated from Boston University. She's also worked for ABC News, VICE News, MedPage Today and The Bay Citizen. Her internship and part-time work includes stints at ProPublica, The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, The New England Center for Investigative Reporting and WCVB.
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The Biden administration is looking to extend Medicare and Medicaid coverage to include obesity drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound. Weight loss drugs are now excluded from mandatory coverage.
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When Hurricane Helene took out a factory making 60% of the country's IV fluids, it caused shortages that have led to canceled surgeries. A look at the effects and prospects for improvement.
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The Biden Administration has proposed a rule to require private health insurance to cover over-the-counter birth control pills, spermicide, condoms and plan B.
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The Biden Administration has proposed a rule to require private health insurance to cover over-the-counter birth control pills, spermicide, condoms and plan B.
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A survey of employers finds that only about a fifth of large companies cover drugs like Wegovy for weight loss. A majority of companies that do cover the medicines have requirements.
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A factory that makes IV fluids was shut down by damage from the remnants of Hurricane Helene that ripped through North Carolina. The facility could be down for months and could lead to shortages.
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The Food and Drug Administration, as expected, approved KarXT, the first new type of drug for schizophrenia in decades. It appears to be effective, but its main advantage is milder side effects.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders questions Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Jorgensen in a hearing on Capitol Hill about the high prices Americans pay for Ozempic and Wegovy compared with people in other countries.
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The Federal Trade Commission said pharmacy benefit managers created a "perverse drug rebate system" that artificially inflated the cost of insulin.
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The Federal Trade Commission alleges that pharmacy benefits managers prioritized high rebates from drug makers for insulin over lower prices for consumers, leading to inflated out-of-pocket costs.