Month: August 2014

(Reuters) – Express Scripts Holding Co, the largest U.S. pharmacy benefit manager, on Friday said it will remove 25 products from its 2015 list of preferred drugs, including anemia treatments Epogen and Aranesp, both sold by Amgen Inc. The company will continue to include Procrit, a similar anemia drug sold by Johnson & Johnson, on its list of preferred drugs, or formulary. “The products we have chosen to exclude from our formulary are those that cost significantly more than other available options but that fail to provide additional health benefit,” the company said in an emailed statement.

CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — An Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 700 people in West Africa is moving faster than efforts to control the disease, the head of the World Health Organization warned as presidents from the affected countries met Friday in Guinea's capital.

Two Americans infected with Ebola in West Africa will be evacuated back to the United States in the coming days to be cared for in strict isolation, officials said Friday. Kent Brantly, a doctor who was treating Ebola patients in Liberia, and Christian missionary worker Nancy Writebol, are being flown home, but it was not immediately clear when they would arrive back in the US. Meanwhile US President Barack Obama said that delegates from Ebola-hit countries attending a US-Africa summit next week in Washington and who may have been exposed to the deadly virus would be screened before leaving their countries. The World Health Organization said the fast-moving outbreak was causing "catastrophic" loss of life in the affected countries of Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

Two Americans seriously ill with the deadly Ebola virus should arrive in the U.S. from West Africa by early next week.

CDC to send 50 medical experts to infected areas.