Health CEOs hauled in $4 billion as inflation pinched workers

"This is the bitter fruit that we reap from telling the health care industry to act more like a business," said Harvard's John McDonough.

August 17, 2023 Check out STAT+

Sponsored By

By Elizabeth Cooney Reporter, Morning Rounds Writer

Good morning. In what was otherwise a rough patch for the economy, the CEOs of more than 300 publicly traded health care companies combined to make $4 billion in 2022. We know that thanks to a STAT team specializing in biotech, business, health tech, and data analysis who pored over financial filings for today's special report.

special report Health care CEO compensation hit $4 billion while inflation squeezed the rest of us Even though 2022 was a bad year for inflation-pinched consumers and the stock market overall, health care stocks fell significantly less than others. That translated into a combined $4 billion in compensation for CEOs heading more than 300 publicly traded health care companies, according to a STAT analysis. Mind you, that's down 11% from the $4.5 billion recorded in 2021. But health care still rewarded its leaders handsomely while ordinary people struggled to afford food, housing — and health care. "No matter how you slice it, the people at the top … are making enormous gains every year compared to ordinary Americans," said Harvard's John McDonough. "This is the bitter fruit that we reap from telling the health care industry to act more like a business." Read more, for more graphics to explore and for nuggets like these: The median CEO bonus was around $700,000 — nearly 10 times the median household income.   reproductive health Appeals court upholds limits to the abortion pill  In yet another legal twist in the post-Roe era, a federal court yesterday restricted access to the abortion pill mifepristone but did not remove it from the market entirely, partially upholding a lower court's decision. The ruling from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would effectively block mail-order prescriptions of the pill, but owing to an emergency order issued by the U.S. Supreme Court in the spring, access will remain unchanged while the case goes through the appeals process. In the case in question, likely headed to the Supreme Court, a Texas judge ordered the pill off the market entirely, siding with plaintiffs who argued the FDA had acted hastily when reviewing the drug. Yesterday's ruling reverses that order but keeps a limit on sending mifepristone through the mail, which first became commonplace during the pandemic and the FDA in December 2021 made the change permanent. STAT's Sarah Owermohle has more. drug development FDA approves first drug for ultra-rare bone disease On Monday we told you about patients' hopes that the FDA would approve a drug to slow their ultra-rare disease. Yesterday the agency voted in favor of the first treatment for fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, in which rigid bone grows where it shouldn't. The medication, to be marketed as Sohonos, faced questions about its data quality. European regulators rejected it earlier this year, but Canada approved it last year. The FDA concluded that Sohonos' benefits outweigh its risks. The disease develops from a mutation to the gene ALK-2, which regulates bone growth. When it's overactive, the body produces the wrong proteins for the wrong cells, forming cartilage that hardens into unwanted bone. Most patients are in wheelchairs by 25; only some live into their 50s. Sohonos is designed to interrupt the formation of cartilage before it can twist into new bone. STAT's Andrew Joseph and Damian Garde have more.

---

---

Closer Look Soon after childbirth, a rare condition appeared Do you love a medical mystery? Especially one with a happy ending? STAT's Annalisa Merelli brings us a NEJM case study describing a woman who became seriously ill after giving birth to twins. She'd hemorrhaged during childbirth, so she'd received a blood transfusion. Twelve days after delivery, she had a high fever and was treated with antibiotics. No better, she was admitted to the hospital with falling levels of red and white blood cells as well as platelets, plus a full-body rash, mouth and vaginal sores, and severe diarrhea. Tests ruled out infections and rheumatologic disease. What if her transfusion sparked graft-versus-host disease, her medical team asked. They were close. That condition is more common after bone marrow or stem-cell transplants, in which the donor's T cells attack the recipient's body. But tests revealed the source of third-party DNA wasn't the blood donor, but (spoiler alert) her twins. Read more for the solution and lessons learned. in the lab A genetic deletion in schizophrenia is linked to problems in mitochondria It's no secret that schizophrenia is a heritable disorder, but its complex, multiple-gene nature has made it challenging to understand. More than a decade ago when she was a grad student, Jennifer Mulle was studying a region of chromosome 3, where, if a person has just one copy of DNA, their susceptibility to schizophrenia and other neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders soars. The rare 3q29 deletion is tied to at least a 40-fold increase in the risk of developing schizophrenia. That makes it the strongest identified single genetic risk factor for the polygenic disease. Now at Rutgers, Mulle concludes in a new Science Advances paper that mitochondrial regulation is disrupted in brain cells with 3q29 deletion, but it doesn't give a mechanism for how the malfunctioning in the cell's powerhouse might lead to schizophrenia or other conditions. That's where the research is headed next. STAT's Isabella Cueto has more. reproductive health Adding anti-inflammatory med to morning-after pill improves effectiveness, study suggests Given greater restriction in the U.S. on abortion, renewed attention is being paid to contraception, including morning-after pills. A new study in The Lancet shows how a common emergency contraceptive pill was more effective at preventing pregnancy when combined with an anti-inflammatory medication usually prescribed for arthritis pain. The randomized clinical trial studied 860 women at a Hong Kong clinic who requested emergency contraception within 72 hours after unprotected sex. Half took the levonorgestrel emergency contraceptive pill with the NSAID piroxicam and half took the contraceptive pill with a placebo. After two weeks, one woman in the levonorgestrel-piroxicam group became pregnant while seven in the control group did, for an effectiveness rate of 95% for the two-pill regimen and 63% for levonorgestrel and placebo, based on an estimated pregnancy rate without contraception of 4.5%. The authors speculate that piroxicam may block the ovulatory process and also prevent embryo implantation.

---

More around STAT

Check out more exclusive coverage with a STAT+ subscription Read premium in-depth biotech, pharma, policy, and life science coverage and analysis with all of our STAT+ articles.

---

What we're reading Pig kidney works in a donated body for over a month, a step toward animal-human transplants, Associated Press Cancer among younger Americans is on the rise, new study shows, Washington Post The latest recall of Philips ventilators reveals one death, two injuries, STAT One family's toxic train wreck ordeal: illness, exile and debt, New York Times In a rare move, FDA threatens to fine a company for failing to report clinical trial results, STAT

---

Thanks for reading! More tomorrow,

elizabeth.cooney@statnews.com

---

Enjoying Morning Rounds? Tell us about your experience Continue reading the latest health & science news with the STAT app Download on the App Store or get it on Google Play

STAT, 1 Exchange Place, Boston, MA ©2023, All Rights Reserved. I no longer wish to receive STAT emails

Update Newsletter Preferences     •    Contact Us     •    Advertise with Us     •    View in Browser