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 action is intended to build upon the existing program for Medicare drug price negotiations, which was created by the Inflation Reduction Act that passed during the Biden administration. -
With no help from the federal government, states are trying to regulate recreational marijuana. California's Department of Cannabis Control works to keep contaminants out of joints, vapes and edibles. -
On its last weekday in power, the Biden Administration has chosen the next batch of drugs up for price negotiation in Medicare. -
The pharmaceutical companies behind Ozempic, Wegovy and other weight-loss meds push to prevent compounding pharmacies from making cheaper copies. They argue they can keep up with demand on their own. -
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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Drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro are in such high demand that many patients with Type 2 diabetes can't get them when they need them. -
After a 2022 law lifted the ban on Medicare negotiating drug prices, the government is in talks to lower prices on 10 medicines that cost the program billions of dollars a year. How's it going?
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When Thorsten Siess was in graduate school, he came up with the idea for a heart device that's now been used in hundreds of thousands of patients around the world. -
A popular asthma inhaler is being discontinued. Although there is a generic version, the switch could lead to disruptions in care because not all insurance companies are covering it.
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The National Institutes of Health has been reluctant to use its leverage as a biomedical research funder to influence drug pricing. Sen. Bernie Sanders is pressing NIH's new director to take action.
