A refrigerator-sized machine could someday make lifesaving drugs on site when outbreaks occur or where medicine is in short supply, like on the battlefield.
One man died and five others were injured in a clinical trial in France this year. Trials like those depend on healthy people willing to take experimental medications in return for cash.
In January, one man died and four others sustained brain injuries in the early clinical test of an experimental pain drug. Independent scientists reviewed the study to learn what went wrong.
The shortages for hospital emergency rooms have persisted even after Congress gave the Food and Drug Administration more power in 2012 to respond when drug supplies are low.
Complaints from patient groups and increased regulatory oversight appear to be leading to changes in the way some marketplace health plans cover expensive drugs.
When a special coating was added to the opioid Opana, it deterred people from abusing the pills by crushing and snorting them. But some users soon learned how to prepare the pills for injection.
Prescription painkiller abuse sparked an HIV outbreak in rural Indiana. Kelly McEvers takes NPR's new podcast, Embedded, inside the home where IV drug users meet.
Two academics suggest that loans financed by the private sector could be one way to help patients cover the cost of expensive, curative pharmaceuticals. Think mortgages.
Seconal used to cost less than $200 a bottle. After Valeant Pharmaceuticals bought the medication, the cost rose to $3,000. Advocates for aid in dying say that's a burden for the terminally ill.