Madlin Mekelburg

Newly approved drugs to lower cholesterol are priced much too high, according to the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review.

The Dallas-Fort Worth market, traditionally a high cost area for medical procedures, is home to a number of Affordable Care Organizations that achieved significant savings for Medicare and generated incentives for themselves, according to recent federal data.

Federal funding for biomedical research has fallen 22 percent since 2003, dramatically slowing the pace of development for new drugs and treatments.

The rate of increase in drug prices has slowed as insurers and others use a variety of tactics to negotiate lower prices for consumers.

Competitive recruiting among medical schools has launched “a boom in academic poaching” to lure — or retain — top scientists.

In this week’s Q&A, we interview Andrew Lee, director of the new Texas Center for Proton Therapy in Dallas.

A new study has sparked interest and concern among physicians, as it appears to show that a precursor of the protein that triggers Alzheimer’s disease can be transmitted from one person to another under certain conditions.