Health Product Manufacturers and Innovators COVID-19 Impact Assessment: Lessons Learned and Compelling Needs

United States health care spending consumes nearly a fifth of the GDP [1]. While, in many respects, the U.S. health care system is enviable and highly innovative, it is also characterized by elements of ineffectiveness, inefficiency, and inequity. These aspects, resulting from pre-existing vulnerabilities within the system and interactions between the various stakeholders, were acutely highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As health product manufacturers and innovators (HPMI) took steps to mitigate the immediate crisis and simultaneously begin to develop a longer-term sustainable solution, six common themes arose as areas for transformational change: support for science, data sharing, supply chain resiliency, stockpiling, and surge capacity, regulatory and reimbursement clarity and flexibility, public- and private-sector coordination and communication, and minimizing substandard care offerings. Within these categories, the authors of this paper suggest policy priorities to increase the effectiveness, efficiency, and equity of the HPMI sector and writ large across the U.S. health care system. These priorities call for increased scientific funding to diversify the pipeline for research and development, strengthening the nation’s public health infrastructure, building and maintaining “ever warm” manufacturing capacity and related stockpiles, instituting efficient and effective regulatory and reimbursement frameworks that promote innovation and creativity, devising structures and processes that enable more efficient collaboration and more effective communication to the public, and implementing rewards that incentivize desired behaviors among stakeholders. This assessment draws from the collective experience of the authors to provide a perspective for the diagnostics, hospital supplies and equipment, medical devices, therapeutics, and vaccines segments. While the authors of this paper agree on a common set of key policies, sub-sector-specific nuances are important to consider when putting any action priority into effect. With thoughtful implementation, these policies will enable a quicker, more robust response to future pandemics and enhance the overall performance of the U.S. health care system.

The Awareness and Attitudes of the Public toward Complementary and Alternative Treatments

Introduction: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is flourishing very fast and the usage of CAM in health care is quickly evolving. The behavior and attitude of the patients towards herbal medicines represents an important concern for policy makers and for regulators. Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate the pattern of natural products use among the public and the Attitudes towards natural health products in Al-kharj Methodology: This is a cross-sectional study design. A questionnaire was prepared using Google drive tool and used to evaluate the pattern of natural products use among the public and the attitudes towards natural health products in Al-kharj governorate. The survey was filled by 442 participants. Results: Most respondents used a natural health product in the past (only 319 of 442 have been used natural product), the most used products were Vitamins/Minerals (85.57%). Additionally, about 50 % of the respondents agreed that the natural health products are safe because they are made from natural ingredients. The majority of the respondents reported that there isn't enough information on natural health product labels to help them understand the Products. The majority reported that the family and friends were recommended and provided them with the information regarding the use of the natural health product (71.78%). Conclusion: The present study showed that the use of herbal medicine is a common practice. The legislation is recommended to arrange the using of natural health products. The study results would surely require an active role for the Ministry of Health and Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) to insure enough information regard the risks and benefits of NHPs.

Sistem Rekomendasi Pembelian Produk Kesehatan pada E-Commerce ABC berbasis Graph Database Amazon Neptune menggunakan Metode Hybrid Content-Collaborative Filtering

Recommendation System of Health Product Purchasing at ABC E-Commerce System based on Amazon Neptune’s Graph Database using Hybrid ContentCollaborative Filtering Method.Health products purchased by society, either in drugstores or pharmacies may vary according to their needs. ABC e-commerce is a Business to Business (B2B)-based e-commerce owned by PT XYZ. As a health product sales system from distributors to drug stores/pharmacies, they still do not have a health product purchase recommendation system yet. The recommendation system is needed to provide recommendations of health products for the customers. Amazon Neptune is implemented in this research to build a health product recommendation system. The hybrid contentcollaborative filtering method is used to generate complete recommendations based on content attributes and user habits. The datasets were product data, product categories, customers, product principals, and data of products trading. This research produces a health products recommendations model at ABC e-commerce with android based using web services. The implementation can provide recommendations of health products that can be accessed in real-time by customers.Keywords: health products, recommendation systems, graph database, Amazon Neptune, hybrid content-collaborative filteringAbstrak. Produk kesehatan yang dibeli masyarakat, melalui toko obat/apotek, dapat berbeda sesuai kebutuhan. E-commerce ABC berbasis Business to Business (B2B) milik PT XYZ sebagai sistem penjualan produk kesehatan dari distributor kepada toko obat/apotek belum memiliki sistem rekomendasi pembelian produk kesehatan. Sistem rekomendasi sebagai pengembangan fitur e-commerce ABC diperlukan untuk memberikan rekomendasi produk kesehatan yang sesuai dengan keadaan setiap pelanggan. Amazon Neptune sebagai graph database service yang dapat mengelola relasi dalam data yang saling terhubung, digunakan dalam penelitian untuk membangun sistem rekomendasi produk kesehatan. Metode hybrid content-collaborative filtering digunakan untuk menghasilkan rekomendasi yang lengkap berdasarkan atribut konten dan kebiasaan pengguna. Dataset yang digunakan meliputi data produk, kategori produk, pelanggan, principal, serta data jual-beli produk di e-commerce ABC. Penelitian ini menghasilkan model rekomendasi produk kesehatan yang diimplementasikan pada e-commerce ABC berbasis Android menggunakan web service. Implementasi tersebut memberikan rekomendasi produk kesehatan yang dapat diakses secara real-time oleh pelanggan pada saat menggunakan ecommerce ABC.Kata Kunci: produk kesehatan, sistem rekomendasi, graph database, Amazon Neptune, hybrid content-collaborative filtering

Development and Characterization of Oral Mucuna pruriens Seed Extract Jelly

The objective of this research was to develop Mucuna pruriens jelly formula to be suitable and easily edible for Parkinson’s patients. The recipe of jelly consisted of M. pruriens seed dry extract as an active ingredient, gelatin, glycerin, citric acid, sodium benzoate, steviol, coffee flavor, and purified water. The jelly was analyzed for physical and chemical characteristics by microscopy and UV-Vis spectrophotometry. It was found that pH of the M. pruriens jelly was 4.77. The microscopic characteristics showed that the jelly texture had a consistent distribution of various components (2.53 particles/cm2), with different particles sizes. The observation of the physical macroscopic characteristics found that M. pruriens jelly had dark brown color, smooth surface, and elastic texture, hence suitable for consumption. The analysis of physical stability by observing the changes of appearance with naked eyes for 4 weeks at 30 °C and 4 °C showed that M. pruriens jelly had physical stability at 4 °C better than at 30 °C. The chemical analysis of L-dopa by UV-Vis spectrophotometry revealed that M. pruriens jelly contained a sufficient amount of L-dopa i.e. 542 mg/piece. This research could be developed to be a health product for Parkinson’s patients by taking 2 pieces per day in the morning since the therapeutic dose for Parkinson’s disease is 1000 mg of L-dopa total/day (single dose in the morning).

Do the prices of a preventive animal health product affect dairy farmers’ willingness to pay and product use? Evidence from an experimental study

Should we distribute preventive animal health products for free or charge a positive price? The decision depends on the price sensitivity of the product and the effect prices have on product use. We explore this idea through a field experiment in which we randomize the price a farmer faces for an animal health product. We find that the demand for the product is highly sensitive to prices; willingness to pay (WTP) decreased from 44% at ₹ 100 to 18% at ₹ 500. Further, among farmers who were willing to pay, the product usage rate was 71% and usage did not increase in prices (lack of screening effect). Furthermore, we find that farmers whose animals were sick in the baseline had a higher WTP. These findings support the human capital model relating to demand for human health products. We argue that individuals behave in a similar way when the decisions concern their own health or the health of an animal they rear for commercial purposes. A highly subsidized distribution of the product is recommended due to high price sensitivity, lack of screening effect, equitable distribution among poor and lesser implementation costs found in this study.

A Review: Underutilized plant of Sabah and Its Potential Value

Underutilized plants are referred to a plant species which their potential is not fully utilized yet and they are usually found abundantly in certain local area but globally rare. Sabah is known for a high biodiversity and contains many underutilized plants. To our knowledge, this is the first review is to provide an overview information of medicinal value and pharmacological properties of underutilized plant in Sabah. Extract and metabolites in different part of several underutilized plant contains multiple beneficial bioactive compounds and exploitation of these compounds was supported by additional data which plays various biological activities including anti-atherosclerotic, anti-cancer, antihypercholesterolemic and anti-ulcerogenic. A handful of pharmacological studies on the natural product these underutilized plants have conclusively outlined the mode of action in treatment of several diseases and in other health aspects. This paper limits its scope to reviewe and highlight the potential of using underutilized plants in Sabah only which could serve as reliable resource for health product development in pharmaceutical and nutraceutical through continuous discovering of more active and sustainable resources as well as ingredients for food and medicine.