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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COVID-19 has led to the suspension of many clinical studies of experimental treatments. About a quarter of the stopped trials involved new cancer treatments, an NPR analysis finds. -
Fifteen percent of hospital pharmacists who prepare injectable drugs are going without the protective masks they typically rely on, or are using substitutes for the masks. -
In China, drug manufacturers are getting back to work. But supply chain disruptions could still lead to drug shortages down the road. -
Two nearly identical drug implants have very different prices. The one for kids has a list price of $37,300. For adults, it's $4,400. A dad fought for his daughter to be able to get the cheaper drug. -
Drugs to treat multiple sclerosis can run $70,000 a year or more. Patients hoped competition from a generic version of one of the most popular brands would spur relief, but prices went up. Here's why. -
Changes in the way the Food and Drug Administration reviews new medicines means that there are more cures and treatments on the market. But there's also less proof the drugs are safe and effective. -
The federal government is taking action to pull many flavored products popular with kids off the market. Public health advocates say the move doesn't go far enough. -
Nearly 1 in 4 Americans has trouble affording prescription drugs, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Over the past decade, high prices of several medicines have become flashpoints. -
The Government Accountability Office found breakdowns in the way the Food and Drug Administration evaluates drugs for rare diseases. The analysis came after an investigation by Kaiser Health News. -
Drugmakers have brought almost 450 orphan drugs to market and collected rich incentives by doing so. But nearly a third of the medicines aren't new or were repurposed many times for financial gain.
