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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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. -
Compounding pharmacies have been allowed to essentially make a cheaper version of Eli Lilly's Zepbound, but they have to stop Wednesday. That has left many patients wondering what to do next. -
Large-scale compounding facilities have to stop making tirzepatide, the main ingredient in blockbuster obesity drug Zepbound, Wednesday.
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Dr. Marty Makary, President Trump's pick to run the Food and Drug Administration, faced questions from the Senate HELP Committee on the abortion pill, vaccines, FDA firings and chemicals in food. -
Eli Lilly is offering vials of its weight-loss drug Zepbound to patients at a discount — but only if they skip their insurance. Novo Nordisk is now discounting Wegovy for cash customers too. -
Dr. Mehmet Oz, nominated to run the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, will sell shares in Eli Lilly and UnitedHealth. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, NIH nominee, will shed stock in Walmart and Nvidia. -
The fired staffers were tasked with making sure medications given to animals work well and are safe. -
A telehealth company partnered with a pharmacy that lacked a required license, raising doubts about the safety and efficacy of the weight-loss medicines it mailed to patients. -
Patients who bought stockpiles of alternative GLP-1 drugs online aren't sure what to do with them after learning that the compounding pharmacy that made them didn't have the right license.
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Millions of Americans use cannabis and would like to think the products they buy are safe. But regulation is state by state and full of holes. NPR's new series digs into the risks and solutions.
