TASK DEFINITION: Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.
PROBLEM: Biotechnology company Alkermes said earlier in the day that it expected Lilly to drop out of their program to develop an inhaled insulin treatment for diabetes, sending Alkermes shares down more than 9 percent. Lilly's decision marks the third setback in recent months for inhaled insulin formulations, once deemed potential blockbuster products because of their greater convenience than standard injectable insulin. Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Alkermes, which makes the alcohol addiction drug Vivitrol, said Lilly has the right to terminate its license to the inhaled treatment, Air Insulin, at its discretion. "While Lilly may elect not to commercialize Air Insulin, Alkermes believes that the phase 3 safety and efficacy trials should be completed," Alkermes said in a statement. After Lilly's announcement, the company said it was evaluating the impact of the termination, which will become effective in 90 days. Indianapolis-based Lilly said its decision was not due to safety concerns, "but rather was a result of increasing uncertainties in the regulatory environment, and a thorough evaluation of the evolving commercial and clinical potential of the product compared to existing medical therapies." Lilly Chief Operating Officer John Lechleiter said in a statement that the company is beginning the process of halting ongoing clinical studies. Lilly said it will record a first-quarter 2008 charge of around $90 million to $120 million, or 5 cents to 7 cents per share. The company said its adjusted earnings per share outlook remains unchanged at $3.85 to $4.00, while net earnings will range from $3.73 to $3.90. Lilly's action comes just five months after Pfizer Inc abandoned Exubera, the first approved inhaled form of insulin, and returned rights to the product to longtime partner Nektar Therapeutics. Exubera had dismal sales because patients were turned off by the clumsy device used to administer the powdered insulin and because doctors were concerned by the drug's tendency to slightly impair lung function. Alkermes Chairman Richard Pops, in an interview with Reuters in October, said Air Insulin may have similar effects on lung function. "We're assuming that pulmonary insulins in that regard are all pretty much the same," he said, although a conclusive picture of Air Insulin's safety will not emerge until two-year safety trials of the product end later this year. A second setback for inhaled insulin came in January, when Novo Nordisk said it was halting development of its AERx product, meant to deliver inhaled droplets. The Danish drugmaker said AERx did not have adequate sales potential, given the limited commercial success seen with Exubera. Morgan Stanley analyst Jami Rubin said on Friday Lilly's abandonment of AIR Insulin made good business sense. "We are not (at) all surprised, and have never been strong advocates of the pulmonary insulin agents, following the poor launch and ultimate demise of Pfizer and Nektar's Exubera and Novo Nordisk's termination of its AERx program," Rubin said in a research note. Rubin said Alkermes, known for its drug-delivery technology, is unlikely to continue development of Air Insulin without Lilly, "given that this represents the third termination of a pulmonary insulin drug." But she said the sharp drop in Alkermes shares represented a buying opportunity for investors because Air Insulin had only paltry sales potential. She said investors should be focused instead on another product Alkermes is developing with Lilly: a long-acting formulation of Lilly's Byetta diabetes treatment called Byetta "We estimate that Byetta LAR could be worth $11 to $12 for the (Alkermes) stock," Ryan said. Alkermes shares fell $1.14 to close at $11.26 on Nasdaq. Lilly, a far larger company with an array of big-selling products, rose 2 cents to end at $49.70 on the New York Stock Exchange, and was slightly lower at $49.67 in after-hours trading.

SOLUTION: Eli Lilly drops inhaled insulin program.

PROBLEM: "Harrowing images of wooden caskets being lowered into mass graves in New York City circulated on social media as the city responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. The images and related video footage are accurate depictions of recent burials on Hart Island in the Long Island Sound. That said, there have been some misconceptions about the mass graves. Posts about the grave site were flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) First, mass burials didn't begin on Hart Island during the COVID-19 pandemic. The city has used the location as a public cemetery for over 150 years, burying unclaimed people and those whose loved ones can't afford private burials. Second, not all locals who die from COVID-19 are being buried there, as some posts have suggested. The site is still designated for deceased people with no known next of kin. But as the city struggles with the mounting death toll amid the pandemic, burials on the island have dramatically increased in recent weeks. There are usually about 25 burials on the island each week, the New York mayor's press secretary Freddie Goldstein told CNN. But that number has climbed to nearly 25 each day. The island's interment operation is managed by the city's Department of Correction, and inmates usually assist in the burials. But that has changed since the pandemic. DOC spokesperson Jason Kersten has said that city inmates are not currently involved with the burials: ""For social distancing and safety reasons, city-sentenced people in custody are not assisting in burials for the duration of the pandemic. Contracted laborers are performing this important work under DOC supervision,"" according to a report by the Gothamist. Bodies are ordinarily held at the city's morgues anywhere from 30 to 60 days, Goldstein said. But to make room for the influx of deceased individuals during the pandemic, the city's medical examiner's office announced a new policy of holding unclaimed bodies for only up to 15 days before they are transferred to the island. New York City's Hart Island has been used as a public cemetery for unclaimed bodies since the 1800s, but the city's staggering death toll amid the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically increased the number of burials on the island. Social media posts about the burials are mostly accurate, but many need additional information."

SOLUTION: Images show COVID-19 victims being buried in mass graves in New York City.

PROBLEM: "Joe Biden berated President Donald Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying in a recent speech in Delaware that Trump failed to take the necessary steps to get the virus under control. Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said the administration stifled and scaled back the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's initial guidelines on reopening the country. ""The CDC tried to develop clear guidelines about what the stages of reopening should look like the administration delayed and scaled them back,"" Biden said June 30. Did they? Here's what we found out. Biden's campaign pointed us to a May 7, 2020, Associated Press report, which found that the Trump administration shelved part of a CDC document that contained step-by-step advice to local authorities on how and when to reopen businesses and public areas amid the pandemic. The 68-page CDC report, titled ""Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework,"" was supposed to publish on May 1, according to the AP, but the White House called it ""too prescriptive."" The White House told the agency revise its guide because it didn't align with Trump's strategy of giving states the final say. The CDC released the approved 62-page report on May 20. (Some sections were released a few days earlier.) While it's slightly shorter than the original, it still provides a detailed reopening roadmap for schools, camps, restaurants, child care facilities and transit organizations. In a May 8 press briefing, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany countered that the CDC guidelines weren't ready and said that a rogue employee leaked a draft that was still in the editing process. After the final guidelines were released, she was asked in another briefing why Trump didn't make an announcement. McEnany said that sections of the document were already out and different appendixes had to be discussed first. ""The 60-page document was merely an aggregation of a lot of what was already out there, so it's not as if this was new information that we were announcing, but it was more guidance pursuant to our 'reopening of America' guidance that was issued several weeks ago,"" McEnany said. The CDC also said the guidelines are meant to be taken together with the White House's reopening guidance issued on April 17, 2020. But the White House version makes clear reopening decisions are up to state and local officials, while the CDC's version includes more details, such as recommendations to help businesses decide when to shut down in the case of future outbreaks. The original plan also included instructions for faith-based organizations, which were stripped out of the final version. CNN reported that this section was one of the main holdups for publishing the CDC documents, because the Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights argued that faith-based organizations were being unfairly targeted. The department asked the CDC to ease social distancing recommendations for those groups, according to CNN, and encouraged federal health officials to let churchgoers congregate, saying that this aligned with the president's agenda. The shelved CDC guide also recommended that nonessential travel should be avoided until the last phase of reopening, while the released version only mentions nonessential travel in relation to high-risk persons. The White House plan is looser on nonessential travel, too, and advises that communities ""minimize"" travel in Phase 1, and that in Phase 2, ""non-essential travel can resume."" Some health experts and officials have criticized the delay, saying that detailed recommendations should have been available earlier. ""While it is not unusual for there to be White House review of forthcoming guidance, it is highly unusual for there to be a wholesale rewriting of guidelines at the request of the White House,"" said Jeffrey Levi, a professor of health policy and management at George Washington University. ""The holding back of recommendations regarding places of worship was particularly egregious given the high level of risk such indoor, mass gatherings can pose,"" Levi said. ""The shorter versions that were first released diminished their effectiveness, since they didn't provide as much detail as people needed to know how best to implement them. This delayed implementation of best practices which could potentially have placed people at greater risk."" But the CDC told PolitiFact the report's revisions were part of a standard interagency process with the White House coronavirus task force. ""There is an iterative effort to ensure effective, clear guidance is presented to the American people,"" said Benjamin Haynes, a spokesperson for the CDC. ""As part of the Administration's whole of government approach to combating COVID-19, the CDC followed an inter-agency process of drafting considerations and submitting them to the White House Task Force for review and comment before posting the guidance for states to safely reopen."" PolitiFact reached out to the White House for comment but did not hear back. Biden said that the Trump administration ""delayed and scaled back"" the CDC's COVID-19 reopening guidelines. Biden is mostly on target. The CDC said that the delays were caused by review and revision that was part of a standard process. Still, the White House did request that the public health agency revise its initial guidelines to align more with Trump's approach of leaving reopening decisions up to state and local governments."

SOLUTION:
"The CDC tried to develop clear guidelines about what the stages of re-opening should look like the administration delayed and scaled them back.