From Washington, DC

• Per an HHS press release,
  • “The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is proud of the work done by the Task Force on Maternal Mental Health, building on the White House Blueprint on Maternal Mental Health – PDF and the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research,  to develop and deliver recommendations to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Advisory Committee for Women’s Services to improve maternal mental health in the U.S.
  • “Following the one-year anniversary of the Task Force on Maternal Mental Health launch, HHS is expanding efforts to advance maternal mental health and substance use disorder care. HHS is asking interested non-federal organizations to submit a pledge(s) – PDF  highlighting new initiative(s) that address challenges and barriers to maternal mental health and substance use disorder care.
  • “HHS will collect pledges through December 6, 2024, and announce them publicly in early 2025. Questions? Send to TFMMH@hhs.gov.”

• Reuters reports,
  • “Journey Medical (DERM.O) said on Monday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved its drug for the treatment of a long-term skin condition called rosacea.
  • “Rosacea is a skin condition causing chronic inflammation of the facial skin and is often classified into four types.
  • “The oral antibiotic, branded Emrosi, was approved to treat lesions associated with inflammatory rosacea, which causes persistent redness and small pus-filled bumps on the face.”

• Per Federal News Network,
  • “Of all the areas the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) measures, federal employees’ views of senior leadership may be one of the trickier categories to unpack.
  • “The “leaders lead” category on FEVS typically results in lower scores from federal employees than the category measuring views of immediate supervisors. But the senior leadership score for this year’s survey still increased from 61% to 63% between 2023 and 2024, the Office of Personnel Management reported last month. Looking back a bit further, employees’ views of senior leadership have risen 4% since 2022.
  • “It’s certainly a positive finding in the governmentwide results of the 2024 FEVS, but looking more deeply at the survey results, there appears to be variation based on how closely situated employees are to their agency’s headquarters.
  • “In a FEVS data dashboard, OPM’s breakdown of results by each Federal Executive Board (FEB) geographic region shows that federal employees located in the “Eastern” FEB — or those closer to many agency headquarters — have higher scores than those working in the areas covered by the Western FEB, who are for the most part geographically farther from headquarters.”

• From the public health and medical research front,

• The American Hospital Association lets us know,
  • “Reports of cases of pertussis, also known as whooping cough, are currently five times higher compared to last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rise indicates the U.S. is returning to pre-pandemic patterns of typically 10,000-plus cases each year, and that mitigation measures such as masking and remote learning during the pandemic lowered transmission, the CDC said. The agency said that vaccination is the best way to prevent pertussis, but it expects cases to continue to increase among vaccinated and unvaccinated populations.” 
    
• The Wall Street Journal adds,
  • “If you’ve had a lingering cough recently, there is a chance the culprit wasn’t Covid-19, flu or RSV, but mycoplasma pneumoniae.
  • “Levels of this milder lung infection—which can lead to “walking pneumonia”—are 10 times greater than last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [“CDC”]. Though the CDC doesn’t officially track the disease, it issued an alert last month noting the rise in cases. Levels of walking pneumonia, so named because patients often feel well enough to go about their normal daily activities, typically peak every three to seven years.
  • “Chris Edens, lead of the CDC team that tracks Legionella and atypical pathogens, said the agency saw a rise of cases in late spring. It peaked in August, then declined a bit. The decrease might not last, he adds, noting “levels seem to be flattening out or maybe even ticking back up.”
  • “Cases of walking pneumonia are up across all age groups, with children 17 and under experiencing the largest rise, says Edens.”

• The CDC reminds us that November is diabetes month. The agency offered its quick pre-diabetes test.

• BioPharma Dive tells us,
  • “A medicine built around a more precise form of CRISPR gene editing appeared to work as designed in its first clinical trial test, developer Beam Therapeutics said Tuesday. But the death of a trial participant could renew concerns about an older drug used alongside Beam’s genetic medicine.
  • “Beam’s medicine uses a technology known as base editing to activate a gene in stem cells collected from people with sickle cell disease, an inherited blood condition that can cause debilitating pain and a constellation of other symptoms.
  • “Data shared by Beam from the first handful of patients treated in the trial show the company successfully edited those cells in a laboratory. When later reinfused back into patients’ bodies, they matured into red blood cells that were more durable and less likely to warp into the sharp-edged crescents associated with the disease.
  • “However, one of the patients died from lung damage that was judged by their physician and the trial’s monitoring committee as related to an old chemotherapy drug commonly used prior to stem cell transplants. The Food and Drug Administration also reviewed the case. 
  • “Called busulfan, this drug is known to be toxic. But it is effective at creating an opening in the bone marrow for newly edited stem cells to take root, a necessary step for infusing gene editing therapies like Beam’s.
  • “Beam is working on a solution to sidestep busulfan and, on Tuesday, also released data from testing in monkeys showing how it may work.”
    
• Per Medpage Today.
  • “Greater use of virtual mental health care services was linked to a lower risk of suicide-related events, according to a retrospective cohort study.
  • “The study of more than 16,000 veterans with prior mental health diagnoses showed that a 1% increase in the proportion of mental health care received through telehealth services was associated with a 2.5% decrease in suicide-related events, Kertu Tenso, PhD, of Boston University School of Public Health, and co-authors reported in JAMA Network Open.”

• Per Healio,
  • “Ex-smokers with a light lifetime smoking burden had a CVD [cardiovascular disease] risk shortly after quitting similar to those who have never smoked, results from a cohort analysis showed.
  • “However, findings from the retrospective study suggest that ex-smokers who smoked heavily may need to restrain from smoking for more than 25 years to have a cardiovascular risk similar to those who have never smoked.”

• MedCity News suggests “A Recipe for Better Obesity Care: Integrating GLP-1s with Food as Medicine. Nutrition isn’t a supplement — it’s foundational to metabolic health. It’s time we integrate more ‘Food as Medicine’ initiatives alongside the GLP-1 therapies that are gaining traction.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• STAT News reports,
  • “Three independent pharmacies have filed separate lawsuits accusing GoodRx, which markets a prescription drug discount card, of conspiring with several pharmacy benefit managers to fix reimbursement fees, the latest skirmish over the opaque pharmaceutical supply chain in the U.S.
  • “At issue are the behind-the-scenes transactions involving generic drugs, which account for an estimated 90% of the prescriptions written in the U.S. and, consequently, represent a lucrative market. The lawsuits claim, however, that GoodRx and some of the largest PBMs coordinate their reimbursement policies in a way that has deliberately reduced fees for the pharmacies.”
  • “The “anti-competitive” tactic has contributed to deteriorating finances for a growing number of independent pharmacies, according to the lawsuits, which noted “thousands” of local drug stores have closed in recent years. The pharmacies argued the dispute is one of several over reimbursement fees that, ultimately, favor pharmacies affiliated with the PBMs themselves.
  • “The upshot of this scheme is that the conspiring PBMs, by coordinating their reimbursement decisions through GoodRx, never pay pharmacies more for generic drugs than any rival PBM has agreed to pay in its separate negotiations with those pharmacies. This is nothing more than price fixing,” argued a lawsuit filed by Community Care Pharmacy, which is based in Michigan and sued only GoodRx.”

• Modern Healthcare informs us,
  • “Signify Health is tapping into resources from parent company CVS Health to grow the number of in-home services it can provide.
  • “Signify conducts in-home health evaluations for patients, and if needed, connects them to primary care or other follow-up services. It works with health plans to identify members who could benefit from an evaluation. CVS acquired Signify a year-and-a-half ago in a $8 billion deal, just a couple of months before closing a $10.6 billion acquisition of primary care provider Oak Street Health.
  • “Joining CVS — which also includes the core retail pharmacy, insurer Aetna and pharmacy benefit manager Caremark — brought Signify into a larger ecosystem with opportunities to increase its care coordination offerings. In October, CVS ousted former CEO Karen Lynch, who oversaw the Signify deal and other efforts to diversify the parent company’s assets.
  • “That hasn’t affected Signify President Paymon Farazi’s plans to expand the kinds of services the company can provide as part of its in-home health evaluations. Farazi said in an interview his aspirations for Signify range from adding more diagnostic tests to moving into clinical care.”

• MedCity News discusses five healthcare companies which attracted one of its journalist’s attention at the HLTH24 conference.

• Per MedTech Dive,
  • “The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services granted transitional pass-through (TPT) payment status to Medtronic and Recor Medicalfor renal denervation devices to treat high blood pressure.
  • “The TPT program provides additional funding to hospitals to encourage use of new Food and Drug Administration-approved therapies as the CMS gathers cost data to determine future reimbursement rates under the Medicare outpatient prospective payment system. The companies announced the coverage decisions on Friday.
  • “Jason Weidman, president of Medtronic’s coronary and renal denervation business, called the payment approval for the Symplicity Spyral catheter an “important milestone” for the company’s renal denervation procedure because it will reduce cost barriers for healthcare systems. The company has pegged the market as a $1 billion-plus opportunity.”

• Beckers Hospital Review relates,
  • “Altamonte Springs, Fla.-based AdventHealth has partnered with Walmart to open a hybrid primary care clinic inside one of its stores [located in Corbin, Kentucky]. * * * Since Walmart shuttered its own retail health clinics and virtual care service, it has been leasing space to health systems, including Chesterfield, Mo.-based Mercy.”