From Washington, DC

Capitol Hills News

• Modern Healthcare reports,
  • “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s chances of confirmation as Health and Human Services secretary appeared to hinge Thursday on convincing a handful of Senate Republicans that he would adhere to accepted science when it comes to vaccines. * * *
  • “Three key Republicans pressed the prominent vaccine critic to moderate his past positions and unequivocally endorse vaccinations, starting with HELP Committee Chair Dr. Bill Cassidy (R-La.). Cassidy likewise challenged Kennedy during the Senate Finance Committee’s confirmation hearing Wednesday.
  • “Cassidy declined to declare support for President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the nation’s highest-ranking health official during the hearing or when questioned afterward. GOP Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) also have not declared support for Kennedy.” * * *
  • “Kennedy could lose up to three Republicans and still be confirmed. The nominee needs 51 votes, and Republicans have a 53-47 advantage over Democrats in the Senate. If necessary, Vice President JD Vance would break a 50-50 tie in his constitutional capacity as president of the Senate.
  • “If Cassidy, Collins, Murkowski and McConnell all vote nay, Kennedy would be one vote short, assuming every Democrat opposes him. Yet a few Democrats have not declared their positions on the nominee, such as Sens. Cory Booker (N.J.) and John Fetterman (Pa.).
  • “The Finance Committee will vote whether to recommend confirmation to the Senate, while the HELP Committee will not. The Finance Committee vote has not been scheduled but may come as soon as next week. Cassidy sits on the Finance Committee, while Collins, Murkowski and McConnell do not.”
    
• Roll Call tells us,
  • “Senate Budget Committee Republicans approved Russ Vought’s nomination to serve as President Donald Trump’s budget director on Thursday, overcoming the absence of Democrats on the panel who boycotted the markup.
  • “The 11-0 party-line vote clears the way for Vought’s nomination to go to the full Senate. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which shares jurisdiction over the Office of Management and Budget, approved Vought’s selection in a party-line vote last week.
  • “Thanks to Democrats’ boycott, Republicans had to wait for all 11 GOP panel members to trickle in from their other obligations due to rules requiring a quorum of committee members before taking a vote.”

OPM News

• Federal News Network informs us,
  • “The Office of Personnel Management is sharing initial details with internal employees on what the federal return-to-office mandate will look like for OPM’s own staff members.
  • “Starting March 3, OPM employees are expected to report to work on-site full-time, OPM Acting Director Charles Ezell told employees Wednesday evening in an all-staff email, obtained by Federal News Network.
  • “Ezell described his email as a “preview” of the agency’s return-to-office plans, adding that OPM will host a town hall next week to share more details with employees.
  • “As with any operational change, we know we will encounter challenges, but I am confident that you will bring the same diligence and innovation to this process as you have countless other efforts we have undertaken at OPM,” Ezell wrote in the email to OPM employees.
  • “Ezell’s email comes in response to a Jan. 23 memo outlining how agencies are expected to respond to President Donald Trump’s directive to end remote work in the federal workforce. The OPM guidance clarified that the mandate applies to both teleworkers and remote workers, but that there are exemptions for employees with disabilities, qualifying medical conditions or other “compelling reasons.”
  • “Emerging return-to-office plans may vary by agency, but agencies in the executive branch are expected to similarly issue implementation plans to return their employees to the office full-time.”

• Tammy Flanagan, writing in Govexec, offers advice figuring out the Fork in the Road program.

FDA News,

• BioPharma Dive reports,
  • “The movement to steer pain treatment away from opioids notched a major victory Thursday, as the Food and Drug Administration approved a new, highly anticipated drug from Vertex Pharmaceuticals.
  • “The culmination of decades of work, Vertex’s Journavx is now cleared to treat the short-lived “acute” pain usually felt after an accident or a surgery. Vertex hopes to eventually get the drug approved for chronic pain as well, though clinical trials testing it in that setting have produced mixed results.
  • “Acute pain is often treated with a combination of acetaminophen, anti-inflammatory agents like ibuprofen and, if necessary, opioids, which pose an addiction risk because they act directly on the brain and stimulate pleasure centers. Despite the dangers, insurance companies, pharmacy managers and drugmakers like Purdue Pharma for years pushed for the use of opioids in pursuit of immense profits. The resulting overdose crisis has killed hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. alone.”

Miscellany

• Beckers Payer Issues points out,
  • “An organization representing Medicare Advantage insurers is asking CMS to pause any policy changes to the program not required by law in 2026. 
  • “In a Jan. 28 press release, the Better Medicare Alliance, a pro-MA group backed by several major insurers, urged the agency to prioritize “stability” in its 2026 proposed rule. 
  • “In November, the Biden administration pitched several major regulatory changes for 2026, including requiring Medicare to cover GLP-1 drugs for individuals with obesity.” 

From the public health and medical research front,

• The American Medical Association provides us with an online Bird Flu Resource Center.

• MedPage Today lets us know,
  • An online dementia prevention program improved cognition in a trial of 6,100 older adults.
  • Scores in complex attention, executive function, and memory improved.
  • Women versus men and people ages 55-65 versus 66-77 benefited more from the program.

• Per Fortune Well,
  • “The myth that cannabis is harmless because it’s natural has been further debunked—by scientists in a pot-friendly state. New research from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus shows that heavy lifetime cannabis use may harm working memory in young adults.
  • “In what the university calls the largest study of its kind, researchers used brain imaging technology to explore the effects of recent and lifetime cannabis use on brain function among more than 1,000 people ages 22 to 36. During a task assessing working memory—the short-term storage of information that can be applied to activities such as reasoning and problem-solving—the majority of recent (68%) and heavy lifetime (63%) cannabis users showed reduced brain activity. The findings were published Jan. 28 in the journal JAMA Network Open.”
• and
  • “How many times a day do you touch your phone? It’s pretty easy to lose count, as it seems like our cell phones never leave our side—even when we use the bathroom. You might want to rethink your toilet doom scrolling, though, as your phone can be one of the worst breeding grounds for fecal bacteria and other viruses.
  • “Several studies of health care workers show the high level of bacterial and microorganism growth on their mobile phones—but it’s not just in clinical settings that bacteria thrives on smartphones. A 2017 study of high school students’ phones found the presence of over 17,000 bacterial gene copies per phone—the more gene copies, the greater potential for faster bacteria growth.
  • “Most jarringly, researchers at the University of Arizona found that cell phones carry 10 times more bacteria than a toilet seat, including E.coli, Salmonella, norovirus, staph, and gonorrhea. That can add up to a lot of bacterial exposure, as a Reviews.org survey reports that Americans check their phones a whopping 205 times a day.
  • “People’s phones are out when urinating and defecating, exposing the phones to bacteria,” says Dr. Suraj Saggar, chief of infectious disease at Holy Name Medical Center in New Jersey. “Then put it into a pocket or purse that is dark, allowing bacteria to grow.”
  • “[In the article], experts tell Fortune how worried you should be about potential pathogens on your phone and the best way to keep it clean.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• Healthcare Dive relates,
  • “Cigna closed out 2024 on shaky footing, posting fourth-quarter results below Wall Street’s expectations due to a rise in medical costs. Meanwhile, top executives pledged changes to medical and pharmacy plans amid widespread discontent with health insurance companies.
  • On Thursday, the Connecticut-based company reported revenue of $65.7 billion, up 29% year over year, and income of $1.4 billion, up 38% year over year. However, adjusted income from operations, which Cigna believes is a better metric of how the company performs, fell 8% year over year to $1.8 billion, well below analyst forecasts.
  • Cigna CEO David Cordani told investors Thursday morning the company will work to make receiving medical and pharmacy care cheaper and easier for its customers, amid criticism that insurers and pharmacy benefit managers are profiteering at the expense of the American consumer.”

• Bloomberg Law adds,
  • “Cigna’s health benefits division spent 87.9% of premium revenue on medical expenses in the fourth quarter, more than analysts were expecting from that key measure. Management blamed it on “stop loss” plans, which employers use to guard against costly medical claims.
  • “Cigna’s management said the problem was increased use of cancer drugs like Keytruda, which is priced at around $200,000 a year, and multiple sclerosis treatment Ocrevus, listed at around $80,000 annually. Expensive hospital stays for cancer and heart surgeries also drove up medical spending, management said.”

• Per Fierce Healthcare,
  • “Cigna executives said that the company is on track to close the sale of its Medicare Advantage business in the first quarter of 2025, in line with its expectations.
  • “The insurer announced plans to sell off its MA plans to Health Care Service Corporation in January 2024 in a deal valued at $3.7 billion. Chief Financial Officer Brian Evanko said that all federal antitrust approvals have been received, as have all but one state approval.”

• MedTech Dive reports,
  • “Zimmer Biomet has agreed to buy Paragon 28, an orthopedics company focused on foot and ankle implants, for an equity value of approximately $1.1 billion.
  • “Zimmer will purchase all outstanding shares of Paragon 28 for $13 per share, according to the Tuesday announcement. The amount is a slight premium over Paragon’s Tuesday closing price of $12; however, its shares fell below $5 as recently as October. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2025.
  • “Needham analysts, in a Wednesday note to investors, wrote they have viewed Paragon as a potential acquisition target for a long time and were “surprised by the small premium that [Zimmer] is paying.” The analysts expect Zimmer to pull off more acquisitions, potentially outside of orthopedics.”