Midweek Update

David Ermer

I am an attorney who practices law in Washington DC. My practice has involved the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program since 1983.

Midweek Update

David Ermer–ACA, CDC, Congress, Electronic health records, FDA, Medical / Rx research, NIH, U.S. Healthcare–

From Washington, DC

  • The Wall Street Journal reported this morning
    • “A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation to break up pharmacy-benefit managers, the drug middlemen that have now faced yearslong scrutiny from Congress and the Federal Trade Commission.
    • “A Senate bill, sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Josh Hawley (R., Mo.), would force the companies that own health insurers or pharmacy-benefit managers to divest their pharmacy businesses within three years.
    • “A companion bill, which sponsors say draws on a history of government prohibitions on joint ownership within industries, was also introduced in the House on Wednesday.
    • “If passed, the legislation would be the most far-reaching intervention yet into the operations of pharmacy-benefit managers, known as PBMs, and their parent companies, cutting off a major source of revenue for the companies and frustration for patients.”
  • STAT News added this afternoon,
    • “A proposed Senate bill that would prohibit companies that control health insurers or pharmacy benefit managers from owning pharmacies rattled investors on Wednesday, but some Wall Street analysts believe the legislation is unlikely to gain much traction, at least for now.
    • “The bipartisan bill, which would require divestiture within three years, is aimed at what the lawmakers call an “inherent conflict of interest” that has forced Americans to pay more for medicines and hastened the demise of independent pharmacies. A companion bill, that refers to a history of government prohibitions on joint ownership within industries, is scheduled to be introduced in the House.” * * *
    • Wall Street watchers believe the lower stock prices are an overreaction. Although the insurers are a juicy target, various factors suggest the bill is far from a sure bet, given the upcoming change in administrations. Securities analysts believe other legislative priorities will get more attention, despite a focus on health care matters more broadly.”
  • The Wall Street Journal also lets us know,
    • “The House voted Wednesday to approve a nearly $900 billion annual defense policy bill that includes a controversial provision that would block some transgender medical care for minors covered by the military’s healthcare program.
    • “The package, which sets national defense standards and priorities for the 2025 fiscal year, notably calls for a 14.5% pay raise for junior enlisted service members, dwarfing the 4.5% pay raise included for all other members of the armed forces. The package passed 281-140, with most Republicans voting for the bill but more than half of Democrats voting no.
    • “The 1,800-page National Defense Authorization Act would increase the national security budget to $895 billion, about a 1% increase from last year’s total, less than inflation. * * *
    • “The NDAA authorizes appropriations but doesn’t provide budget authority, making it a guide to what military spending is ultimately passed separately by Congress. It is set to be the 64th consecutive NDAA successfully passed through Congress—a rarity in what has increasingly become a divided and chaotic legislature. 
    • “The bill is now expected to be fast-tracked in the Senate, where the chamber will likely pass it before Congress leaves at the end of next week. From there, it would go to President Biden’s desk, where he is expected to sign it.”
  • Federal News Network tells us,
    • “With just a few weeks left in the year for President Joe Biden to finalize the 2025 federal pay raise, House and Senate Democrats are calling for a larger pay boost than the currently planned raise for civilian federal employees on the General Schedule.
    • “In a letter sent to Biden Wednesday morning, a group of 22 Democrats pushed for what they said should be “pay parity” between civilian and military federal employees. Currently, civilian and military personnel are slated for likely different pay raises for 2025.
    • “We believe it is imperative you revise your budget to align military and civilian employee pay raises,” the lawmakers, led by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), wrote in the letter, shared with Federal News Network.
    • “Currently, most civilian employees are on track to receive a 2% federal pay raise beginning in January, according to the alternative pay plan Biden sent to congressional leaders in August. In contrast, military personnel are expected to likely receive a 4.5% raise for 2025. Although the raise amounts appear to be heading in those two directions, neither raise amount is final just yet. Unless Congress or Biden opts for a different pay plan, the 2% raise is expected to become final through signing an executive order by the end of December.”
  • The American Hospital Association News informs us,
    • The Senate Dec. 10 unanimously passed legislation reauthorizing the Emergency Medical Services for Children Program (H.R. 6960) for an additional five years. The program provides funding for equipment and training to help hospitals and paramedics treat pediatric emergencies. The program was authorized at $24.3 million per year from 2025-2029. The bill was passed by the House in May.”
  • and
    • “The Department of Health and Human Services Dec. 11 published a final rule implementing provisions related to the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement. The rule is intended to advance equity, innovation and interoperability by promoting the use and exchange of electronically captured health information as specified in certain provisions of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009.  
    • “The provisions today’s final rule adopts were first proposed in August as part of a much larger rule and will be effective 30 days after it is officially published in the Federal Register.”
  • The New York Times relates,
    • “In the final days of the Biden administration, the Food and Drug Administration is seeking White House approval to propose a drastic reduction in the amount of nicotine in cigarettes, a longstanding goal of public health experts that has faced stiff opposition from the powerful tobacco lobby.
    • “The F.D.A. submitted the proposal to the Office of Management and Budget only on Tuesday, a sign that the move was perhaps more wishful and symbolic than realistic for a White House juggling many late-term agenda items. And traditionally, the budget office’s review of agency proposals can take months.”
  • Per Fierce Pharma,
    • “As Donald J. Trump gradually fills out his cabinet, the President-elect’s latest pick could bode well for biopharma business development over the next four years.
    • “Trump on Tuesday nominated Andrew Ferguson to lead the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Ferguson is one of two Senate-confirmed Republican FTC commissioners appointed by President Joe Biden, Reuters notes.
    • “At the same time, Trump said in a post on Truth Social that he plans to nominate Mark Meador, a partner at the law firm Kressin Meador Powers, to become an FTC commissioner. Should he be confirmed for the job, Meador will take over the spot currently filled by FTC chair Lina Khan, whose term at the antitrust agency has expired, the news agency said.”

From the public health and medical research front,

  • Per MedPage Today,
    • “A possible case of H5N1 bird flu virus in a California child has been linked to raw milk consumption and is under investigation by state health officials and the CDC.
    • “The patient experienced fever and vomiting after drinking raw milk and has since recovered, according to an announcement by Marin County Public Health. Officials said that the risk to the public remains low, as there was no evidence of person-to person transmission between the child and her family members.
    • “The case stands out for being outside the usual farm work setting.”
  • The New York Times adds,
    • “Domestic cats could provide an unexpected new route for the bird flu virus H5N1 to evolve into a more dangerous form, according to a new study published on Monday.
    • “In the year since the virus began circulating in dairy cattle, it has killed many cats, primarily on farms with affected herds. It has also sickened at least 60 people, most of whom had close contact with infected dairy cows or poultry.
    • “So far, H5N1 does not spread easily among people, although studies have suggested that just one or two key mutations could allow the virus to make that leap.
    • “There is no evidence that cats have spread H5N1 to people and they may not represent a major avenue for the evolution of bird flu, experts said. Still, if a cat were simultaneously infected with H5N1 and a seasonal flu virus, the H5N1 virus could potentially acquire the mutations it needed to spread efficiently among people.”
  • ABC News reports,
    • “The rates of late-stage breast cancer at diagnosis have risen among women in all racial and ethnic groups, but Black women have been hit the hardest, according to a new study published in the journal Radiology.
    • “The study, which looked at data from 2004 to 2021, found that advanced breast cancer rates have risen among women of all ages, with the sharpest increases in young women aged 20 to 39, and women over 75.
    • “Black women experience advanced diagnoses 55% more often than white women and are more likely to die from the disease, the study found.
    • “While mammography does save lives by catching cancer earlier, fewer than 70% of eligible women are up to date on their screenings, the study found.
    • “This trend is particularly alarming because early detection significantly improves survival. Five-year survival rates drop drastically from 99% for early-stage breast cancer to just 31% when the cancer is more advanced and has already spread to other parts of the body, the study found.”
  • BioPharma Dive adds,
    • “An experimental breast cancer drug developed by Eli Lilly met its main goal in a Phase 3 study, helping people with a form of HER2-negative, ER-positive disease stay alive and progression free for longer than standard hormone-suppressing therapies, according to data disclosed Wednesday.
    • “When combined with Lilly’s approved medicine Verezenio, the experimental drug, called imlunestrant, also helped women stay alive and progression free longer than treatment with imlunestrant alone regardless of their mutation status, according to results of the EMBER-3 trial presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. The data were also published in The New England Journal of Medicine.”
  • Per a National Institutes of Health press release,
    • “National Institute of Health (NIH) scientists have made a significant breakthrough in understanding how “bad” cholesterol, known as low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol or LDL-C, builds up in the body. The researchers were able to show for the first time how the main structural protein of LDL binds to its receptor – a process that starts the clearing of LDL from the blood – and what happens when that process gets impaired.
    • “The findings, published in Nature, further the understanding of how LDL contributes to heart disease, the world’s leading cause of death, and could open the door to personalizing LDL-lowering treatments like statins to make them even more effective.
    • “LDL is one of the main drivers of cardiovascular disease which kills one person every 33 seconds, so if you want to understand your enemy, you want to know what it looks like,” said Alan Remaley, M.D., Ph.D., co-senior author on the study who runs the Lipoprotein Metabolism Laboratory at NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.” * * *
    • “The study findings could open new avenues to develop targeted therapies aimed at correcting these kinds of dysfunctional interactions caused by mutations. But, as importantly, the researchers said, they could also help people who do not have genetic mutations, but who have high cholesterol and are on statins, which lower LDL by increasing LDLR in cells. By knowing precisely where and how LDLR binds to LDL, the researchers say they may now be able to target those connection points to design new drugs for lowering LDL from the blood.” 
  • STAT News points out,
    • “Gilead said Tuesday that it will soon begin Phase 3 testing for a drug it believes could prevent HIV infection with just a single shot every year.
    • “Such a medicine, if proven effective, would be the closest thing to a vaccine the HIV field has produced in four decades of research. The company plans to begin the trial next year, with an eye toward regulatory filings in late 2027.”

From the U.S. healthcare business report,

  • Health Affairs reports,
    • “Numerous studies show that employer plans pay providers significantly more than Medicare, but less is known about prices in nongroup plans sold both on and off the Marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), where narrow networks and low-cost insurers are more prevalent.
    • “We estimated prices for three market segments (Marketplace nongroup, off-Marketplace nongroup, and employer small group) and three types of services (professional, outpatient hospital, and inpatient hospital) relative to a Medicare benchmark.
    • “We used 2021 claims data covering virtually all enrollment in ACA risk-adjusted plans. In aggregate, in 2021, Marketplace prices were 152 percent of Medicare prices, whereas the prices paid in small-group employer plans were 179 percent of Medicare prices.
    • “Comparing across market segments, relative to employer small-group plans, Marketplace professional prices were 6.9 percent lower, inpatient prices were 13.3 percent lower, and outpatient prices were 26.3 percent lower. Off-Marketplace prices fell between Marketplace and employer small-group prices.
    • “The finding that nongroup prices were significantly lower than prices paid by employer small-group plans—more so than indicated by prior research—is important for understanding federal subsidies and affordability for nongroup coverage and evaluating policies such as a nongroup public option with prices capped at a percentage of Medicare prices.”
  • Per Healthcare Dive,
    • “For the first time in 27 months, Fitch Ratings is revising its credit outlook for the nonprofit hospital sector — lifting it from deteriorating to neutral in its 2025 outlook report and adding that hospitals have made “enough meaningful strides” to warrant the revision.
    • “Hospitals have seen “steady improvement” on operating margins, according to the Monday report. The trend is attributable to providers’ success controlling labor expense growth, as well as stronger cash flows and equity returns.
    • “Fitch predicts margins will continue to improve, with operators reporting median operating figures between 1% and 2% in 2025. However, if President-elect Donald Trump announces cuts to Medicaid or supplemental Medicaid funds, margins could be adversely impacted and the sector’s outlook may be reverted to deteriorating.”
  • Modern Healthcare informs us,
    • “Labcorp has completed its acquisition of select non-hospital lab assets from Ballad Health, the independent laboratory company said Wednesday. A purchase price was not immediately available.
    • “Johnson City, Tennessee-based Ballad Health will retain operations of its inpatient and emergency department laboratory services, as well as lab services for hospital-based practices, according to a news release.” * * *
    • “The latest deal continues a trend of health systems selling off parts of their laboratory business to save on costs and focus on other areas of their operations. Independent lab companies often can provide a higher volume of tests at a lower cost compared with hospitals performing tests at their own facilities.” 

Tuesday Report

David Ermer–ACA, AHRQ, CDC, Congress, COVID-19, Medical / Rx research, Mental health care, SCOTUS, U.S. Healthcare, Uncategorized–

From Washington, DC,

  • The Hill reports,
    • “Congress has just 10 days until government funding is set to run out, and lawmakers don’t have a deal to keep the lights on during the holidays.
    • “Members on both sides of the aisle expect the government will stay open past the Dec. 20 shutdown deadline. But negotiators are keeping their colleagues guessing about how that will be achieved as funding talks enter a critical stretch.” * * *
    • “Lawmakers are expecting leadership to land on a stopgap that runs through sometime next March, although some Republicans in both chambers have pushed for a CR that ends sooner to push Congress to finish up its funding work faster. 
    • Others are also concerned about taking up too much of President-elect Trump’s first months in office on finalizing fiscal 2025 spending bills.” 
  • The American Hospital Association News tells us,
    • “The Department of Health and Human Services Dec. 10 amended the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act declaration for COVID-19, extending liability protections for certain COVID-19 countermeasure activities through 2029. Among other changes, the protections apply to all medical countermeasure activities provided through a federal agreement, as well as to pharmacists, pharmacy interns and pharmacy technicians who administer COVID-19 and seasonal flu vaccines and COVID-19 tests. These protections apply regardless of a federal agreement or emergency declaration.”
  • Per a Health and Human Services press release,
    • “The Scientific Report of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee is now available on DietaryGuidelines.gov. The report contains the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee’s (Committee) independent, evidence-based findings and advice to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The Scientific Report, alongside public comments and federal agency input, will inform the two departments as they develop the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025-2030, which is expected to be published in late 2025.” * * *
    • “HHS and USDA will open a 60-day public comment period and encourage the public to provide written comments on the Committee’s Scientific Report. The departments will also hold a public meeting on January 16, 2025, to listen to oral comments from the public on the Scientific Report. Pre-registration is required for the public meeting. More information on the public meeting and comment period is available on DietaryGuidelines.gov.”
  • The Wall Street Journal adds,
    • “The fight over what you should eat is escalating, with a new report out that moves the government closer to recommending Americans limit red meat, eat more beans, and cast a wary eye on ultra processed foods.
    • “Draft recommendations, by a committee of scientists advising the U.S. government on its next round of dietary guidelines, were first discussed in October. 
    • “Tuesday’s report comes at a time of growing debate about which foods are healthy—and who decides. For years, Americans largely accepted the guidelines, once dominated by the famous food pyramid. Now plenty of people are just as comfortable taking dietary advice from TikTok nutritionists and longevity podcasters as they are from mainstream doctors.
    • “Donald Trump’s election has further amped up the debate about what Americans should eat as more links are drawn between diet and chronic disease. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the president-elect’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has criticized ultra processed foods and artificial dyes and other additives found in many foods. And there’s a battle brewing over the best source of protein, with red meat champions in one camp and plant-based supporters in another.
    • “Food is a hot-button issue,” said Christina A. Roberto, director of the Center for Food and Nutrition Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s wrapped up in tradition.” That’s part of what makes people resistant to being told they need to change how they eat, she notes.”
  • The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force proposed new Grade A cervical cancer screening recommendations for women aged 21 to 65.
    • The USPSTF recommends screening for cervical cancer every 3 years with cervical cytology alone in women ages 21 to 29 years and then every 5 years with clinician- or patient-collected high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) primary screening in women ages 30 to 65 years.
    • As an alternative to HPV primary screening for women ages 30 to 65 years, the USPSTF recommends continued screening every 3 years with cervical cytology alone or screening every 5 years with high-risk HPV testing in combination with cytology (cotesting).
  • The second sub-bullet is a new recommendation. The comment period on the proposed recommendation ends on January 13, 2025.
  • The New York Times adds,
    • “The [USPSTF] advice was issued amid growing concern about a falloff in cancer screenings, and confusion resulting from changes over time in screening regimens and tests used for early detection and prevention of cervical cancer.
    • “Use of self-collected vaginal swabs for HPV tests is being recommended for the first time in the guidelines, partly in an effort to increase screening and make it easier.
    • “It’s important to emphasize that cervical cancer is one of the most treatable and preventable types of cancer,” because screening is so effective, said Dr. John Wong, vice chair of the task force.
    • “Cervical cancer tends to be slow-growing, he explained. Pap smears can pick up precancerous changes, while HPV tests pick up persistent infections that don’t resolve on their own and may trigger cancerous cellular changes over time.”
  • The Washington Post points out,
    • “The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday banned two known carcinogens used in a variety of consumer products and industrial settings that can seep into the environment through the soil and waterways.
    • “The new rules, which underscore President Joe Biden’s efforts to enact key protections against harmful chemicals before leaving office, include the complete ban of trichloroethylene — also known as TCE — a substance found in degreasing agents, furniture care and auto repair products. The agency also banned all consumer uses and many commercial uses of perc — also known as perchloroethylene and PCE — an industrial solvent long used in applications such as dry cleaning and auto repair.
    • “Both of these chemicals have caused too much harm for too long, despite the existence of safer alternatives,” said Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, a senior attorney at Earthjustice.”
  • The Wall Street Journal adds,
    • “Nigel Brockton, vice president of research at the American Institute for Cancer Research, says the general population’s exposure to these chemicals is likely very limited.
    • ​“It’s a good thing that [the EPA] are eliminating these carcinogens but unless you’ve had substantial exposure, either through occupation or through industrial contamination of your environment, we would still say focus on the factors that you can control,” says Brockton, who recommends activities like eating a healthy diet and limiting alcohol.”

From the judicial front,

  • Reuters informs us,
    • “The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal by the nation’s leading drug industry group challenging an Arkansas law requiring pharmaceutical companies to offer discounts on drugs dispensed by third-party pharmacies that contract with hospitals and clinics serving low-income populations.
    • “The court’s decision comes as the industry group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, known as PhRMA, and individual drugmakers have filed a series of similar lawsuits in recent months over other state laws meant to ensure that hospitals can use contract pharmacies while participating in the federal 340B discount program.”
  • STAT New lets us know,
    • “The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that three of the largest pharmacy chain operators in the U.S. could not be held liable under a state nuisance law for contributing to the long-running opioid crisis.
    • “In a 5-to-2 vote, the court determined that the law barred two Ohio counties from obtaining a $650.9 million judgment that was won in a federal court against CVS Health, Walgreens, and Walmart. In explaining the decision, the court maintained that a state product liability law, which had been amended in 2007, superseded the nuisance claims.”
  • The Wall Street Journal relates,
    • “A federal judge blocked Kroger from acquiring Albertsons, siding with Biden administration antitrust enforcers who said the $20 billion supermarket merger would erode competition and raise prices for consumers.
    • U.S. District Judge Adrienne Nelson agreed with the Federal Trade Commission’s argument that Kroger would become the dominant player in traditional supermarkets if allowed to add nearly 2,000 stores by taking over Albertsons, its smaller rival. Nelson rejected the companies’ counterargument that selling 579 stores to C&S Wholesale Grocers would replace the lost competition.
    • “Evidence shows that defendants engage in substantial head-to-head competition and the proposed merger would remove that competition,” Nelson wrote in the ruling.” * * *
    • “Representatives for Kroger and Albertsons said the companies were disappointed by the decision and that they are weighing their options.”
       
  • The New York Times reports,
    • “A suspect charged with murder in New York in the assassination of the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare in Midtown Manhattan will fight extradition to New York to face murder charges, potentially keeping him in custody in Pennsylvania for weeks.
    • “He is contesting it,” said his lawyer, Thomas Dickey.
    • “The suspect, Luigi Mangione, 26, was charged late Monday in Manhattan with second-degree murder, forgery and three gun charges.” 
  • and
    • “Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare who was gunned down in a brazen killing in New York, was laid to rest this week at a private funeral service in his Minnesota hometown.
    • “On Monday, while the nation was transfixed by the arrest of a 26-year-old man from Maryland who was charged with the murder, family and friends of the slain executive gathered at a Lutheran church in Maple Grove, Minn., to mourn the loss of a husband and father who ascended from modest roots in Iowa to one of the most powerful roles in the health care industry.”
    • RIP

From the public health and medical research front,

  • The American Hospital Association News lets us know,
    • “A study released Dec. 9 by FAIR Health shows an increase in cancer treatment rates for people aged 18-49. The study examined treatment rates for that age group between 2016 and 2023 and noted an overall decrease. From 2020-2023, however, patients aged 18-29 experienced the largest increase in treatment rates at 11.7%, followed by a 7.5% increase for patients aged 40-49 and a 7.2% increase for individuals aged 30-39.”
  • The Washington Post notes,
    • “Federal disease trackers reported Tuesday that the first child diagnosed with bird flu in an ongoing U.S. outbreak was infected with a virus strain moving rapidly through dairy cattle, even though there is no evidence the youngster was exposed to livestock or any infected animals.
    • “The finding by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the child, who lives in California, deepened the mystery about the spread of H5N1 bird flu, a viral ailment that epidemiologists have watched warily for more than two decades, fearing it could spark a pandemic.”
  • KFF CEO Drew Altman discusses the twin problems of mental healthcare — access and affordability.
  • Per Infectious Disease Advisor,
    • “Severe outcomes are uncommon among children with pneumonia regardless of whether antibiotics are received, according to study results published in JAMA Network Open.” * * *
    • “These results suggest that some children diagnosed with pneumonia can likely be managed without antibiotics and highlight the need for prospective studies to identify these children,” the researchers concluded.”
  • Per a National Institutes of Health press release,
    • “The antiviral drug tecovirimat did not reduce the time to lesion resolution or have an effect on pain among adults with mild to moderate clade II mpox and a low risk of developing severe disease, according to an interim data analysis from the international clinical trial called the Study of Tecovirimat for Mpox (STOMP). There were no safety concerns associated with tecovirimat.
    • “Considering these definitive findings, the study’s Data Safety and Monitoring Board (DSMB) recommended stopping further enrollment of participants who were being randomized to tecovirimat or placebo. As the study sponsor, the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) accepted the DSMB’s recommendation. Given the lack of an efficacy signal, NIAID also closed enrollment into an open-label study arm for participants with or at elevated risk of severe disease that was not designed to estimate the drug’s efficacy.”
  • STAT News informs us,
    • New data suggests researchers may have found one of their most promising candidates yet for the next generation in immunotherapy drugs — bispecific antibodies targeting two key proteins in cancer, PD1 or PD-L1 and VEGF.
    • A small early trial on one such bispecific compound was presented by researchers working with BioNTech at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium on Tuesday. The bispecific compound, called BNT-327, had positive results in patients with triple negative breast cancer. If future trials on the bispecific produce more positive data, it could become a critical part of how triple negative breast cancer — and potentially other cancers — are treated.
    • The research builds on the 1990s discovery of immunotherapy drugs called checkpoint inhibitors, which was “transformative” in oncology, BioNTech co-founder and CMO Özlem Türeci told STAT. Drugs like Merck’s Keytruda can help stimulate the immune system to find and kill cancer cells and have become a mainstay in the standard treatment of many different cancer types. 
    • “But there’s still space for improvement. We all were looking for the next-generation checkpoint inhibitors,” Türeci said. “I believe PD-L1 or PD1 and anti-VEGF bispecifics are exactly this next-generation compound.”
  • Per BioPharma Dive,
    • “An experimental drug from NewAmsterdam Pharma has shown it may protect heart health in a Phase 3 study, a finding Wall Street analysts believe boosts the medicine’s chances of improving the outcomes of people with cardiovascular disease in an ongoing, closely watched clinical trial. 
    • NewAmsterdam on Tuesday said the drug, obicetrapib, met its main goalin the third of three late-stage trials. People with either an inherited condition called heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia or atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease who received obicetrapib alongside other medicines saw their levels of LDL, or “bad,” cholesterol fall by an average of 33% after 84 days when adjusted for placebo. That result is similar to what was observed in the two previous Phase 3 trials and will form the basis of approval filings NewAmsterdam intends to discuss with U.S. regulators next year, according to the company.
    • “Obicetrapib’s safety profile, including its potential impact on blood pressure — a concern for drugs of its kind, known as CETP inhibitors — were also comparable to a placebo. A higher percentage of patients in the placebo arm dropped out of the trial due to treatment-related side effects, NewAmsterdam said. 
    • “Notably, though the study wasn’t set up to definitively prove whether obicetrapib could lower the risk of heart disease-related complications, testing revealed signs of a possible benefit.” 
  • BioPharma Dive also brings us a report from the American Society of Hematology’s meeting in San Diego.

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • The Wall Street Journal reports,
    • “Walgreens is in talks to sell itself to a private-equity firm in a deal that would take the pharmacy chain off the public market after its shares have been on a downward slide for nearly a decade. 
    • “Walgreens Boots Alliance and Sycamore Partners have been discussing a deal that could be completed early next year, assuming talks don’t fall apart, according to people familiar with the matter.
    • “Walgreens’s market value reached a peak of over $100 billion in 2015 but had since shrunk to around $7.5 billion as of Monday. Mounting pressures on both its pharmacy and retail businesses had helped send its shares down nearly 70% so far this year before The Wall Street Journal reported on the deal talks Tuesday.
    • “Walgreens’s shares closed up 18% Tuesday after the report—marking the highest one-day jump in the company’s history and giving it a market value of around $9 billion.”
  • and
    • “Weight-loss drugs could be a boon for insurers, but it is too soon to tell whether the industry will be transformed, the head of Swiss Re’s life and health reinsurance arm said.
    • “The market for obesity drugs such as Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy is booming after studies found the treatments helped patients shed weight and showed promise for health problems ranging from heart-attack risk to alcohol abuse. Lower rates of obesity—which has long been a public health crisis in the U.S. and is linked to many chronic conditions—could lead to smaller health-related claims for insurers and better underwriting margins.
    • “While excitement about the drugs is high, Swiss Re Life & Health Chief Executive Paul Murray said in an interview that many questions remain unanswered.
    • “Often when you get new things, they look shiny and new and we learn over time that it’s best to kind of wait and see a bit what the impact is,” Murray said. Reinsurers like Swiss Re backstop insurance companies’ largest risks.
    • “The rising use of these therapies has the potential to accelerate improvements in life expectancy, which has implications for the life insurance market, Murray said. However, it remains to be seen how long the health benefits of the drugs last, whether people are willing to stay on them long term or can afford to do so, and what happens when they stop taking them, he added.
    • “As things stand today, I would bet pricing will improve, but of course we have to wait and see what the data tells us about the longer-term impact of these drugs,” Murray said.
    • “We don’t know if it’s unilaterally healthy for people to hold food in their stomach for longer,” the chief executive added. The main ingredient of these medications—which were originally developed for diabetes—mimics gut hormones, suppressing appetite and slowing digestion.”
  • MedPage Today identifies the hospitals which offer the most outstanding maternity care.
  • Per the American Hospital Association News,
    • “Baxter has resumed production on all of its 3-liter irrigation and peritoneal dialysis solutions manufacturing lines, the company announced Dec. 5. The company noted that despite production resuming for those lines, more time is needed to restore output to levels reached prior to Hurricane Helene. Baxter expects all manufacturing lines to resume operation by the end of the month.”

Monday Report

David Ermer–Congress, FDA, Medical / Rx research, Medicare, Rx coverage, SDOH, U.S. Healthcare–
  • The Wall Street Journal reports,
    • “The all-out pursuit of the criminal suspect who gripped the public’s imagination for nearly a week ended on Monday at a McDonald’s in central Pennsylvania, about a half mile from the Greyhound bus station in a nondescript part of this town.
    • “A worker there noticed something familiar about a lone customer on Monday morning and called the local police. Soon 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, the subject of a massive manhunt and the man police suspect murdered UnitedHealthcare Chief Executive Brian Thompson in Manhattan last week in a targeted killing, was in custody.
    • ‘When, at last, he was unmasked—and unhooded—the mystery man at the heart of the brazen and apparently carefully plotted attack was even more of a riddle than expected. Held up as folk hero by some for striking a blow against America’s health insurers, he turned out to be a high-achieving product of elite schools, an affluent Ivy Leaguer who harbored anti-capitalist leanings that may have played a role.
    • “A review of his reading diet suggested that, at some point, his ideas about activism had crossed into an interest in violence. In January he wrote a chilling review on the Goodreads book-review site of Theodore John Kaczynski’s “Industrial Society and Its Future,” also known as “The Unabomber Manifesto.” He gave it four stars. 
    • “In Mangione’s review, he wrote: “A take I found online that I think is interesting”:
    • “Had the balls to recognize that peaceful protest has gotten us absolutely nowhere and at the end of the day, he’s probably right…. When all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive. You may not like his methods, but to see things from his perspective, it’s not terrorism, it’s war and revolution.”
  • The New York Times adds,
    • “Luigi Mangione will most likely be transferred to a Pennsylvania state correctional facility this evening, according to Gov. Josh Shapiro. Mangione faces two felony charges related to a firearm and false ID, and three misdemeanors — two relating to possession and use of a false ID and one relating to possession of an instrument of a crime.”
  • Per Beckers Hospital Review, United Health Group CEO Andrew Witty, whom Modern Healthcare named as the most influential person on U.S. healthcare, remarked to employees last Friday:
    • “I’m sure everybody has been disturbed by the negative and in many cases vitriolic media and commentary that has been produced over the last few days, particularly in the social media environment,” Mr. Witty said. “There are very few people in the history of the U.S. healthcare industry who had a bigger positive effect on American healthcare than Brian.”
    • “Our role is a critical role, and we make sure that care is safe, appropriate and is delivered when people need it,” he said. “We guard against the pressures that exist for unsafe care or for unnecessary care to be delivered in a way which makes the whole system too complex and ultimately unsustainable.”
  • Healthcare Dive reminds us that “Hospitals seek to prevent, mitigate attacks on clinical staff. After attacks on healthcare workers soared during the COVID-19 pandemic, providers have scrambled to address heightened violence in their workplaces.”

From Washington, DC,

  • STAT News reports,
    • “Legislation to restrict U.S. drugmakers from using key Chinese contract manufacturers was dealt a major blow when senators left it out of a must-pass defense budget bill this weekend.
    • “The BIOSECURE Act would prohibit pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies from using services or equipment from Chinese “companies of concern,” including WuXi AppTec and WuXi Biologics, in work that is contracted or funded by the U.S. federal government. Industry has come to rely heavily on those companies for contract manufacturing and other important services. Without the WuXi companies, costs for those services would go up.”  
  • Politico adds,
    • “It’s crunch time for Democrats and Republicans to come to a deal on a health care package to attach to government funding.
    • “The soft deadline for releasing bill text for a stopgap funding patch is usually the Sunday before the deadline. That means it would have to be out by Dec. 15 ahead of the Dec. 20 deadline. House Speaker Mike Johnson has targeted this week to release the legislation, leaving little time for lawmakers to agree on a health care package.
    • “Several other issues must still be resolved, including disaster-aid spending, which could complicate efforts on health care provisions.
    • “The state of play: Republicans and Democrats exchanged offers last week on a health care package. They aren’t far apart on some issues that might be easier to resolve — extending telehealth and hospital-at-home care rules and averting doctor pay cuts — but have significant differences to reconcile, including how to pay for it.
    • “Democrats propose regulations for pharmacy benefit managers — companies that negotiate drug prices for insurers or employers — that go beyond Republicans’ offer. Republicans propose repealing a Biden-era rule to increase nursing home staffing, a move they had already planned for next year. Democrats are also pushing to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act plan subsidies, but it’s not necessarily a line in the sand.
    • “Other issues being discussed include a potential compromise on legislation aimed at cracking down on Chinese biotechs. That didn’t hitch a ride on a negotiated version of a must-pass defense policy bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, released Saturday.
    • “If both sides agree to negotiate in good faith, a deal shouldn’t be that far away — in theory, at least. Republicans could have incentive to walk away when they will gain full control of Washington in weeks, while Democrats could force Republicans to come to a deal with a slim House majority next Congress.”
  • The American Hospital Association News tells us,
    • The AHA Dec. 9 said it supports a potential Medicare $2 Drug List Model, where people enrolled in a Part D plan would have access to certain prescription drugs for a low, fixed copayment no higher than $2 for a month’s supply per drug.  
    • “Providing low, fixed copayments for common generic drugs, as CMS proposed, could help increase medication adherence and improve health outcomes,” AHA wrote. “This model would standardize cost sharing for certain drugs for beneficiaries with Medicare Part D enrolled in a participating plan and their health care providers.” 
    • The AHA provided recommendations for how to account for shortages in the approved drug list and for public rulemaking to update the drug list annually, as well as feedback on potential quality measures for the model. Additional details on the request for information can be found on the M2DL webpage.

From the public health and medical research front,

  • The American Medical Association lets us know “what doctors wish patients knew about endometriosis.”
  • BioPharma Dive adds in a Deep Dive, “Endometriosis drug research, long underfunded, confronts familiar problems in women’s health. Up to 10% of women globally have endometriosis, yet the often-misunderstood disease largely remains off of drugmakers’ radar screens.”
  • Consumer Reports, writing in the Washington Post, reflects, “Meds like Wegovy are all over the news. But are they right for you, especially if you’re older than the average user?”
  • Per a press release,
    • “The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) today released a Draft Evidence Report assessing the comparative clinical effectiveness and value of suzetrigine (Vertex Pharmaceuticals) for the treatment of acute pain. 
    • “This preliminary draft marks the midpoint of ICER’s eight-month process of assessing this treatment, and the findings within this document should not be interpreted to be ICER’s final conclusions.” * * *
    • “The Evidence Report will be the subject of a virtual public meeting of the Midwest CEPAC on February 28, 2025. During the meeting, the independent council will vote on key questions raised in the report. Registration for the virtual public meeting is now open.“
  • The Wall Street Journal relates,
    • “GSK’s blood-cancer drug Blenrep showed positive overall survival data in a late-stage trial, increasing the likelihood for the treatment to return to market next year.
    • “The data showed that Blenrep, in combination with other drugs, reduced the risk of death by 42% in patients with multiple myeloma whose first treatment didn’t work or who had severe side effects, compared with Johnson & Johnson’s Darzalex, the British pharma giant said Monday.
    • “This represents a survival improvement of nearly three years compared with Darzalex combinations, supporting the potential for Blenrep combinations to become the new standard of care, GSK said.
    • “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of Blenrep is expected on July 23, marking a comeback for the treatment in the U.S. In November 2022, the company withdrew the treatment after a trial revealed that Blenrep, then used alone, didn’t outperform an existing treatment.”
  • STAT News reports from the American Society of Hematology’s conference being held in San Diego
    • “From STAT’s Andrew Joseph: AbbVie said this morning that its drug tavapadon succeeded in another Phase 3 study in Parkinson’s disease, helping improve patients’ symptoms and quality of life.
    • “The TEMPO-2 trial tested flexible doses of tavapadon, ranging from 5 to 15 milligrams a day, in patients with early Parkinson’s. The study met its primary endpoint, with patients on the drug showing a greater improvement after 26 weeks on a scale that measures symptoms and quality of life versus those on placebo. Specifically, patients on the study drug had an improvement of 10.3 points on the scale, known as MDS-UPDRS, while those on placebo saw a 1.2-point worsening, a statistically significant difference.
    • “Tavapadon, a daily pill, works by partially activating the D1 and D5 dopamine receptors. In addition to the new flexible-dosing trial, the drug has also had positive Phase 3 trials when tested only at a high dose and when tested in combination with common dopamine therapy.
    • “AbbVie plans to submit tavapadon to the FDA next year. It acquired the drug through its purchase of Cerevel Therapeutics, a deal whose centerpiece was an experimental schizophrenia drug called emraclidine. Last month, however, AbbVie reported that emraclidine failed in two studies.”
  • and
    • “Johnson & Johnson and Genmab’s multiple myeloma drug Darzalex reduced the risk of disease progression by 51% among people with the pre-symptomatic, or “smoldering,” form of the disease, when compared with those who were only actively monitored for progression, according to new data presented at ASH on Monday.
    • “There are no approved treatments for smoldering multiple myeloma; patients are typically checked regularly through blood tests and other assessments. In a trial called AQUILA, J&J enrolled 390 people with smoldering myeloma at high risk of progression and randomized about half to receive Darzalex, with the others only monitored for progression. Patients were then evaluated for a median of nearly five and a half years.
    • “After five years, 63% of trial participants treated with Darzalex were alive and hadn’t progressed, compared to 41% of those who were actively monitored. Of those receiving Darzalex, 93% were still alive after five years, versus 87% of those in the control group. J&J has already asked regulators in the U.S. and Europe to approve Darzalex for smoldering multiple myeloma.
  • and
    • “Patients from disadvantaged neighborhoods were 33% less likely to receive a lifesaving bone marrow transplant, and faced a higher risk of death without one, new research from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center that was presented at ASH shows. That said, survival rates post-transplant were consistent across socioeconomic groups.
    • “It really drills down on some of these social determinants of health as being access barriers for patients,” Jeff Auletta, the health equity chief at the National Marrow Donor Program, who was not involved in the study, told STAT.”
  • BioPharma Dive informs us,
    • “One year on from the landmark U.S. approval of two powerfully effective gene therapies for sickle cell disease, the treatments have been barely used, a sluggish start that reflects the myriad challenges of launching them.
    • “While some five-dozen people with the blood disorder have begun the treatment process for one or the other therapy, only two had actually received an infusion through mid-November, according to the therapies’ developers, Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Bluebird bio. That’s because the process typically lasts at least several months, involving a precise choreography of medical consultations, preparatory treatments and bespoke manufacturing of the two personalized therapies, called Casgevy and Lyfgenia.” * * *
    • “Some 100,000 people in the U.S. are estimated to have sickle cell. Vertex and Bluebird believe somewhere between one-sixth and one-fifth of that total population may be eligible for Casgevy and Lyfgenia, but only a slice will likely seek them out in the first few years.
    • “[Dr. Martin] Steinberg, [a hematologist] at Boston Medical Center, believes the current gene therapies will remain something of a niche product for the time being. “As we get more skillful at getting patients through the process, that won’t be as much of a stumbling block. Maybe we will be able to do one a month or so [at Boston Medical Center],” he said. “But it’s still too early for us to know if this is going to be realistic.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • Kaufmann Hall released its October 2024 National Hospital Flash Report. Here are the key takeaways:
    • “Overall, October data show continued stability. Revenue, average length of stay, and other indicators show stable performance.
    • “Outpatient revenue continues to grow. Revenue growth has been steady over the past few years, indicating a shift in how patients seek care.
    • “Discharges per calendar day increased compared to the previous month. This has led to a decrease in overall expenses on a volume adjusted basis, though supplies and drug expenses continue to grow.”
  • Beckers Hospital Review points out “ten health systems that recently had their outlooks upgraded by Fitch Ratings or Moody’s Investors Service.”
  • ALM Think Advisor explains why “Drug Cost Planning Is About More Than Choosing Plans.”
    • “Smart clients who want good benefits likely are paying higher premiums.
    • “One subtle short-term threat: skimpier coverage.
    • “A long-term concern: the fate of the new $2,000 annual out-of-pocket spending cap.”
  • MedTech Dive tells us,
    • “ECRI placed artificial intelligence-enabled applications at the top of its list of health technology hazards in 2025.
    • “ECRI, which released the list last week, said biases in the AI training data “can lead to disparate health outcomes or inappropriate responses,” adding that the technology can provide false or misleading outputs. The issues led the patient safety group to warn that putting too much trust in AI can result in inappropriate care decisions. 
    • “Other top health technology hazards for 2025 include the unmet technology support needs of home care patients, cybersecurity threats and substandard or fraudulent medical devices.”

Weekend update

David Ermer–CDC, Congress, Federal employment benefits, Medical / Rx research, Obesity, OPM, U.S. Healthcare, Uncategorized–
  • The Wall Street Journal reports
    • “Days after a hooded and masked man fatally shot a UnitedHealthcare executive in Manhattan, investigators have learned key details about the gunman’s stay in the city and how he planned his crime.
    • “Investigators are looking at the possibility that the shooter might be a disgruntled ex-employee of Brian Thompson’s insurance company or an angry client, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny. Investigators have been in touch with Thompson’s family, but there is no indication the shooting involved his private life, police said.
    • “New York Mayor Eric Adams told reporters Saturday that police have a name for the suspect but declined to disclose it pending the investigation. “The net is tightening,” the mayor said outside a Police Athletic League event in Harlem, according to footage from MSNBC. A New York police spokesman late Saturday said he couldn’t confirm that the department has the name of a suspect.
    • “The shooter might have used a large handgun, or possibly a veterinary gun, a firearm used to put down animals that doesn’t make a lot of noise, police said.
    • “The assailant likely left New York on a bus early Wednesday, not long after he fatally shot Thompson outside a hotel in Midtown Manhattan, investigators said. But he left behind a critical piece of evidence: the backpack he wore during the shooting and apparently abandoned in Central Park. Police found a bag there Friday afternoon.

From Washington, DC,

  • OPM reminds us,
    • “OPM has extended Open Season for the Postal Service Health Benefits Program through Friday, December 13th at 11:59 pm EST. This extension is only for the PSHBP. This does not extend to FEHB or other benefits programs. The deadline for FEHB remains 11:59 pm, in the location of your electronic enrollment system, on Monday, December 9th.”
  • Federal News Network tells us,
    • “Office of Personnel Management Acting Director Rob Shriver sees several areas of opportunity to build on the forward momentum to reform federal hiring and retention.
    • “During the Biden administration, the President’s Management Agenda focused one of its key priorities on strengthening and empowering the federal workforce. Though the efforts of the PMA are now coming to a close, administration officials pointed to promising signs of an improving federal hiring process.
    • “For example, the Biden administration has taken steps to keep the ball rolling on a push toward skills-based hiring. In April, the White House announced plans to transition the government’s primary job series for federal IT specialists away from college degree requirements over the next year.
    • “This really picked up on an initiative from the prior administration, and we’ve been grinding through the implementation of that,” Shriver said in an interview with Federal News Network at a Dec. 4 White House event. “But there are also a lot of challenges to implementing true skills-based hiring.”

From the public health and medical research front,

  • Cardiovascular Business informs us,
    • “Heart surgeons with the WVU Heart and Vascular Institute have made a bit of history, performing the world’s first combined robotic aortic valve replacement (AVR) and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) procedure—all through one small incision. Patients requiring these procedures typically undergo open-heart surgery. 
    • “The patient in question, 73-year-old Poppy McGee, presented with a history of stroke, brain surgery and ongoing weight loss. She was referred to Vinay Badhwar, MD, executive chair of the WVU Heart and Vascular Institute and chair of WVU’s department of cardiovascular and thoracic surgery, who initially recommended open-heart surgery. However, when McGee and her family heard that the odds of dying exceeded 10%, they inquired about less invasive treatment options. 
    • “Badhwar, a known pioneer of robotic aortic valve replacement (RAVR) and other robotic surgical techniques, said his team had developed a new technique for combining AVR and CABG—but it had not yet been tested on a patient. After a long discussion with McGee and her family about the risks, she agreed to the new-look surgical treatment.
    • “The combined surgery occurred on Oct. 31, 2024. Both the AVR and the CABG were performed using the same small incision on the far right of McGee’s chest. The surgery was a success, and a detailed account is expected to publish in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery.” ***
    • “Goya Raikar, MD, a member of Badhwar’s robotics team and an assistant professor a WVU, highlighted the progress this successful procedure represents for their work on advancing robotic surgical techniques.
    • “Until now, the main exclusion for us to perform a robotic approach has been the coexistence of valve and coronary artery disease,” he said. “Building on our experience with robotic aortic valve surgery, this new approach may help us extend robotic surgery options to many more patients.”  
  • The Hill lets us know,
    • “A more potent form of fentanyl is contributing to the thousands of overdose deaths that happen every year, health officials warn.
    • “An extremely powerful derivative of fentanyl, called carfentanil, was detected in 513 overdose deaths between 2021 and early 2024, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 
    • “Carfentanil was designed to tranquilize large animals and is estimated to be 10,000 times stronger than morphine and 100 times stronger than fentanyl.  
    • “Just 2 milligrams is needed to tranquilize an elephant; that same amount is powerful enough to kill 50 people, according to a Department of Veteran Affairs report.
    • “Drug overdose deaths overall have been declining since 2023, according to the CDC. But they remain high in the United States, and the majority are connected to illegally manufactured fentanyls (IMFs).
    • “Carfentanil-related overdose deaths are becoming less rare, highlighting the “ever-changing illegal drug supply” that threatens the progress made in reducing overdose deaths, according to the report.” * * *
    • “Carfentanil-related deaths continued to rise this year, with a total of 238 people dying from the drug by June — a roughly 720 percent increase from the first half of 2023 to the first half of 2024.”
  • Per Medscape,
    • “Vaccines for treating and preventing cancer have long been considered a holy grail in oncology.
    • “But aside from a few notable exceptions — including the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which has dramatically reduced the incidence of HPV-related cancers, and a Bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccine, which helps prevent early-stage bladder cancer recurrence — most have failed to deliver.
    • “Following a string of disappointments over the past decade, recent advances in the immunotherapy space are bringing renewed hope for progress.
    • “In an American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) series earlier this year, Catherine J. Wu, MD, predicted big strides for cancer vaccines, especially for personalized vaccines that target patient-specific neoantigens — the proteins that form on cancer cells — as well as vaccines that can treat diverse tumor types.
    • “A focus on neoantigens that arise from driver mutations in different tumor types could allow us to make progress in creating off-the-shelf vaccines,” said Wu, the Lavine Family Chair of Preventative Cancer Therapies at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, both in Boston.”
  • Fortune Well points out five symptoms that men over 40 should never ignore.
    • “Unexplained fatigue
    • “Chest discomfort
    • “Swelling in lower extremities
    • “Changes in exercise tolerance, and
    • “Loss of morning erections.”
  • NPR Shots reminds us,
    • “[I]nstead of chilling out in front of the TV after you polish off a scrumptious dessert, consider venturing out for a walk. It’s one of the easiest things you can do to boost your health after a meal, and even a short stroll can yield big benefits.
    • “The concept of post-meal walks has been around for centuries, notes Loretta DiPietro, a professor of exercise and nutrition science at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • BioPharma Dive relates,
    • “BioAge Labs said it is terminating a mid-stage study of its obesity drug candidate azelaprag in combination with Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide due to safety concerns, causing its share price to slide by three-quarters in after-hours trading Friday.
    • “Eleven people who received azelaprag in STRIDES, BioAge’s Phase 2 study, showed elevated levels of liver enzymes that can warn of potential organ damage. As a result, the company is discontinuing dosing and halting further enrollment.
    • “The San Francisco Bay Area company raised $170 million in February and banked a $198 million initial public offering in September to fund its ambitious foray into metabolic drugs, not long after it pivoted from making treatments for age-related diseases.”
  • MedTech Dive adds,
    • “Edwards Lifesciences predicted Wednesday that an expanded indication in transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) and rapid growth in its newer mitral and tricuspid heart valve technologies will accelerate total company sales in 2026 and beyond.
    • “Edwards anticipates mid-2025 approval for TAVR in people with asymptomatic severe aortic stenosis, the company said during an investor day event.
    • “The Sapien TAVR system is Edwards’ biggest product but has seen growth slow this year as hospital heart teams dealt with capacity constraints. Hospitals, however, are investing to increase capacity and avoid delays in patient treatment, which will support prioritization of aortic stenosis cases long term, Edwards said in its presentation.” 
  • The Journal of Accountancy lets us know,
    • “A federal district court, finding that the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) is likely unconstitutional, issued an order Tuesday prohibiting the enforcement of the CTA and the beneficial ownership information (BOI) reporting rule in the CTA’s accompanying regulations.
    • “The injunction, which according to the court should apply nationally, was issued in Texas Top Cop Shop, Inc. vs. Garland, No. 4:24-CV-478 (E.D. Texas 12/3/24).
    • “Under the injunction, the CTA and the BOI reporting rule cannot be enforced, and reporting companies need not comply with the CTA’s Jan. 1, 2025, BOI reporting deadline pending a further order of the court.
    • “The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which enforces the CTA, is reviewing the order, a spokesperson said Wednesday, pointing out that other courts have denied similar requests. The Justice Department (DOJ) filed a notice of appeal on Thursday night.
    • “An AICPA statement, released before the DOJ notice of appeal, acknowledged the potential effects of the injunction and urged CPAs assisting clients with BOI reporting to be prepared.
    • “Under the injunction, FinCEN is barred from enforcing BOI filing requirements while the case is pending,” the statement said. “Best practices dictate that at a minimum those assisting clients with BOI report filings gather the required information from the clients and are prepared to file the BOI report if the injunction is lifted. While it is unlikely that the injunction will be lifted prior to the final outcome of the proceedings, we advise being prepared in the event that there is a reversal.”

Cybersecurity Saturday

David Ermer–Cybersecurity–

From the cybersecurity policy and law enforcement front,

  • Fedscoop reports,
    • “Legislation to improve federal agency oversight and management of software purchases passed the House on Wednesday [December 4], keeping top IT and software trade groups’ hopes alive that the bill will get through the Senate and become law before this congressional term is up.
    • “The Strengthening Agency Management and Oversight of Software Assets Act (H.R.1695) was introduced by Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Pa., last year and co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of 20 House lawmakers. 
    • “Calling the rooting out of waste, fraud and abuse a “signal mission” of the House Oversight Committee, Cartwight said the bill would ensure that federal agencies are required to conduct a “comprehensive assessment of their current software assets and restructure their operations to reduce unnecessary costs.” 
    • “Our federal government spends billions of taxpayer dollars every year on software licenses alone. Most of these software license purchases are purposeful, but some are redundant, duplicative, simply unnecessary,” he said. “This commonsense bill will reduce waste, strengthen cybersecurity and modernize government operations.”
  • Cyberscoop adds,
    • “Private-sector tech leaders told House lawmakers Thursday [December 5] that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s [CISA] secure-by-design push may benefit from more of an incentive structure, but poorly trained developers remain “a real problem” for the nearly two-year-old initiative.
    • “The four witnesses testifying before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection all characterized CISA’s voluntary secure-by-design pledge as a net positive that has resulted in significant industry-wide progress. The question posed by subcommittee Chair Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., and ranking member Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., was how the initiative could level up and better enhance cybersecurity across more U.S. sectors.
    • “Shane Fry, chief technology officer at RunSafe Security, acknowledged that CISA’s secure-by-design program — which now counts over 250 companies as signees — “is making a lot of waves.” But there’s a missing piece, Fry said, in limiting the program to IT systems and not addressing operational technology device manufacturers.
    • “Let’s work with Congress and find a good way, or CISA to find a good way, to incentivize these companies to actually secure their systems,” Fry said. “Because I think limiting it to just IT systems is a little bit short-sighted.”
  • Cybersecurity Dive lets us know,
    • Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel on Thursday [December 5] proposed stronger rules requiring telecom operators to secure their networks from intrusions, in response to the wave of China-linked attacks on U.S. carriers’ infrastructure.
    • The measure has two parts. Rosenworcel proposed a declaratory ruling to clarify telecom operators are legally obligated to secure their networks under Section 105 of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. The second lever, a notice of proposed rulemaking, includes an annual certification requirement for telecom providers to maintain cybersecurity risk management plans.
    • “While the commission’s counterparts in the intelligence community are determining the scope and impact of the Salt Typhoon attack, we need to put in place a modern framework to help companies secure their networks and better prevent and respond to cyberattacks in the future,” Rosenworcel said in a statement Thursday.
  • Dark Reading tells us,
    • “Chasing down members of Scattered Spider, the cybercrime group known for their social engineering takedowns of massive organizations, has been a top law enforcement priority over the past several months. Now, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has made a new arrest in the case, a 19-year-old hacker living in Fort Worth, Texas — and he’s talking.
    • “Remington Goy Ogletree is accused of a phishing operation that ran from October 2023 to last May, when, according to the complaint, he was able to gain credentials and unauthorized access to two telecommunications companies and one US-based national bank. He then stole data, including API keys and cryptocurrency, and sold off access to other threat actors on the Dark Web, according to the indictment.
    • “He is also accused of hijacking one of the telecommunications platforms to send about 8.5 million phishing texts in an attempt to steal cryptocurrency. Ogletree likewise allegedly used a hacked telecom network to send phishing messages to employees of an unidentified financial institution with the intent to steal their credentials. The FBI complaint added that Ogletree hacked into a second telecommunications organization to send an additional 140,000 fraudulent phishing text messages.”

From the cybersecurity vulnerabilities and breaches front,

  • STAT News reports,
    • “As many as 172 million individuals — more than half the population of the United States — may have been impacted by large health data breaches reported to the Department of Health and Human Services in 2024, according to a STAT analysis of records from HHS’ Office for Civil Rights. It’s a new record for the scale of large health care breaches, breaking one set just last year. 
    • “The vast majority of those health data breaches — 532 of the 656 reported as of December 4 — have resulted from hacks and ransomware attacks, continuing a years-long trend. Since 2018, HHS has reported, it has seen a 264% increase in large ransomware breaches, and seven health systems have been fined up to $950,000 for failing to protect patients’ protected health information from ransomware attacks.” * * *
    • “It’s unlikely that 172 million Americans had their health data exposed in breaches reported this year. There are overlaps in the individuals included in each breach. And after an attack, covered entities have to report that individual data was compromised unless they can actively prove that it wasn’t. “In ransomware, it’s hard to prove that the data was not exfiltrated,” said Jigar Kadakia, chief information security and privacy officer for Atlanta-based Emory Healthcare. “That’s where the escalation has been probably in the last three years.” 
  • The Wall Street Journal adds,
    • “Data breaches at healthcare organizations have become common in recent years. But what do hackers want with your health information, anyway?
    • “Usually, hackers break into providers’ networks looking for a ransom, doing things like locking the provider out of its own computer systems or threatening to release its data online. But they are also looking for patient data.
    • “Healthcare records have personal information that hackers are always eager to grab, like addresses and credit-card numbers. But the records also hold an array of private information about patients, ranging from insurance-policy numbers to medical conditions to medications—data that lets crooks scam insurance companies and Medicare and Medicaid, leaving patients exposed to steep financial and medical risk.
    • “They give hackers a full picture to commit insurance fraud, identity theft or other malicious activity in the future,” says John Riggi, the national adviser for cybersecurity and risk at the American Hospital Association, a trade organization that represents 90% of the hospitals in the U.S.
    • “What’s more, the theft of health records can have a longer-lasting impact on victims than regular financial fraud or identity theft, because the information in those records is harder to detect and more challenging to correct when misused.
  • Per the Wall Street Journal,
    • “Chinese government hackers have compromised telecommunications infrastructure across the globe as part of a massive espionage campaign that has affected dozens of countries, a top U.S. security official said Wednesday.
    • “Speaking during a press briefing Wednesday, Anne Neuberger, President Biden’s deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, said the so-called Salt Typhoon campaign is ongoing and that at least eight telecommunications firms in the U.S. had been breached.
    • “The Chinese compromised private companies, exploiting vulnerabilities in their systems as part of a global Chinese campaign that’s affected dozens of countries around the world,” Neuberger said.”
  • Cybersecurity Dive adds,
    • “Multiple government authorities and security researchers are warning about a directory traversal vulnerability in Zyxel Networks firewalls that threat actors are actively exploiting to deploy Helldown ransomware.
    • “The vulnerability, listed as CVE-2024-11667, with a CVSS score of 7.5, is located in the web management interface of Zyxel ZLD firewall firmware versions 5.00 through 5.38, and could allow an attacker to download or upload files through a crafted URL. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Tuesday added the CVE to its known exploited vulnerabilities catalog.
    • “Zyxel, in a blog post, confirmed it is aware of recent attempts to exploit the vulnerability, following disclosures from security researchers at Sekoia. The company is urging users to immediately update their firmware and change their admin passwords.”

From the ransomware front,

  • CBS News reported on December 4,
    • PIH Health [located in southern California] was targeted in a ransomware attack, forcing officials to completely shut their network offline and leaving millions in the dark when it comes to healthcare. 
    • Families are being told that they can either wait it out for systems to turn back online, or to go to another hospital for treatment because of the issue, which happened over the weekend. 
    • Officials say that they were targeted on Sunday by a “criminal act” that “compromised their network.” In turn, network services were turned off at their hospitals in Downey, Whittier and downtown LA. 
    • While urgent care centers and emergency room remained open, patients and physicians were left without access to health records, laboratory systems, pharmacy orders and radiation access. On top of that, internet access and phone lines were completely turned off. 
  • Cybersecurity News informs us,
    • “Black Basta ransomware operators have improved their tactics, leveraging Microsoft Teams to deploy Zbot, DarkGate, and Custom Malware.
    • “The ongoing social engineering campaign comprises a threat actor flooding a user’s inbox with junk and contacting the user to offer assistance. 
    • “Researchers observed that threat actors used Microsoft Teams as their primary medium for initial communication with the target.
    • ‘Suppose the user responds to the lure by answering the call or sending a message. In that case, the threat actor will try to persuade them to install or run a remote management (RMM) program, such as QuickAssist, AnyDesk, TeamViewer, Level, or ScreenConnect, among others.
    • “After establishing a remote connection, the threat actor proceeds to download payloads from their infrastructure to obtain the credentials of the affected users and continue to persistently target their assets.
    • “The overall goal following initial access appears to be the same: to quickly enumerate the environment and dump the user’s credentials. Operators will still attempt to steal any available VPN configuration files, when possible,” Rapid7 said in a report shared with Cyber Security News.”

From the cybersecurity defenses front,

  • Techradar tells us,
    • “US authorities are urging Americans to use encrypted messaging apps to secure their sensitive data against foreign attackers.
    • “The security call comes in the wake of an “unprecedented cyberattack” on the countries’ telecoms companies, NBC News reported. The attack is considered among the largest intelligence compromises in US history and isn’t yet fully fixed.
    • “The China-linked Salt Typhoon group was first spotted targeting US telecoms with a new backdoor malware a few months ago. It has reportedly hacked the likes of AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen Technologies to spy on their customers’ activities.”
  • Cybersecurity Dive adds, “T-Mobile undeterred as telecom sector reels from attack campaign. Cybersecurity Dive spoke with CSO Jeff Simon about how the carrier says it thwarted a threat group resembling Salt Typhoon despite its past security failures.”
  • The Wall Street Journal asks, “Do Your Passwords Meet the Proposed New Federal Guidelines? New standards want to make passwords secure—but also more user-friendly.”
    • “The key to password security, the standards institute emphasizes, is length rather than special characters. The guidelines recommend passwords be at least eight characters long while suggesting organizations push for a minimum of 15 characters. The shorter minimum is acceptable when combined with multifactor authentication, Regenscheid says, which most federal websites now require when accessing personal information. That means having two different ways to confirm identity, not just the password itself.
    • “The institute also suggested a maximum length of at least 64 characters, a number Regenscheid calls “fairly arbitrary” but sufficient for security needs. Systems need some upper limit to prevent malicious users from trying to overwhelm servers with extremely long passwords, he says, and do things like download sensitive data from databases. 
    • “The emphasis on length over complexity reflects decades of research showing longer passwords are significantly harder to crack. “A truly randomly chosen 24-character password is not going to be broken,” says Stuart Schechter, an associate at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. “That’s long enough that it’s not likely to be broken in the lifespan of the universe.
    • “When it comes to creating long, strong passwords, research shows that both random strings of characters and random sequences of words can work well. “People’s brains work differently, and our tech should be designed to help you achieve your desired level of security with the option that works best for you,” Schechter says. His research found most people can memorize either type effectively.
    • “But it is a time-consuming process, and it isn’t clear how many passwords people can remember, Schechter says, so he uses the password manager built into his browser, an option available in browsers like Safari and Chrome. While some security experts push for stand-alone password managers that must be purchased separately, Schechter argues that built-in browser options are a good solution for most people’s needs and are very secure.”
  • Per a CISA press release,
    • “The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) published the updated version of the Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) 3.0 Security Capabilities Catalog (SCC) version 3.2. The SCC was recently updated based on the new National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cyber Security Framework (CSF) Version 2.0 mapping updates. 
    • “The TIC 3.0 SCC provides a list of deployable security controls, security capabilities, and best practices. The catalog is intended to guide secure implementations and help agencies satisfy program requirements within discrete networking environments. 
    • “Further, the SCC helps agencies to apply risk management principles and best practices to protect federal information in various computing scenarios. The trust considerations presented in the TIC 3.0 Reference Architecture can be further applied to an agency’s implementation of a given use case to determine the level of rigor required for each security capability. In some cases, the security capabilities may not adequately address residual risks necessary to protect information and systems; agencies are obligated to identify and apply compensating controls or alternatives that provide commensurate protections. Additional collaboration with vendors is necessary to ensure security requirements are adequately fulfilled, configured, and maintained.”
  • Per Cybersecurity Dive,
    • “Protecting the cloud: combating credential abuse and misconfigurations. To defend again two of today’s biggest cloud security threats, organizations must adapt and develop proactive strategies, Google Cloud’s Brian Roddy writes [in an opinion piece],
  • and
    • “For IT pros, the CrowdStrike crisis was a ‘call to arms’. The global outage triggered investments in people, processes and technologies to beef up enterprise resilience, Adaptavist research found.”
  • Here is a link to Dark Reading’s CISO Corner.

Friday Report

David Ermer–ACA, CDC, Congress, COVID-19, Medical / Rx research, Mental health care, Rx coverage, U.S. Healthcare, Uncategorized–
  • Healthcare Dive lets us know,
    • “Major health insurers are deleting images of their top leadership from corporate websites or removing executive pages entirely following the brazen killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson earlier this week.
    • “Thompson, 50, was shot multiple times in midtown Manhattan on Wednesday in what appeared to be a targeted attack. Though many of Thompson’s peers expressed grief, the killing set off a morbidly gleeful celebration on social media, where posters on sites like X and Reddit applauded and joked about the crime to vent frustration and anger with health insurers.
    • “The shooting and subsequent reaction has spurred healthcare companies to increase security around their executives, according to reports. Such measures appear to be extending online, as major insurers scrub identifying details of top personnel from their sites.”
  • The New York Times reports,
    • “Jessica Tisch, commissioner of the New York Police Department, said in an interview with CNN that investigators have “reason to believe” that the person they seek in the killing of Brian Thompson has left New York City. Joseph Kenny, the chief of detectives, said the police have video of him entering a bus terminal the day of the attack. “We don’t have any video of him exiting, so we believe he may have gotten on a bus,” he told CNN.” * * *
    • “The Atlanta Police Department is working with the New York police on the investigation into the killing of Brian Thompson. The Atlanta department said in a statement that it “will now be providing assistance as needed. The N.Y.P.D. is the lead agency.” The Greyhound bus that took the suspect to New York originated in Atlanta, law enforcement officials have said.”
  • Modern Healthcare adds,
    • “The New York Police Department is waiting on DNA test results that could help in the hunt for the killer of insurance chief Brian Thompson, who was fatally shot outside the New York Hilton Midtown Hotel on early Wednesday morning. 
    • “Investigators pulled DNA from an Ethos water bottle that was found in the alleyway of the building that used to house the Ziegfeld Theater, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. It was the same spot where the shooter is believed to have pre-positioned an e-bike used for his getaway and where he dropped a Motorola burner phone, the person said. Police also tested DNA from a Starbucks cup the suspect dropped in a garbage can before he gunned Thompson down.
    • “The items were sent for testing on Wednesday with results expected within three days, potentially bolstering an investigation that is centered on identifying a male suspect who checked into a hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Police and New York’s Mayor Eric Adams are appealing to the public for help in identifying the suspect, offering $10,000 for tips.”

From Washington, DC,

  • The Washington Post lets us know,
    • “Congressional Democrats have privately proposed a deal to Republicans that would extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies by one year, with lawmakers worried by new estimates that 2.2 million people will otherwise lose health coverage, according to five people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the proposal.
    • “The move accompanied a broader package of health-care proposals submitted to Republicans on Thursday night ahead of year-end spending negotiations.
    • “Lawmakers are fiercely hammering out a bill to fund the government, and health-care leaders are pushing to add priorities to one of the final pieces of legislation this Congress. Negotiations are also occurring on other measures, such as more funding for community health centers, proposals to address bipartisan frustrations about pharmacy benefit managers and other extensions of ongoing health-care programs, four of the people said.
    • “A one-year deal to extend the expiring ACA subsidies would avoid what was expected to be a bruising battle for both parties. Democrats, who crafted the subsidies and have fought to defend them, are set to lose control of the Senate and the White House next year, complicating their ability to make policy. Republicans, who are set to gain control of Washington, are wary of being punished by voters for any perception that they are rolling back health-care coverage, with the backlash to their ACA repeal efforts still fresh in many lawmakers’ minds.”
  • Govexec tells us,
    • “A Republican senator told the head of the U.S. Postal Service on Thursday that he would do everything he could to prevent the agency leader from instituting one of his key reforms, setting up a key divide between Congress and USPS. 
    • “Postmaster General Louis DeJoy faced bipartisan pushback from members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, with multiple exchanges turning testy. DeJoy vehemently defended his efforts and said the senators standing in his way would bring about the end of the Postal Service. 
    • “Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., became angry with DeJoy when discussing his plan to slow down delivery for some mail, which is expected to disproportionately impact rural areas.
    • “I hate this plan and I’m going to do everything I can to kill it,” Hawley said.”
  • Fierce Healthcare explains “How Trump could roll back Biden-era healthcare regulations.”
  • BioSpace relates,
    • “An appeals court on Wednesday ruled against Novartis in its bid to block the entry of MSN Pharmaceuticals’ generic competitor to the blockbuster heart failure drug Entresto (sacubitril/valsartan), according to Reuters and other outlets.
    • “First approved in 2015, Entresto is an oral drug indicated for the treatment of heart failure in adults. It combines the neprilysin blocker sacubitril with the angiotensin receptor inhibitor valsartan to lower blood pressure and vascular resistance. Since hitting the market, Entresto has become Novartis’ top-selling asset, raking in more than $6 billion in net sales globally last year.
    • “In its decision on Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agreed with a lower court’s verdict that Novartis had not sufficiently proven that it could win a patent suit against MSN. The appellate judges saw “no clear error in the district court’s analysis,” as reported by Reuters.”

From the public health and medical research front,

  • The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced today,
    • “COVID-19 activity remains low in most areas but is expected to increase in the coming weeks. Seasonal influenza activity remains low nationally but continues to increase slowly. RSV activity is moderate and continues to increase in most areas of the United States, particularly in young children. Respiratory infections caused by the bacterium Mycoplasma pneumoniae remain elevated among young children in the United States.
    • “COVID-19
      • “Wastewater levels, laboratory percent positivity, emergency department visits, and hospitalizations are stable or decreasing nationally while deaths remain at very low levels. However, based on CDC modeled estimates of epidemic growth, we predict COVID-19 illness to increase in the coming weeks as it usually does in the winter.
      • “There is still time to benefit from getting your recommended immunizations to reduce your risk of illness this season, especially severe illness and hospitalization.
      • “CDC expects the 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccine to work well for currently. There are many effective tools to prevent spreading COVID-19 or becoming seriously ill.
    • “Influenza
    • “RSV
      • “RSV activity is moderate nationally and continues to increase in most areas of the United States, particularly in young children. Emergency department visits and hospitalizations are increasing in children and hospitalizations are increasing among older adults in some areas.
    • “Vaccination
      • “Vaccination coverage with influenza and COVID-19 vaccines are low among U.S. adults and children. Vaccination coverage with RSV vaccines remains low among U.S. adults. Many children and adults lack protection from respiratory virus infections afforded by vaccines.
  • The Wall Street Journal reports,
    • “The Agriculture Department said it would launch national testing of cow’s milk for the presence of bird flu to help regulators monitor U.S. dairy processors.
    • “The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said Friday that its “National Milk Testing Strategy” is designed to quickly find the presence of the disease in cow’s milk or in the cows themselves, by compiling random samples from different processing plants and testing them for the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian influenza.
    • “The virus is widespread among bird flocks, having been detected in over 110 million poultry birds, as well as more wild birds. The disease spread to U.S. cattle herds and has been transmitted to humans, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC reported nearly 60 human cases, mostly among dairy and poultry workers.
    • “The testing regime is expected to provide more comprehensive data on the proliferation of the disease into cows, the USDA said. The first round of testing is scheduled to begin the week of Dec. 16.”
  • Cardiovascular Business tells us,
    • “Depression is associated with a heightened risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) among women, according to new data published in Circulation: Genomic and Precision Medicine.[1] The same trend is not seen in men.
    • “The study’s authors focused on three different major psychiatric disorders: major depression (MD), bipolar disorder (BD) and schizophrenia. 
    • “Few studies have investigated the sex differences in the cardiovascular comorbidity of schizophrenia and BD, and observational studies have presented inconsistent findings on the sex-specific association between depression and CVD outcomes,” wrote first author Jiayue-Clara Jiang, PhD, with the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland in Australia, and colleagues.
    • “Jiang et al. examined U.K. Biobank data from more than 345,000 patients, focused on MD, BD and schizophrenia may impact a patient’s long-term risk of developing atrial fibrillation (AFib), coronary artery disease or heart failure.” 

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • Modern Healthcare relates,
    • “The vast majority of people in the U.S. are dissatisfied with the cost of healthcare, according to researchers. Meanwhile, the percentage of those who would rate the quality of U.S. healthcare as excellent or good has hit its lowest point in more than two decades.
    • “Research and polling firm Gallup’s annual Health and Healthcare poll, released Friday, found that 11% of Americans said healthcare quality was excellent and 33% said it was good. Additionally, nearly 80% of respondents said they were dissatisfied with the cost of healthcare.
    • The survey was conducted through telephone interviews between Nov. 6 and Nov. 20 among a random sample of 1,001 adults across all 50 states.” * * *
    • “When asked about what they saw as the most urgent health problem facing the country, survey participants’ number one response was cost, followed by access and obesity.” 
  • Medical Economics adds,
    • “The Business Group on Health has identified health care costs as a major trend employers will need to navigate in 2025. With the cost of care growing at historic rates, businesses are preparing for a year of challenging decisions to manage expenses while maintaining quality care for their employees. Many of these changes could affect primary care physicians and their patients.
    • “A multitude of factors shape these 2025 trends, including the economy, technology, innovation, the political environment, and the evolving role of employers in the broader health and well-being landscape,” said Ellen Kelsay, president and CEO of the Business Group on Health, in a statement. “As employers head into the new year, they face formidable challenges stemming from climbing health care costs, which are putting pressure on how employers manage their overall health and well-being programs.”
    • “The 2025 Trends to Watch, outlined by the largest non-profit organization representing employer interests in health and workforce strategies, highlight the complexities businesses will encounter in addressing cost growth, mental health challenges, and an evolving relationship with vendors and health care partners.”
  • Per Kaufmann Hall,
    • “Following the release of Q3 financial reports, this week’s graphic takes stock of large health insurance companies’ recent financial performances. Nearly all the major payers reported higher medical loss ratios (MLRs) in Q3 2024 compared to Q4 2022. The MLR refers to the percentage of premium dollars spent on medical claims and quality improvements and is an important metric payers use to evaluate their operations. This upward trend has affected some payers more than others, with CVS’s MLR rising by more than 9% compared to UnitedHealth Group’s (UHG) 2.4% increase in this time frame. The only payer to report a decreased MLR was Cigna, which appears to be benefitting from its continued pullback from the Medicare Advantage (MA) market.
    • Notably, payers have often cited higher utilization among MA patients­­­­—their previous blueprint for growth—as the leading reason for these rising costs. Additionally, relying on the profitability of other business segments to fuel future strategic investments may not be a sustainable plan for the two largest vertically integrated payers. 
    • Despite directing substantial resources into their non-insurance segments, nearly all these companies’ other business units have also been less profitable through Q3 2024, compared to the same period last year. After riding high for several years, the payers are showing signs that, despite their size, they are running into many of the same challenges as providers: rising drug costs, an aging population, and higher labor costs.
  • Per Beckers Hospital Review,
    • “Blue Shield of California is set to launch a drug benefit initiative in January, partnering with Amazon Pharmacy and pharmacy benefit manager Abarca, Forbes reported Dec. 5. 
    • “The collaboration, called the Pharmacy Care Reimagined Initiative, aims to reduce prescription drug costs and improve transparency for the insurer’s 5 million health plan members.” 
    • This initiative was first announced in August 2023.

Thursday Report

David Ermer–ACA, CDC, Congress, FDA, Federal employment benefits, Medical / Rx research, NIH, Obesity, OPM, Telehealth, U.S. Healthcare–

Healthcare Dive shares observations and news about yesterday’s murder of United Healthcare’s CEO Brian Thompson.

Yahoo News delves into the investigation of Mr. Thompson murder by the New York City Police Department. The FEHBlog has the utmost confidence that this investigation will end with at least one arrest.

From Washington, DC

  • Federal News Network informs us,
    • “Enrollees in the new Postal Service Health Benefits program will have a few extra days of Open Season to review their plan options and make changes to their benefits for plan year 2025.
    • “The Office of Personnel Management officially extended Open Season for PSHB participants until Dec. 13, Federal News Network has learned. Participants in the Federal Employees Health Benefits program and other federal benefits programs will still see Open Season end on the original Dec. 9 deadline.
    • “OPM said the transition to the new PSHB program is “a big change” for enrollees, and it’s extending Open Season by four days to give Postal employees, annuitants and their family members additional time to look at plans and make changes as they see fit.
    • “We feel it is important to extend Open Season for customers of the PSHB program to give them ample time to shop for plans and change their elections if they want to,” OPM said.
  • Tammy Flanagan, writing in Govexec, discusses Open Season and tax savings.
  • Politico reports,
    • “The House is losing several health policy leaders after this Congress, and they’ll likely want to make their mark in their last two months on Capitol Hill.
    • “While Congress negotiates its end-of-year legislative package, some key departing lawmakers are rallying to pass projects before their terms end — although expectations for a health care package are low. Historically, Congress has sometimes shown a willingness to give outgoing lawmakers a win.”
    • Politico shares the legacy goals of the retiring House members.
  • Among the bills for possible inclusion in the lame duck health care package is S. 1339, Pharmacy Benefit Manager Reform Act. The Congressional Budget Office issued a report on this bill today.
  • The Washington Post informs us,
    • “A bipartisan group of senators grilled Food and Drug Administration officials Thursday on the agency’s failure to more tightly regulate ultra-processed foods and food dyes, highlighting a key part of the health agenda promoted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
    • “Kennedy, President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial pick to lead the sprawling Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the FDA, has blamed the nation’s surge of chronic disease and declining life expectancy on ultra-processed foods — a position that aligns with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), who convened the hearing as chairman of the Senate health committee.
    • “Congress and the FDA have allowed large corporations to make huge profits by enticing children and adults to consume ultra-processed food and beverages loaded up with sugar, salt and saturated fat,” Sanders said Thursday, pointing to the billions of dollars the food-and-beverage industry spends on advertising.”
  • Govexec notes,
    • “The leaders of President-elect Trump’s new advisory panel aiming to slash government spending, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, met with Republican lawmakers at the Capitol on Thursday in what leaders pitched as an informational session to share ideas. 
    • “Congressional Republicans and a handful of Democrats have embraced Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, which will function as a non-governmental commission, and on Thursday were eager to share their ideas for identifying areas for cuts. Some Republicans cautioned, however, that the advisory panel must work through the appropriate channels and win congressional support for their initiatives. 
    • “Nearly every House and Senate member that emerged from the various meetings called them productive and suggested a unifying idea supported by both lawmakers and Trump’s designated efficiency czars: recalling teleworking employees back to the office.”  
  • Per Department of Health and Human Services press releases,
  • and
    • “Today, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR), issued a “Dear Colleague” letter – PDF to help federally funded health care providers, plan grantees, and others better understand their civil rights obligations under the new final rule on Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (“Section 1557”).  
    • “Section 1557 provides nondiscrimination protections by requiring covered entities (e.g., recipients of Federal financial assistance, programs administered by HHS, and entities established under Title I of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)) to provide language assistance to individuals with limited English proficiency (LEP) or disability.”
  • Modern Healthcare reports,
    • “Hospitals have expanded their legal push for the federal government to boost Medicare reimbursement.
    • “More than 500 hospitals last week sued the Health and Human Services Department for allegedly miscalculating a 40-year-old Inpatient Prospective Payment System base reimbursement rate that providers say has lowered years of subsequent Medicare payments to hospitals. The lawsuit is the latest in a series of similar complaints that allege the Health and Human Services Department must increase Medicare inpatient pay.
    • “Each lawsuit challenges different batches of denied requests to amend reimbursement rates, but the arguments are largely the same. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, providers allege. If the federal government changes the inpatient base pay rate, hospitals stand to not only recoup money from prior fiscal years but also increase future reimbursement rates.”
  • The American Hospital Association News tells us,
    • “A $2.8 billion settlement from Blue Cross Blue Shield to health care providers resolving a 12-year antitrust lawsuit received preliminary approval yesterday from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. The settlement will also “significantly improve how Providers will interact with the Blues, bringing more transparency and efficiency to their dealings, and increase Blue Plan accountability,” according to the court filing. 
    • “The lawsuit alleged that BCBS member companies violated antitrust laws by agreeing to allocate markets via exclusive service areas and fixing prices paid to health care providers through the organization’s BlueCard Program.”
  • and
    • “Approximately 988,000 consumers who currently do not have health insurance coverage through the individual marketplace have signed up for a 2025 health plan through the federally facilitated Health Insurance Marketplace, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced yesterday. Nearly 4.4 million returning consumers have selected 2025 plans. The open enrollment period began Nov. 1 and continues through Jan. 15.”
    • The deadline for January 1, 2025, enrollments is December 15, 2024. Later enrollments will begin on February 1, 2025.
  • and
    • “The Food and Drug Administration yesterday released recommendations for streamlining the approval process for medical devices that use artificial intelligence. The guidance recommends information to include in a predetermined change control plan as part of a marketing submission for a medical device using AI. The PCCP should include a description of the device’s planned modifications; methods to develop, validate and implement the modifications; and an assessment of the modification’s impacts. FDA will then review the PCCP within the submission to ensure the device’s safety and effectiveness without needing additional marketing submissions for each modification.” 

From the public health and medical research front,

  • The Washington Post reports,
    • “Scientists from the Scripps Research Institute are reporting that it would take just a single mutation in the version of bird flu that has swept through U.S. dairy herds to produce a virus adept at latching on to human cells, a much simpler step than previously imagined.
    • “To date, there have been no documented cases of one human passing avian influenza to another, the Scripps scientists wrote in their paper, which was published Thursday in the journal Science. The mutation they identified would allow the virus to attach to our cells by hitching itself to a protein on their surface, known as the receptor.
    • “William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who did not participate in the study, called the research “sobering,” adding, “I had not known it would take just one mutation in the virus for it to attach itself to the receptors on human cells.
    • “However, he stressed that the H5N1 virus has been active for 20 years and “has multiplied billions upon billions upon billions of times and the spontaneous mutation that the authors describe,” has not been found, despite intense surveillance.
    • “Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a professor of virology at the University of Wisconsin, who was not involved in the latest research but has studied bird flu extensively, said that statistically, the mutation probably already exists in H5N1-infected cows and humans, given that 1 in 10,000 infectious particles of the influenza virus is a mutant.
    • “James C. Paulson, one of the paper’s authors, and several other top scientists agreed that it is statistically likely the mutation has occurred in the H5N1 virus but stressed that it has yet to be detected, and other barriers remain before the virus could be transmitted from one person to another. Paulson is a professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine at Scripps.”
  • The National Institutes of Health Director, Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, writes in her blog,
    • “Your memories of life experiences are encoded in collections of neurons in the brain that were active at the time the event took place. Later, those same patterns of neural activity are replayed in your mind to help stabilize your memories of past events. But new research suggests those memories aren’t fixed. An NIH-supported study in male mice reveals how an older memory can be “refreshed” and altered by association with newer events.
    • “The findings, reported in Nature , show that a memory of a recent negative event can become linked to the memory of a neutral event that took place days earlier, changing the way it’s remembered. This provides important insight into what we know about how the brain updates and reorganizes memories based on new information. These findings could also have implications for our understanding of neurobiological processes that might occur in the brain in memory-related mental health conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), when people feel stress or fear even in situations that present no danger.” *. * *
    • “Although these findings were obtained in a mouse model, according to the researchers, the study results suggest that our brains may integrate memories to form a cohesive understanding of real-world experiences in ways that offer stability and flexibility. These insights suggest that memories of the past are constantly updated and refreshed by new experiences in ways that may help us function in a world marked by constant change.
    • “The findings also suggest that negative experiences can lead us to fear seemingly unrelated places or events in ways that are detrimental. This may help to explain why for people with PTSD, exposure therapy—in which people work to overcome fears through gradual exposures to them in a safe environment—can stop being effective. The hope is that findings like these might shed light on potential new ways to treat PTSD and related disorders.”
  • Per an NIH press release,
    • “Improvements in cancer prevention and screening have averted more deaths from five cancer types combined over the past 45 years than treatment advances, according to a modeling study led by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The study, published Dec. 5, 2024, in JAMA Oncology, looked at deaths from breast, cervical, colorectal, lung, and prostate cancer that were averted by the combination of prevention, screening, and treatment advances. The researchers focused on these five cancers because they are among the most common causes of cancer deaths and strategies exist for their prevention, early detection, and/or treatment. In recent years, these five cancers have made up nearly half of all new cancer diagnoses and deaths.
    • “Although many people may believe that treatment advances are the major driver of reductions in mortality from these five cancers combined, the surprise here is how much prevention and screening contribute to reductions in mortality,” said co-lead investigator Katrina A. B. Goddard, Ph.D., director of NCI’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences. “Eight out of 10 deaths from these five cancers that were averted over the past 45 years were due to advances in prevention and screening.”
    • “A single prevention intervention, smoking cessation, contributed the lion’s share of the deaths averted: 3.45 million from lung cancer alone. When considering each cancer site individually, prevention and screening accounted for most deaths averted for cervical, colorectal, lung, and prostate cancer, whereas treatment advances accounted for most deaths averted from breast cancer.
    • “To reduce cancer death rates, it’s critical that we combine effective strategies in prevention and screening with advances in treatment,” said W. Kimryn Rathmell, M.D., Ph.D., director of NCI. “This study will help us understand which strategies have been most effective in reducing cancer deaths so that we can continue building on this momentum and hopefully increase the use of these strategies across the United States.”
  • The AP adds,
    • “Many moms-to-be opt for blood tests during pregnancy to check for fetal disorders such as Down syndrome. In rare instances, these tests can reveal something unexpected — hints of a hidden cancer in the woman.
    • “In a study of 107 pregnant women whose test results were unusual, 52 were ultimately diagnosed with cancer. Most of them were treated and are now in remission, although seven with advanced cancers died.
    • “They looked like healthy, young women and they reported themselves as being healthy,” said Dr. Diana Bianchi, the senior author of the government study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
    • “Of the discovered cancers, lymphoma blood cancers were the most common, followed by colon and breast cancers.
    • “The blood test is called cell-free DNA sequencing. It looks for fetal problems in DNA fragments shed from the placenta into the mother’s bloodstream. It also can pick up DNA fragments shed by cancer cells.”
  • NBC News relates,
    • “Prescription fills for blockbuster weight loss medications in the U.S. more than doubled in 2024, even with limited insurance coverage and high out-of-pocket costs for the treatments.
    • “That’s according to new data from drug savings company GoodRx, which examined fill trends and spending patterns for weight loss drugs such as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound.
    • “It offers more evidence of the insatiable demand for a buzzy class of medications called GLP-1 and GIP agonists, which have hefty list prices of roughly $1,000 per month before insurance or savings cards.”
  • More on prevention from Physicians’ Weekly,
    • “People with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) face a high risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), but the timing of this elevated risk before diagnosis is not well understood.  
    • “Researchers conducted a retrospective study to examine CVD occurrence up to 30 years before and 5 years after a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes.  
    • ‘They included individuals diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in Denmark (2010 and 2015) n=127,092 and matched comparisons n=381,023. Conditional logistic regression was used to compute ORs for the prevalence of CVD in the 30 years before diagnosis, and Cox proportional hazards regression models to calculate HRs for 5-year CVD incidence after diagnosis.  
    • ‘The results showed that, in the 30 years before diagnosis, 14,179 (11.2%) individuals with type 2 diabetes and 17,871 (4.7%) comparisons experienced CVD. The odds of CVD were higher for individuals with type 2 diabetes, ranging from 2.18 (95% CI: 1.91-2.48) in the earliest period (25-30 years before diagnosis) to 2.96 (95% CI: 2.85-3.08) in the latest period (less than 5 years before diagnosis). After diagnosis, the 5-year CVD incidence was higher for individuals with type 2 diabetes (HR: 2.20; 95% CI: 2.12-2.27).  
    • “They concluded that individuals with type 2 diabetes experienced twice the number of CVD events compared to matched controls, starting up to 30 years before diagnosis, suggesting that early preventive strategies may be necessary.”  

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • The Wall Street Journal reports,
    • “Eli Lilly said it would invest $3 billion to expand a recently acquired manufacturing facility to meet growing demand for its diabetes and weight-loss medicines.
    • “The drugmaker said the Kenosha County, Wis., plant expansion would extend the reach of its injectable-product manufacturing and add 750 jobs. The facility already employs around 100 people.
    • “Overall, the expanded facility would focus on manufacturing injectable medicines, device assembly and packaging for medicines across multiple therapeutic areas, the Indianapolis company said.
    • “The decision comes months after Lilly resolved shortages for its weight-loss and diabetes drugs, Zepbound and Mounjaro. Lilly’s rival, Novo Nordisk, has been expanding its production capacity to resolve shortages.”
  • Per Fierce Healthcare,
    • “Amazon has added digital musculoskeletal care company Hinge Health to its health conditions program, a service it rolled out in January to help connect customers with virtual care benefits.
    • “Hinge Health is the first digital musclosketal platform to join Amazon Health Services’ offering that aims to help people discover and enroll in digital health programs available through their employer or health plan at no additional cost.
    • “It marks the fourth company to join Amazon Health Services’ digital health benefits program, following Omada Health, as its first launch partner, Talkspace and behavioral health company Rula Health.”
  • Per Fierce Pharma,
    • “AstraZeneca has picked off another label expansion for its cancer blockbuster Imfinzi (durvalumab) as the FDA has blessed the PD-L1 inhibitor for limited-stage small cell lung cancer (LS-SCLC) patients who have not had disease progression after concurrent chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
    • “With the nod, Imfinzi becomes the first immunotherapy for LS-SCLC, an aggressive form of the disorder with a survival rate between 15% and 30% after diagnosis. The subtype includes roughly 30% of all SCLC cases. It often recurs and progresses rapidly despite initial response to standard-of-care chemo and radiation treatment.
    • “The approval is backed by results from the ADRIATIC trial which showed that, compared to placebo, Imfinzi extended patients’ lives by 27% among those who had not progressed following chemoradiotherapy. The estimated median overall survival was 55.9 months for Imfinzi versus 33.4 months for placebo.”
  • BioPharma Dive points out,
    • “Inside every human cell are thousands of snippets of genetic code that serve as the directions for creating proteins. And over the past four years, a small biotechnology company has been trying to prove that, by looking closely enough at this assembly of instructions, it can find new ways to treat diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis.
    • “The company, Muna Therapeutics, now has a nod of confidence from one of the world’s largest drugmakers, as it announced on Thursday a collaboration with GSK that could ultimately be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
    • “Per deal terms, Muna will analyze brain tissue samples from a variety of sources, from healthy individuals to Alzheimer’s patients to centenarians with and without cognitive impairment. The company will then use different technologies to determine where protein instructions are (or aren’t) in those tissues, with the goal being to identify and validate new targets for Alzheimer’s drugs.”
  • RAND Healthcare shares its key findings on telehealth policy.

Midweek Update

David Ermer–CDC, CMS, Congress, FDA, Federal employment benefits, Medical / Rx research, Obesity, Rx coverage, U.S. Healthcare–
The UnitedHealthcare headquarters in Minnetonka, Minn., lowered its flags to half-staff on Wednesday in honor of its CEO. 
PHOTO: KEREM YÜCEL/ASSOCIATED PRESS
  • The Wall Street Journal reports,
    • “UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor day began much like any other corporate event. There was breakfast and then around 8 a.m. Wednesday the collection of investors, executives and Wall Street analysts filed into a capacious third-floor ballroom at the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan to hear upbeat presentations about the company’s future.
    • “Unbeknown to them, one of the company’s top executives had been killed earlier that morning on the street below in what police say was a targeted attack.
    • “Brian Thompson, chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, the largest U.S. health insurer, had been steps from the Hilton’s entrance at 6:44 a.m. when an assassin wearing a dark hoodie and gray backpack stepped from behind a parked car in the predawn darkness, calmly pursued him for a few steps, and then shot him with a 9-millimeter pistol.
    • “Thompson staggered, appeared to turn toward his pursuer, and then collapsed. The killer fled down an alley and then escaped on a bike, according to police.”
  • The FEHBlog believes the Journal’s description of the killer as an “assassin” is accurate because the press and the medical community have portrayed large health insurers and PBMs as villains. (The term “assassination” usually refers to a politically motivated murder.) This erroneous portrayal stems from the decades long feud between the medical and health insurance communities that the FEHBlog has documented. It is high time for the feud to be resolved. RIP Mr. Thomson.

From Washington, DC,

  • The AP tells us that all of the House of Representatives elections have been called, and the final 2025 split is 220 Republicans and 215 Democrats.
  • STAT News reports,
    • “Negotiations over a large health care policy package are heating up this week as Congress hurtles toward a government funding deadline at the end of the month.
    • “Congressional Republicans on Tuesday made an offer to Democrats that included a three-year extension of pandemic-era telehealth flexibilities in Medicare, some reforms in how pharmacy middlemen operate, a Medicare pay bump for doctors, funding for community health centers, and extensions of public health programs in Medicare and Medicaid, according to a copy obtained by STAT. 
    • “However, Republicans proposed paying for the policies with a full repeal of the Biden administration’s controversial nursing home staffing rule, which sets minimum staffing requirements. Repealing the rule would have saved the federal government $22 billion. Democrats are unwilling to repeal their own administration’s policy, so the offer is a no-go, five sources familiar with the talks told STAT. 
    • “Negotiations are ongoing.” 
  • and
    • “In an unexpected move, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office has withdrawn a controversial proposal that was designed to prevent pharmaceutical companies from abusing the patent system.
    • “Specifically, the proposed rule was crafted to stem the use of so-called patent thickets, which are wielded by drug companies to delay the arrival of lower-cost generic medicines in the marketplace. Essentially, thickets are collections of numerous patents that critics contend add only incremental changes to a drug and, therefore, produce little to no additional benefit to patients.
  • The American Hospital Association News informs us,
    • “The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Dec. 4 announced that drug manufacturers bluebird bio, inc. (manufacturer of Lyfgenia) and Vertex Pharmaceuticals (manufacturer of Casgevy) will participate in its Cell and Gene Therapy Access Model. [Both of the drugs are “Food and Drug Administration-approved gene therapies for sickle cell disease.]
    • “The voluntary model will test whether a CMS-led approach to developing and administering outcomes-based agreements for cell and gene therapies improves Medicaid beneficiaries’ health outcomes, broadens access to innovative treatment and reduces health care expenditures. The CGT Access Model launches in January, and states can choose to begin participation anytime between then and January 2026. The state application portal will also go live this month and remain open through Feb. 28, 2025. In addition, states may apply for optional model funding by Feb. 28, 2025, through the notice of funding opportunity.”
  • Kevin Moss, writing in Govexec, offers last minute advice for Federal Employee Benefits Open Season which ends December 9.

From the public health and medical research front,

  • During the Covid pandemic the FEHBlog’s go to columnist was David Leonhardt from the New York Times. This morning, Mr. Leonhardt wrote about the bird flu.
    • Caitlin “Rivers, the Johns Hopkins epidemiologist, recently published a book on preventing outbreaks called “Crisis Averted.” In it, she argues that one of the most effective public health strategies is honesty: Experts should level with people, rather than telling selective truths intended to shape behavior in paternalistic ways (as happened during Covid).
    • “When I spoke with Rivers this week, I asked for some truth telling about bird flu. “As an epidemiologist, I’m worried,” she said. “I’m not worried as a mom or a member of my community. It’s not a threat that is imminent.”
    • “But H5N1 bears watching. It is changing and spreading in uncertain ways, and it already presents a threat to many animals and to people who work closely with them.”
  • Well put.
  • BioPharma Dive informs us,
    • “Zepbound, an in-demand weight loss drug from Eli Lilly, helped people in a large clinical trial lose significantly more weight over 18 months than Novo Nordisk’s rival treatment Wegovy, results released by Lilly Wednesday show.
    • “The head-to-head results are a key finding that may help Lilly wrest greater share of a pharmaceutical drug market that’s forecast to eventually exceed $100 billion in annual sales. For that reason, Lilly’s study, called SURMOUNT-5, has long been circled by investors and analysts on Wall Street as one of the year’s most important drug studies.
    • “Lilly only disclosed summary data in its Wednesday statement, indicating it will share fuller findings at a medical meeting next year. According to the results Lilly made available, trial volunteers with obesity or who were overweight with related health problems lost an average of 20.2% of their bodyweight from taking Zepbound, significantly more than those who received Wegovy, who lost 13.7% on average. That translated to an average of 50 pounds lost among Zepbound-treated participants, versus 33 pounds for those on Wegovy.
    • “Nearly one-third of people given Zepbound experienced weight loss of 25% or more, compared to 16% in the Wegovy group, Lilly said.
    • “For both drugs, the most common side effects were gastrointestinal and, according to Lilly, generally mild to moderate in severity. Side effects are being closely watched, as commercial use of Zepbound and Wegovy has shown many people taking them later discontinue treatment.”
  • Gallup lets us know,
    • “Fifty-one percent of working women in the U.S. report feeling stressed a lot of the day yesterday (vs. 39% of men). Additionally, 42% of working women say their job has had a somewhat or extremely negative impact on their mental health over the last six months (vs. 37% of men). The consequential ripples of women’s wellbeing affect organizations as declines in wellbeing are associated with lower engagement, higher burnout and increased participation in job-seeking behaviors.” * * *
    • “Programs and managers alone cannot make progress if employees do not feel that their organization has a strong culture of wellbeing. If employees doubt leadership’s commitment to wellbeing initiatives or worry about negative repercussions for accessing them, they may avoid engaging with these offerings. This avoidance can lead to resources being overlooked and employee needs remaining unmet, ultimately affecting the company’s bottom line. Building a culture of wellbeing starts with leaders demonstrating desired behaviors, fostering open communication about the importance of wellbeing, actively highlighting available resources, and making the employee experience a central focus of their organizational strategy.”
  • The Washington Post relates,
    • “Splash pads found in public parks across the United States are linked to thousands of cases of waterborne diseases that leave a calling card of diarrhea, fever and vomiting, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported this week.
    • “More than 10,000 children became ill from 1997 to 2022 after using splash pads, and most of those outbreaks were attributed to cryptosporidium, a parasite that causes diarrhea and spreads through contaminated water.
    • “No deaths were blamed on the infections, but the CDC said families need to be more vigilant about the proper use of splash pads. The agency also encouraged parents to avoid using public aquatic centers if their children have diarrhea.”
  • Per MedPage Today,
    • “Blocking blood flow to the site of knee arthritis can reduce pain and potentially prevent the need for knee replacement surgery, a new study says.
    • “The procedure, called genicular artery embolization (GAE), improved patients’ quality of life by 87% and their pain by 71% at a one-year follow-up, researchers report.
    • “Our study found that GAE can effectively reduce knee pain and improve quality of life early after the treatment, with these benefits being maintained over the long term, especially for people who haven’t had success with other treatments like physical therapy or pain medications,” said lead researcher Dr. Florian Nima Fleckenstein, an interventional radiologist at Charité – University Hospital Berlin in Germany.”
  • and
    • “Traces of nine essential metals and non-essential metals in urine were linked with lower cognitive performance and the risk of future dementia, a large prospective study showed.
    • “The study assessed concentrations of the essential metals cobalt, copper, manganese, and zinc, and the non-essential metals arsenic, cadmium, lead, tungsten, and uranium.
    • “Comparing the top and bottom percentiles of exposure to all nine metals, the hazard ratio of dementia was 1.71 (95% CI 1.24-3.89), reported Arce Domingo-Relloso, PhD, of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York City, in JAMA Network Open.” * * *
    • “Identifying modifiable risk factors and groups at higher risk for Alzheimer’s and dementia is crucial, Domingo-Relloso observed.
    • “This study not only shows that exposure to metals is associated with cognitive decline, but more importantly, carrying at least one copy of the APOE4 allele could modify this association, which opens the door to the creation of early risk assessment tools based on individuals’ genetic and environmental exposure profiles,” she told MedPage Today.“

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • The New York Times reports
    • “Over 500 hospitals have closed their labor and delivery departments since 2010, according to a large new study, leaving most rural hospitals and more than a third of urban hospitals without obstetric care.
    • “Those closures, the study found, were slightly offset by the opening of new units in about 130 hospitals. Even so, the share of hospitals without maternity wards increased every year, according to the study, published on Wednesday in JAMA, a prominent medical journal. Maternal deaths remained persistently high over that period, spiking during the pandemic.”
  • Modern Healthcare lets us know,
    • “The largest pharmacy benefit managers are heralding an era of transparency, and the demand for these new models may suggest their traditional spread pricing approach will fade.
    • “Amid growing complaints and evolving market dynamics, CVS Health subsidiary CVS Caremark, UnitedHealth Group unit OptumRx and Cigna division Express Scripts — which together control nearly 60% of the market, according to the American Medical Association — are pitching customers “transparent” PBM services that promise more flexible designs, more predictable pricing and, potentially, lower costs.
    • “It’s our responsibility to continue to drive and reshape the way drug pricing is in this country. Make it more transparent to make it easier to understand,” said Prem Shah, group president of CVS Health who oversees its pharmacy and PBM divisions. “This is our step and our movement to do exactly that.”
    • “These transparent PBM alternatives emerged as clients demand greater insight into how their money is spent. At the same time, lawmakers have grilled PBM executives and regulators continue investigating their business practices.”
  • Per Fierce Healthcare,
    • “CVS Health has announced further leadership appointments as the healthcare giant navigates choppy financial waters.
    • “Len Shankman will step into the role of president for pharmacy and consumer wellness, CVS announced. Shankman, who has risen up the ranks of CVS’ pharmacy division since 2002, will lead strategy for the company’s retail pharmacies and stores. * * *
    • “In addition to Shankman’s appointment, CVS revealed that Lucille Accetta has been tapped as its chief pharmacy officer. In this position, she’ll lead the charge in advocating for the role of the pharmacist and in finding ways to leverage their expertise across CVS’ enterprise.”
  • The AP relates,
    • “Nearly three out of 10 U.S. drugstores that were open during the previous decade had closed by 2021, new research shows.
    • “Black and Latino neighborhoods were most vulnerable to the retail pharmacy closures, which can chip away at already-limited care options in those communities, researchers said in a study published Tuesday in Health Affairs.
    • “The trend has potentially gained momentum since the study’s timeframe, because many drugstores are still struggling. In the last three years, the major chains Walgreens and CVS have closed hundreds of additional stores, and Rite Aid shrank as it went through a bankruptcy reorganization.
    • “Drugstores have been dealing with shrinking reimbursement for prescriptions, rising costs and changing customer shopping habits. The chains have been closing money-losing stores and transferring prescription files to more profitable locations.” * * *
    • “The study found that more than 29% of the nearly 89,000 retail U.S. pharmacies that operated between 2010 and 2020 had closed by 2021. That amounts to more than 26,000 stores.
    • “Researchers using data from the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs found that the number of U.S. pharmacies had actually increased from 2010 to 2017 because of store openings, but the pace of closings picked up starting in 2018.”

Tuesday Tidbits

David Ermer–ACA, CDC, Congress, FDA, Medical / Rx research, Obesity, OPM, Rx coverage, U.S. Healthcare, Uncategorized–
Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

From Washington, DC,

  • Govexec let us know,
    • “The top House Republicans for veterans’ issues are pushing a new measure to codify and expand privatized health care on the taxpayer dime, reigniting a controversial issue that is likely to come back to the fore under President-elect Trump. 
    • “The Complete the Mission Act would serve as a followup to the 2018 Mission Act that Trump signed into law, which streamlined and expanded veterans’ access to private sector care paid for by the Veterans Affairs Department. Congress passed the Mission Act on a bipartisan basis to follow a 2014 law with similar goals, but lawmakers have since disagreed over its implementation. 
    • “The new bill, introduced by House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., would ensure existing access standards for private sector “community care” are codified in law. Those rules allow veterans living more than a 30-minute drive on average from the nearest VA facility to access the community care network for services such as primary care, mental health and some extended care. For specialized care, veterans must live more than a one-hour drive from the nearest VA facility. They can also access private care when a close VA facility does not provide the service they are seeking, or when their VA doctor recommends it. 
    • “Bost’s measure would expand extended care options in the private sector and bar VA from considering telehealth availability when calculating community care eligibility. It would also require VA to consider veterans’ preference of where to seek treatment. The bill would create a three-year pilot in which patients could enroll in non-VA outpatient mental health or substance use treatment without requiring.”
  • Federal News Network informs us,
    • “Agency leaders in charge of combatting fraud are highlighting the importance of workforce training and data sharing, as the White House touts a deep decline in the governmentwide rate of improper payments.
    • “The Office of Management and Budget last week reported the governmentwide rate improper payment rate had fallen to 3.97%, the lowest since 2014. The rate has dropped by nearly 50% since fiscal 2021, when improper payments and fraud soared amid emergency COVID relief spending.
    • “The total amount of improper and unknown payments in fiscal 2024 was $161.5 billion, compared to just under $236 billion in fiscal 2023, according to data posted on PaymentAccuracy.gov.
    • “The White House said the past year’s progress was driven by “a government-wide approach focused on improving up-front controls, prioritizing fraud prevention, and driving increased collaboration between agencies and their inspectors general.”
  • The Internal Revenue Service announced that “The applicable dollar amount that must be used to calculate the [PCORI] fee imposed by sections 4375 and 4376 for policy years and plan years that end on or after October 1, 2024, and before October 1, 2025, is $3.47.
  • The Office of Personnel Management’s Inspector General released her latest semi-annual report to Congress.
  • Adam Fein, writing in his Drug Channels blog, shares four revelations about Minnesota’s first 340B program transparency report.

From the public health and medical research front,

  • STAT News reports,
    • “At the annual meeting of the Menopause Society earlier this fall, researchers presented new evidence that hormone therapy can be beneficial to menopausal women’s heart health, reducing insulin resistance and other cardiovascular biomarkers. It was the latest in a long line of research showing the benefits of hormone therapy for women in menopause, which also includes alleviating symptoms like hot flashes, sleep disturbances, vaginal dryness, and pain during sex.
    • “But despite this evidence, hormone therapy’s use has plummeted over the past few decades. In 1999, almost 27% of menopausal women in the U.S. used estrogen. By 2020, less than 5% did. 
    • “So why aren’t more women in menopause taking advantage of treatments known to be effective? Misconceptions about the risks of hormone therapy are one reason, according to experts. So is the lingering cultural taboo around discussing menopause, which has created “a perfect storm for under-treatment,” said Theodoros Kapetanakis, an OB-GYN at Mount Auburn Hospital’s Endometriosis Center in Waltham, Mass.” 
  • Healio tells us.
    • “The beneficial impact of physical activity on mortality risk remained consistent across the adult lifespan, even growing stronger later in life, according to study results published in JAMA Open Network.
    • “In contrast, other modifiable health factors saw their effects on the risk for mortality decrease with increasing age.
  • RAND offers a report titled “Improving the Detection of Cognitive Impairment and the Pathway to Treatment.”‘
    • “Low cognitive ability, functional limitations, and poor physical health are strong predictors of dementia as many as 20 years before its onset. Lifestyle factors, such as never drinking alcohol or drinking excessively, never exercising, and low engagement in hobbies, are associated with cognitive impairment and dementia.
    • “Early detection of cognitive impairment helps people take mitigating actions to prepare for future loss of their financial and physical independence.
    • “Older adults’ take-up of cognitive testing is low, and many who do get tested exit the clinical care pathway before being diagnosed and receiving treatment. Take-up of cognitive tests would increase if tests were free and readily accessible. Treatments would be more palatable if they had fewer side effects and helped patients maintain independence longer.
    • “More engagement of primary care practitioners and team-based care in the clinical care pathway and the use of new technologies, such as blood-based biomarkers, could ease health care system capacity constraints on dementia specialists and reduce wait times for patients.”
  • McKinsey & Company offers ideas about “How to address healthcare inequities for people with disabilities.”
    • “Globally, people with disabilities have a mortality rate that is 2.24 times higher than those without disabilities. And although people with disabilities often have greater healthcare needs, they also experience more and higher barriers to care. McKinsey’s Dr. Mona Hammami and coauthors write that in the patient care pathway, people with disabilities are more likely to report:
      • “skipping or delaying care because of cost
      • “having difficulty securing transportation to a health facility
      • “encountering inaccessible facilities
      • “meeting workers with inadequate skills or flexibility to provide quality care
    • “This International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD), examine inequities in the patient care pathway, potential interventions to overcome them, and a three-step approach to reducing inequities across communicable and non-communicable disease types.”
  • The New York Times reports
    • “Health officials have closed their investigations into an E. coli outbreak linked to raw onions on McDonald’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers that sickened more than a hundred people, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Tuesday.
    • “In total, 104 people from 14 states were sickened from the contaminated food and 34 were hospitalized. One older person in Colorado died.
    • “Officials said there did not appear to be a “continued food safety concern,” because McDonald’s had not served slivered onions — which investigators determined to be the “likely source of contamination”— on the Quarter Pounders for more than a month. The onions were recalled. And in many states, Quarter Pounders were removed from the menu altogether for several weeks.
    • “There have not been any new illnesses since McDonald’s decided to remove the onions from its menu on Oct. 22, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
  • Per an FDA announcement,
    • “On Monday, the FDA updated the outbreak advisory for Salmonella Typhimurium infections linked to cucumbers. As of November 26, 2024, a total of 68 people infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella have been reported from 19 states. Of the 50 people for whom information is available, 18 have been hospitalized. No deaths have been reported. Of the 33 people interviewed, 27 (82%) reported eating cucumbers.
    • “On November 27, 2024, SunFed Produce, LLC initiated a voluntary recall of all sizes of American/slicer cucumbers that were grown by Agrotato, S.A. de C.V. in Sonora, Mexico. On November 29, 2024, Baloian Farms of Arizona Co., Inc. initiated a voluntary recall of all sizes of American/slicer cucumbers that were grown by Agrotato, S.A. de C.V. On December 1, 2024, Russ Davis Wholesale initiated a voluntary recall of American/slicer cucumbers and multiple products containing recalled cucumbers.
    • “The FDA is working with the recalling firms and their direct customers to determine if additional downstream customer recalls are necessary. The FDA’s investigation is ongoing.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • Modern Healthcare relates,
    • “Kaiser Permanente-backed Risant Health acquired Cone Health on Sunday, making it the second health system to join Risant in less than a year.
    • “Cone is following in the footsteps of Geisinger Health, which was folded into the newly-formed Risant in March. Kaiser created Washington, D.C.-based Risant earlier this year as a nonprofit entity to buy systems and form a national network for value-based care.” * * *
    • “Having two of these close in one year has made for a pretty busy year,” said Dr. Jaewon Ryu, CEO at Risant. “It’s great to get on the other side of the regulatory approvals and finalize welcoming [Cone] into Risant Health.”
  • Beckers Hospital Review notes,
    • “California was CommonSpirit’s top-performing market in terms of margins in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025 (the three months ending Sept. 30) but the Chicago-based system’s South region, which includes Texas and Kentucky, “remains challenged,” Benjie Loanzon, senior vice president and corporate controller, said during the company’s Dec. 2 earnings call. 
    • “We are taking a range of actions in this region, focusing on our ambulatory strategy,” Mr. Loanzon said. “We are encouraged by recent performance improvements, though a significant amount of work will be needed to reach an acceptable level [of] performance.”
    • “CFO Dan Morissette said the health system continues to look at ways to improve the South region’s performance. Key focus areas include contracting, efficiency, growth and cost containment. 
    • “Although Texas didn’t perform well in Q1, we are encouraged by other achievements in terms of the volume and cost containment,” Mr. Loanzon said. “Kentucky is the most improved market in terms of the financial performance. In terms of the volume and cost containment, it has a positive EBIDTA compared to the past.”
  • Per BioPharma Dive,
    • “Shares of Janux Therapeutics surged to record highs following the release of study results for a drug that, if ultimately successful in testing, would represent a new type of therapy for prostate cancer. 
    • “The findings come from an early-stage study testing the biotechnology company’s therapy, dubbed JANX007, in 16 people with a form of advanced prostate cancer. Data Janux first disclosed earlier this year vaulted the company’s market value past $2 billion. While early and from a small clinical trial, the new results announced Monday afternoon pushed Janux’s shares nearly 75% higher, changing hands Tuesday morning at more than $70 apiece.”‘
  • Beckers Payer Issues tells us how much health plans are paying for GLP-1 drugs.
    • The prices for some GLP-1s have dropped significantly in recent years for individuals covered by Medicare and commercial insurance, according to a new report from HHS,
    • In 2024, the U.S. list prices for a one-month supply for most GLP-1s are stable or increasing, but after payer negotiations and rebates, net prices for many GLP-1s have decreased since 2022. Net prices for GLP-1s are between 24% and 73% lower than list prices, indicating that most insurers are paying less than the manufacturer’s list price.
    • “In the net prices, we see evidence of the impact of competition as new drugs in the class enter the market,” HHS wrote. “While list prices are consistently stable or increasing, for many of these drugs, including Ozempic, Rybelsus, Saxenda, and Victoza, net prices fell.”
  • Healthcare Dive explains “Healthcare organizations must carefully vet AI tools, address patient concerns and keep an eye on standards and regulation, according to industry experts who spoke at a Healthcare Dive virtual event.”

Monday Roundup

David Ermer–CMS, Congress, COVID-19, Federal employment benefits, Medical / Rx research, Medicare, Obesity, Rx coverage, U.S. Healthcare–
Photo by Sven Read on Unsplash

From Washington, DC,

  • CMS issued a World AIDS HIV Day Fact Sheet today.
    • “Approximately 1.2 million people in the United States are living with HIV, which disproportionately affects men and underserved communities. While it was once a deadly diagnosis, HIV is now a health condition that people can manage through their lifetimes with access to safe, appropriate, high-quality treatment and support services. Thanks to the advancement of science, U=U, or undetectable equals untransmittable, means that people with HIV with an undetectable viral load cannot sexually transmit the virus to others, transforming lives and reducing stigma.
    • “The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is proud to celebrate World AIDS Day 2024 with the theme “Collective Action: Sustain and Accelerate HIV Progress” through our continuous focus to provide affordable, accessible, high-quality care to all individuals enrolled in our programs, including people with HIV/AIDS. CMS is helping to drive progress across each of its strategic pillars and its commitment to advance equity, expand access, engage partners, drive innovation, protect programs, and foster excellence.”
  • Per a House of Representatives press release,
    • “Today, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic concluded its two-year investigation into the COVID-19 pandemic and released a final report titled “After Action Review of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Lessons Learned and a Path Forward.” * * *
    • “On Wednesday, December 4, 2024, at 10:30am, the Select Subcommittee will hold a markup of the final report and officially submit the report to the Congressional record. Ahead of the markup, the Select Subcommittee will also release additional supporting materials and recommendations.
    • “The full, 520-page final report can be found here.”
    • The Committee’s summary of the final report can be found in the press release.
  • My Federal Retirement discusses the health reimbursement account tools found in consumer driven FEHB and PSHB plans.
  • Modern Healthcare reports,
    • “UnitedHealthcare and Centene have received higher Medicare Advantage star ratings for the 2025 plan year after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services revised their scores.
    • “On Monday, CMS published updated Medicare Advantage Star Ratings program data that reveal the agency increased the quality ratings for 12 UnitedHealthcare contracts and seven Centene contracts, each of which comprise multiple Medicare Advantage plans. CMS issued 2025-star ratings for all Medicare Advantage insurers in October.” * * *
    • “Centene gained its sole four-star contract under the recalculations CMS disclosed Monday. Two UnitedHealthcare contracts were upgraded to five stars and three to four stars, giving the UnitedHealth Group subsidiary 37 contracts rated at least four stars.
    • “The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas ordered CMS to redo UnitedHealthcare’s scores last month in a case involving how the agency evaluated the company’s call center services. Centene initiated a similar lawsuit in October, which is still on the docket, as is a complaint from Humana. Elevance Health and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana sued over their scores on different grounds.”

From the public health and medical research fronts,

  • STAT News explores “Why have U.S. bird flu cases been so mild?” Here are the hypotheses considered in the article:
    • “Hypothesis: The way in which the virus is being transmitted — along with the amount of virus exposure — is limiting the severity of disease
    • “Hypothesis: The version of H5N1 circulating in the U.S., the 2.3.4.4b clade, is inherently less dangerous to people.”
    • “Hypothesis: People are less susceptible to severe infection from H5N1 than we used to be.”
    • “Hypothesis: Public health officials were previously unaware of a significant number of mild H5N1 cases in humans, leading to a dramatic overestimation of H5’s feared case fatality rate. Only now are we getting a true picture of the spectrum of infection.”
  • Per BioPharma Dive,
    • “The American Diabetes Association, a high-profile advocacy group, is warning against widespread use of compounded versions of popular weight loss and diabetes drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound.
    • “The group on Monday released an official guidance statement that recommends doctors avoid prescribing unapproved, off-brand versions of the medicines, which have been so in demand their manufacturers, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, have had difficulty keeping up supply.
    • “We urge health care professionals to consider this guidance statement due to concerns around the safety, quality, and effectiveness of compounded versions of these products,” said Joshua Neumiller, the ADA’s president-elect and a co-author of the statement.”
  • The New York Times proposes five questions to ask your doctor when deciding whether to undergo a hysterectomy.
  • Medscape tells us,
    • “Novocure said on Monday its experimental therapy extended the lives of patients with a form of advanced pancreatic cancer when combined with chemotherapy, achieving the primary goal in a late-stage trial.
    • “The therapy uses Tumor Treating Fields, or electric fields, to kill cancer cells while sparing most nearby healthy cells, using a portable device placed on the skin near the tumor.
    • ‘In the study, TTFields therapy concomitant with chemotherapy helped patients live for an average of 16.20 months, compared to 14.16 months in patients treated with chemotherapy alone, Novocure said.
    • ‘The treatment’s safety was consistent with prior clinical studies, the company said.
    • “The therapy also helped improve survival rates over time, according to Novocure. The rate of overall survival, or the length of time a patient lives from the start of treatment, improved by 13% at 12 months and by 33% at 24 months, the company said.”
  • and
    • “Individuals with normal body mass index (BMI) measurements may still face an increased risk for colorectal cancer (CRC) if they have central obesity, characterized by excess fat around the abdomen.”
  • Consumer Reports, writing in the Washington Post, points out “tools to help you remember when to take pills. Poor medication adherence results in an estimated 125,000 deaths each year.

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • Fierce Healthcare honors ten women of influence in healthcare. Kudos to them.
  • Modern Healthcare reports,
    • “GE HealthCare will take on full ownership of the drug company Nihon Medi-Physics in a transaction with Sumitomo Chemical that is expected to close in early 2025, the company announced Monday.
    • “Nihon Medi-Physics’ portfolio includes radiopharmaceuticals for neurology, cardiology and oncology that are used in clinical imaging to help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, dementia with Lewy bodies and coronary artery disease. The GE HealthCare-Sumitomo Chemical is subject to regulatory review and the companies did not disclose the terms of the deal.
    • “GE HealthCare has owned half of Nihon Medi-Physics since 2004, when former parent company General Electric obtained the stake as part of its acquisition of drugmaker Amersham.”
  • and
    • “Community Health Systems’ Northwest Healthcare acquired 10 urgent care centers in Arizona from Carbon Health.
    • “The transaction grows Northwest’s network across the Tucson, Arizona, area to more than 80 care sites, according to a Monday news release. One of the 10 centers was not in operation when the deal closed and is awaiting a certificate of occupancy from the state of Arizona, a CHS spokesperson said.
    • “Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.”
  • Beckers Hospital Review informs us,
    • “Pittsburgh-based UPMC reported an operating loss of $57.6 million (-0.7% margin) in the third quarter ended Sept. 30, 2024, up from a $191 million operating loss (-2.8% margin) reported during the same time period in 2023, according to the system’s most recent financial report.”
  •  and
    • “Despite an end to the recent IV fluid shortage being in sight, hospital administrators may continue to adjust standard practices, KFF Health News reported Nov. 27.”  * * *
    • “Falls Church, Va.-based Inova Health System’s chief of research stewardship, Sam Elgawly, MD, told KFF Health News that the system has dropped its IV fluid usage by 55% since early October.
    • “There has been increasing literature over the last 10 to 20 years that indicates maybe you don’t need to use as much,” Dr Elgawly told KFF Health News. “[The shortage] accelerated our sort of innovation and testing of that idea.”
    • “Read the full KFF Health News report here.”
  • Per BioPharma Dive,
    • “Novartis could pay close to $3 billion for brain drugs developed by PTC Therapeutics, per a deal announced Monday.
    • “At the center of the deal is an experimental medicine, PTC518, which is currently being tested as a potential treatment for Huntington’s disease in a roughly 250-person clinical trial. The main portion of that study should complete early next year. But ahead of those results, PTC has entered into an exclusive licensing agreement that gives Novartis rights to the medicine as well as related molecules.
    • “The deal is set to close before the end of March, according to the companies. If it does, PTC will get $1 billion upfront. The New Jersey-based drugmaker could receive milestone payments worth up to $1.9 billion, in addition to royalties on any PTC518 sales outside the U.S.”
  • and
    • “Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche is spending around $1 billion to acquire a San Diego-based biotechnology company that’s trying to treat certain cancers and rare diseases with a slate of cell therapies and genetic medicines.
    • “The deal, announced Tuesday, has Roche paying $9 per share of Poseida Therapeutics. Poseida investors may additionally receive as much as $4 per share more via a so-called contingent value right if the biotech’s drug programs hit specific research and commercial milestones. The acquisition is expected to close sometime between January and the end of March.
    • “The two companies were already working together through a licensing agreement inked in 2022. Terms of the new deal suggest Roche sees even more promise in Poseida’s gene editing technologies, which are being used to create allogeneic, or “off-the-shelf,” cell therapies that don’t rely on a patient’s own donor cells. Roche’s offer is 215% above Poseida’s closing share price on Monday — representing one of the largest premiums paid in a big-ticket biopharma acquisition over the past several years.”