From Washington, DC,

• The Wall Street Journal reports,
  • “The Senate approved a sweeping defense-policy package despite alarm over a provision that rolls back safety measures put in place following the fatal midair collision in January between a military helicopter and passenger plane at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. 
  • “The Senate passed the $901 billion National Defense Authorization Act on a vote of 77-20, codifying more than a dozen of President Trump’s executive orders, while placing new limits on his ability to act unilaterally overseas. The House passed the annual measure last week 312 to 112, and it now goes to Trump’s desk for his signature.
  • “While the bill sets specific spending levels for the Pentagon, it doesn’t appropriate any money, which is done through separate legislation. Lawmakers added $8 billion to the Pentagon’s budget request. The legislation would increase America’s total national-security budget by less than 1% from last year’s $895 billion authorization bill. It also raises troop pay 3.8%.”

• Fierce Healthcare adds,
  • “Nearly two years after its introduction as a bill during the last U.S. Congress, the Biosecure Act has survived an election and a presidential transition and appears poised to become law. But this version, tucked into the nation’s annual defense bill, features some changes from the first iteration.
  • “Both the House of Representatives and the Senate have passed the $901 billion defense bill, sending it to the president’s desk for a signature. The White House has said President Donald Trump plans to sign the massive defense package, Reuters reports.
  • “Within the mammoth bill, the Biosecure Act has the potential to raise new hurdles for certain life sciences companies from China, as well as their partners, although the exact effects of the legislation remain tough to fully assess at this stage.”

• STAT News tells us,
  • “House Republicans on Wednesday passed a health care bill aimed at lowering health care costs and providing more options for employer-provided health insurance.” * * *
  • “The Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act would expand access to association health plans by allowing small employers and self-employed individuals to band together across industries to buy insurance that is less regulated. Large employers already can offer this kind of coverage. About 700,000 more people per year on average would choose association health plans under the bill, about 200,000 of whom currently don’t have insurance, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.” * * *
  • “Another measure would prevent states from regulating stop-loss insurance that self-insured plans use to protect against large claims to control costs. 
  • “It also would fund cost-sharing reductions for low-income enrollees in the Affordable Care Act marketplace. Funding cost-sharing reductions would lower gross premiums for benchmark silver plans by 11% on average, according to the CBO. Because ACA subsidies are based on the cost of a silver plan, that lowers the amount of tax credits available to buy any plan.” 

• The Wall Street Journal further reports,
  • “Four vulnerable House Republicans rebelled against Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) and backed a Democratic effort to force a vote on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, exposing GOP fractures over surging healthcare costs headed into next year’s midterm elections.” * * *
  • “With the GOP signatures on the discharge petition, Jeffries now has the 218 needed to force a vote, which wouldn’t likely occur until after the holiday break. But the centrists’ move could keep up pressure on both parties to reach a deal, and talks were continuing in the Senate on a possible compromise for early in the new year.
  • “The defections delivered a blow to Johnson’s leadership in the House, where he has been forced to manage a historically narrow majority—currently 220-213—that gives any small bloc of Republicans power to derail or hijack his agenda.
  • “We’re keeping a productive conversation going,” Johnson told reporters after the defectors signed onto the Democratic plan. “I have not lost control of the House.”

• STAT News tells us,
  • “Several drugmakers are expected to sign pricing agreements with the Trump administration on Friday, according to four people familiar with the plans, who were not authorized to speak publicly.
  • “The agreements would be the latest in a series of deals in which pharmaceutical companies agree to lower drug prices and invest more domestically in exchange for avoiding tariffs and other benefits, such as fast-tracked drug reviews.”

• An OPM Inspector General data brief lets us know that following an OPM mandate in January 2023, spending on GLP-1 drugs in the FEHB Program for the treatment of obesity surged dramatically. While OPM has the authority to make unilateral amendments to their FEHB and PSHB contracts with carriers, the carriers have a right to an equitable price adjustment. See Section 5.38 of the standard OPM contracts. The only way to achieve is an equitable price adjustment (or any price adjustment for that matter) is through the annual benefit and rate proposal process. OPM should have proposed the change for 2024, and then allowd the carriers to include the cost of these drugs in their 2024 premium. OPM didn’t do this. and this mistake caused FEHB premiums to jump more than they should have in 2025. This should be the lesson taken from this data brief.

• Govexec informs us,
  • “The U.S. Postal Service on Wednesday announced plans to expand access to its last-mile delivery network, which the new postmaster general hopes will provide a boon to the financially struggling agency. 
  • “In the logistics business, the most expensive part of delivery is generally the ‘last mile’ portion of a route. As part of our universal service obligation, we deliver to more than 170 million addresses at least six days a week, so we are the natural leader in last-mile delivery,” Steiner said in a statement. “We want to make this valuable service available to a wide range of customers that see the worth of last mile access — other logistics companies and retailers large and small.” 
  • “USPS in late January or early February 2026 will begin auctioning off access to more than 18,000 delivery destinations, according to a press release. 
  • “Steiner said in an interview with Reuters about the program that it could raise billions in revenue for USPS, which is needed as the PG also warned that the agency could run out of money in early 2027.”

• Federal News Network interviews NARFE’s Staff Vice President for Policy and Programs John Hatton.
  • Federal employees are seeing signs of stability. Retirement processing is improving, workforce protections are holding, and pay raise prospects are clearer. But with continuing resolutions and hiring freezes still in the mix, the path forward requires careful planning. What can be expected in the coming year?

• Mercer informs us,
  • “Starting next July, employers can voluntarily contribute to the Trump accounts of employees’ dependent children. Created by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Pub. L. No. 119-21), these accounts are a new kind of tax-preferred savings vehicle for individuals under 18. Employer contributions up to $2,500 per year are excludable from an employee’s gross income if made pursuant to a program that meets certain conditions. This tax exclusion also applies to employer contributions to accounts of employees who are under 18. Originally published on Aug. 5, 2025, this article has been updated to reflect IRS guidance in Notice 2025-68. IRS intends to propose regulations consistent with the guidance in the notice. IRS is accepting comments on the notice through Feb. 20, 2026.”

From the Food and Drug Administration front,

• Fierce Pharma reports,
  • “With a fresh endorsement from the FDA, the last of five major drug approvals has fallen into place for GSK in 2025.
  • “Tuesday, the U.S. regulator greenlit GSK’s depemokimab, an ultra-long-acting biologic, as a new add-on maintenance therapy for severe asthma with an eosinophilic phenotype in patients ages 12 and older. The drug will hit the market under the Exdensur brand name, GSK said in a Dec. 16 press release.
  • “GSK has drafted lofty sales ambitions for Exdensur, an IL-5 antagonist that is injected just twice a year. The British pharma has previously estimated the inflammatory disease med could reel in sales of 3 billion pounds sterling ($4 billion) at peak.”

• BioPharma Dive informs us,
  • “DBV Technologies shares soared Wednesday after the company said its Viaskin peanut allergy patch succeeded in a Phase 3 trial.
  • “The results represent a comeback for the patch, which was rejected by the Food and Drug Administration in August 2020. At the time, regulators said the patch needed modifications to fully adhere to the skin and called for more data to support its efficacy.
  • “With the results of the trial, dubbed Vitesse, in hand, DBV now plans to submit an application to the FDA in the first half of next year to clear the patch for children between the ages of 4 and 7. The FDA has previously awarded the treatment a breakthrough therapy designation, and it may qualify for a priority review, DBV said Tuesday.”

From the public health and medical / Rx research front,

• The University of Minnesota’s CIDRAP reports,
  • “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the United States has tracked 1,958 measles cases so far this year, nearing the 2,000-case milestone just one month before the country will likely lose its elimination status. 
  • “The total represents 46 new US cases.
  • “There have been 49 US outbreaks reported in 44 US jurisdictions, the CDC said, as well as 24 measles cases reported among international visitors to the United States. Eighty-eight percent of all measles cases reported this year have been outbreak-associated. 
  • “Among US cases, 26% are in children under the age of 5 years, 41% of patients are between 5 and 19 years, 32% are 20 years or older, and 1% have unknown ages. Ninety-three percent of case-patients are unvaccinated or have unknown vaccination status, while 3% have one dose of measles-containing vaccine, and 4% are fully vaccinated. 
  • “So far, 222 people (11%) have been hospitalized for measles infections in the United States this year, and three have died.”
• and
  • “Two studies on respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) protection conclude that vaccine effectiveness against infection and related health care use drops over 18 months in US veterans and that the effectiveness of the long-acting monoclonal antibody preventive nirsevimab is strong in hospitalized European children younger than two years but wanes over seven months.
  • “Older adults and infants are especially vulnerable to severe RSV, with possible complications of bronchiolitis, pneumonia, and sepsis.” * * *
  • “In an editorial in the same journal, Editorial Fellow Anna Hung, PhD, of Duke University, and Associate Editor Lona Mody, MD, of the University of Michigan, noted that, despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation for a single dose for anyone aged 75 and older and those aged 60 to 74 years at increased risk for severe disease, less than half of either group receives the vaccine.
  • “This low uptake can be explained by various reasons including relative recency of development of the vaccine, lack of awareness of the seriousness and frequency of RSV infection, a hazy shared clinical decision-making model, access barriers, a general vaccine fatigue, and lack of clear guidance to clinicians,” they wrote. 
  • “They added that the greater decline in VE among immunocompromised veterans suggests the need for RSV boosters. “Experts will need to evaluate this evidence carefully to update guidance,” they wrote.”

• The American Hospital Association News lets us know, “Depression and anxiety can increase the risk of a major adverse cardiac event, according to an American Heart Association study published Dec. 17.”

• Health Day relates,
  • “Adherence to cervical cancer screening guidelines is low, with more than 60 percent undergoing overscreening, according to a research letter published online Dec. 10 in JAMA Network Open.
  • “Michelle B. Shin, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.N., from the University of Washington in Seattle, and colleagues examined cervical cancer screening guideline adherence among a nationally representative commercially insured cohort to assess factors and modalities associated with nonadherence. Data were analyzed from the 2013 to 2021 Optum Clinformatics anonymized longitudinal claims database covering about 13 million individuals annually.
  • “The researchers found that among 670,003 eligible individuals, 47.1 and 52.9 percent received cytology alone and cotesting, respectively. Overall, only 7.3 percent were guideline-adherent, while 61.6 and 31.1 percent were overscreened and underscreened, respectively.”
  • * * * “Consistent with prior work, we observed low adherence (7.3 percent) to cervical cancer screening guidelines among the commercially insured U.S. population despite stable coverage, likely reflecting guideline confusion among patients, clinicians, and health systems,” the authors write.”
     
• Per the University of Minnesota’s CIDRAP,
  • “Treatment with the antiviral combination nirmatrelvir–ritonavir (Paxlovid) was associated with fewer lost workdays and lower disability-related costs among US employees at high risk for severe COVID-19, according to a retrospective observational study in the Journal of Medical Economics.
  • “Using insurance claims and workplace productivity data from large US employers, the researchers, led by scientists from Paxlovid maker Pfizer, compared productivity outcomes among high-risk employees diagnosed as having COVID who either received Paxlovid within five days of diagnosis or received no antiviral. 
  • “Analyses of absences among treated and untreated workers and those on short-term disability (STD) and long-term disability (LTD) included 1,909, 20,065, and 20,318 employees, respectively. The study included data from December 2021 through December 2022, a period dominated by Omicron variants.”

• Per Fierce Pharma,
  • “The combination of Keytruda and Padcev is taking another major step toward securing its position as a leading therapy in the treatment of bladder cancer.
  • “The PD-1/antibody-drug conjugate pairing significantly extended the lives of patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) who are eligible for cisplatin-based chemotherapy compared with chemotherapy, according to results from the phase 3 Keynote-B15 (EV-304) trial. The study evaluated Keytruda and Padcev, given both before and after surgery in what’s known as a perioperative treatment, and compared the regimen with neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by surgery.
  • “Keytruda developer Merck & Co. sponsored the study in collaboration with Padcev makers Astellas and Pfizer. The three firms announced the positive top-line readout from an interim analysis Wednesday.”
• and
  • “Armed with new three-year data demonstrating the benefits of Anktiva in a specific patient subset, ImmunityBio is proving its bladder cancer med is still one to watch as it competes with heavy hitters from Merck and Johnson & Johnson.
  • “Last year, the company won a long-sought FDA approval for its drug—used alongside the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine—to treat patients with BCG-unresponsive non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) with carcinoma in situ (CIS), with or without papillary tumors. 
  • “That nod set up a showdown with Merck’s Keytruda and Ferring Pharmaceuticals’ gene therapy Adstiladrin. More recently, the competition has amped up, with Johnson & Johnson’s Inlexzo hitting the scene and putting pressure on IL-15 receptor agonist Anktiva.
  • “Not deterred by the expanding competitive landscape, ImmunityBio is using new data from the company’s Quilt-3.032 study to flesh out Anktiva’s benefits in patients with BCG-unresponsive high-grade papillary-only NMIBC. Papillary tumors and CIS are the two clonally linked subtypes of NMIBC, ImmunityBio explained in a Dec. 16 press release. 

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• Modern Healthcare reports,
  • “Oscar Health, Angle Health, Curative, Centivo and Sidecar Health are testing the market for alternative health plans.
  • “Options such as variable copay plans and individual coverage health reimbursement arrangements may appeal to employers seeking to cut costs.
  • “Leading insurers such as UnitedHealthcare, Aetna, Cigna, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies are active in this market.
  • “More than one-third of large businesses will offer nontraditional health benefits in 2026, according to Mercer.”

• Fierce Healthcare relates,
  • “Cigna’s Evernorth launched a behavioral-health-focused medical group in 2024 to meet the demand for behavioral health therapy and support.
  • “In the past 18 months, Evernorth has expanded its Behavioral Care Group from virtual services in six markets and a network of 1,000 providers to more than 5,000 providers across all 50 states.
  • “Evernorth now plans to grow the medical group to more than 15,000 providers next year.
  • “The medical group also now offers in-person appointments to complement its virtual care services. Evernorth executives say this hybrid approach allows patients to choose the care setting that best suits their needs without compromising on quality or convenience.”
    
• BioPharma Dive points out,
  • “Biotechnology startup Orum Therapeutics has banked 146 billion Korean won, or about $100 million, to fuel development of medicines that merge elements of two popular drugmaking approaches.
  • “Orum on Thursday said that proceeds from the round — which was led by KB Investments and involved seven other firms — will help advance a potential acute myeloid leukemia drug called ORM-1153 and that recently became its top candidate.
  • “The startup, which has offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Daejeon, South Korea, is developing what are known as “degrader-antibody conjugates.” These drugs are a twist on the antibody-drug conjugates, or ADCs, used to treat multiple cancers. ADCs link a targeting molecule to a tumor-killing toxin. Orum’s drugs, by comparison, use a protein-degrading compound as a payload.”

• Per Axios,
  • “Employer-sponsored insurance may be getting costlier, but it still delivers a positive return for firms that cover their workers, according to a new Avalere Health analysis commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and provided first to Axios.
  • “Why it matters: Workplace insurance is the backbone of the American health care system, covering around half of the population. Whether it’s a well-functioning system or not, workers and families depend on it.
  • “What they found: The analysis measured what companies get back from each dollar invested in health benefits and concluded benefits exceeded costs for firms of all sizes this year, and that ROI will only grow through 2029.
  • “Employer insurance will yield an estimated 120% ROI to employers in the aggregate in 2025 and a 137% return in 2029, per the analysis.
  • “That comes from increased productivity, tax benefits and increased retention.”