From Washington, DC,

• OPM’s leadership posted an end of the year letter to OPM employees.

• STAT News reports,
  • “Drug manufacturers and pharmacy benefit managers received a holiday gift from President Trump on Friday: They still will not have to publicly post the actual prices of prescription drugs, more than five years after federal law required them to do so.
  • “Net drug prices — the amounts that health insurance companies and PBMs pay to drugmakers, after factoring in rebates — are highly valuable data that undergird the entire economic foundation of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry. But the decision from the Trump administration, rolled out in a new proposed rule, means that drug pricing data will likely remain locked out of public view for the foreseeable future.”

• Avalere Health shares its perspective about December 2025 Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices Insights and 2026 Emerging Priorities.
  • “The ACIP’s December meeting resulted in a key change to the pediatric immunization schedule and signaled several potential changes to US vaccine coverage and access in 2026.”

• Per an HHS news release,
  • “Executing on President Trump’s Executive Order (EO) 14192 titled “Unleashing Prosperity through Deregulation” and the President’s mandate to ensure the United States’ continued leadership in artificial intelligence (AI), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy/Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ASTP/ONC), today released the Health Data, Technology, and Interoperability: ASTP/ONC Deregulatory Actions to Unleash Prosperity (HTI-5) Proposed Rule.
  • “Today’s HTI-5 Proposed Rule has three core goals: (1) reducing burden on health IT developers by streamlining ASTP/ONC’s voluntary Health IT Certification Program by removing redundant requirements; (2) updating the information blocking regulations to better promote electronic health information access, exchange, and use so that patients’ access to their data is not blocked; and (3) advancing a new foundation of Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®)-based application programming interfaces (APIs) that promote AI-enabled interoperability solutions through modernized standards and certification. The HTI-5 proposed rule is expected to save $1.53 billion in total, including $650 million over the next five years for health IT developers, providers, and other stakeholders.
  • “The HTI-5 proposed rule delivers on President Trump’s directive to reduce regulatory burden and to enable American innovation through artificial intelligence,” said Tom Keane, MD, Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy and National Coordinator for Health IT. “These proposals reflect a commonsense approach that removes redundant requirements on health IT developers, that better ensures seamless patient access to their information and that sets a foundation for AI-based data exchange.” * * *
  • “More information can be found at healthit.gov/hti5 and via ASTP/ONC’s X account, @HHS_TechPolicy
  • “ASTP/ONC is also withdrawing certain proposals not yet finalized from the HTI-2 proposed rule.”

From the Food and Drug Administration front,

• The Wall Street Journal reports,
  • “U.S. regulators approved the first GLP-1 weight-loss pill—a tablet formulation of Novo Nordisk’s NOVO.B  Ozempic and Wegovy—ushering in a new era of the obesity-drugs revolution that is expected to broaden their use.
  • “Novo Nordisk said it plans to start selling the new pill in the U.S. soon after the new year, with a cash price of $149 a month for the starting dose.
  • “The Food and Drug Administration approval is a milestone because weekly shots such as Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s LLY Zepbound have dominated the anti-obesity market to date. Yet many people with excess weight don’t take the shots due to cost, spotty insurance coverage and fear of needles.
  • “Drug companies and analysts say pills will tap in to demand from people who don’t want an injection or would prefer the cadence of a daily dose. Pills also offer the prospect of lower prices and better health-insurance coverage than injections, because pills cost less to make.
  • “Eli Lilly also plans to introduce a new weight-loss pill, potentially within weeks or months.” 

• Fierce Pharma tells us,
  • “Just two months after reviving its prowess in the idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) treatment area with rare lung disease med Jascayd, Boehringer Ingelheim is already unlocking another patient population with a new FDA nod.
  • “The new approval for Jascayd in progressive pulmonary fibrosis (PPF) makes the drug the only preferential phosphodiesterase 4B (PDE4B) inhibitor with immunomodulatory and antifibrotic effects approved in this indication, according to a Dec. 19 company press release.
  • “Progressive pulmonary fibrosis is a life-threatening condition with a high unmet medical need. The U.S. approval of Jascayd is an important step forward to help slow lung function decline for people living with PPF, providing a new, well-tolerated treatment option,” Boehringer’s head of human pharma, Shashank Deshpande, said in a release.”

• MedTech Dive notes,
  • “Abbott said Monday that it has received Food and Drug Administration approval for its Volt pulsed field ablation system.
  • “The catheter-based device uses targeted, high-energy electrical pulses to treat a common heart arrhythmia called atrial fibrillation. Abbott’s Volt device is indicated for both paroxysmal AFib, where episodes come and go, and persistent AFib, or episodes that last longer than seven days, according to the FDA.
  • “Medtronic, Boston Scientific and Johnson & Johnson have all debuted their own PFA devices in the last two years. The approval allows Abbott to join the fast-growing, competitive market in the U.S.”

From the public health and medical / Rx research front,

• The American Medical Association lets us know “What doctors wish patients knew about family immunizations.”
  • “Vaccines save millions of lives each year. Two infectious diseases physicians discuss the key role they should play for the loved ones in your family.”

• Health Day informs us,
  • “Psychiatric conditions as varied as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder might be driven by very similar genetic underpinnings, a new study says. 
  • “Mental health problems can be sorted into five general genetic categories, each with a shared “genetic architecture” driving people’s illness, according to results published in the journal Nature.
  • “Right now, we diagnose psychiatric disorders based on what we see in the room, and many people will be diagnosed with multiple disorders. That can be hard to treat and disheartening for patients,” lead researcher Andrew Grotzinger, an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado-Boulder, said in a news release.
  • “This work provides the best evidence yet that there may be things that we are currently giving different names to that are actually driven by the same biological processes,” he said.”
• and
  • “A new risk score can help predict which pancreatic cancer survivors are more likely to suffer a recurrence of their cancer, researchers said.
  • “The score could help better manage the follow-up care for patients who’ve had pancreatic tumors surgically removed, and whose cancers have not spread to their lymph nodes, researchers wrote Dec. 17 in JAMA Surgery.
  • “We now have a way to identify patients whose higher risk of recurrence may have been previously overlooked,” senior researcher Dr. Cristina Ferrone, chair of surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said in a news release. “This gives us the opportunity to change the way we care for this patient population in a meaningful way.”
  • “The score helps people with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, which are a less common and typically less aggressive form of pancreatic cancer.
  • “Patients whose cancer has not spread outside the pancreas, to either the lymph nodes or surrounding organs, have a 91% five-year survival rate following surgery, researchers said in background notes.”

• Per Medscape,
  • “In adults with obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2D), a reduction in BMI during intentional weight loss was associated with a reduced risk for retinopathy, neuropathy, chronic kidney disease (CKD), and peripheral artery disease (PAD), regardless of changes in A1c levels.”

• The Wall Street Journal relates
  • “For years, Barbara Schmidt’s family feared an illness was behind a pattern of terrifying falls that repeatedly landed the 83-year-old great-grandmother in surgery with broken bones. Instead, Schmidt’s frequent tumbles might have been tied to something else: medications intended to make her better.
  • “Schmidt, who lives with her husband of 65 years in Lewes, Del., filled prescriptions for more than a dozen different drugs in the past year, according to pharmacy and medical records.
  • “That isn’t unusual for America’s seniors, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Medicare data. One in six of the 46 million seniors enrolled in Medicare’s drug benefit, which pays for most drugs taken by older Americans, were prescribed eight or more medications.”
  • * * * “Schmidt’s recent prescriptions came from at least five different healthcare providers. Most were affiliated with the nearby hospital system Beebe Healthcare, including a nurse practitioner whom she sees for primary care and a gastroenterology office. An orthopedic surgeon who has treated her back problems and prescribed medications to help with her pain works for an independent practice, First State Orthopaedics. 
  • “A Beebe spokesman said it has reviewed its prescribing patterns and, this November, added a new electronic medical record that will allow doctors to “view consolidated medical and medication histories” for patients and deliver “safer, more informed care.” First State Orthopaedics said it doesn’t comment on matters of patient care unless it is legally required to do so.
  • “Pharmacists who work with seniors say doctors might not be aware of their patients’ full medication list. Patients don’t always mention what their other doctors have prescribed when a history is taken, and specialists might not have access to a shared medical record.
  • “The Journal analysis found that, among seniors taking eight or more drugs, it was common for the prescriptions to come from a large number of doctors.”

From the U.S. healthcare and artificial intelligence front,

• Beckers Payers Issues and MedCity News offer observations on payer progress toward simplfying prior authorization.

• Per Beckers Hospital Review,
  • “Houston-based Nutex Health has opened its 26th micro-hospital, Archview ER & Hospital, in St. Louis.
  • “The 16,000-square-foot facility includes 15 emergency room beds, three inpatient suites, a full-service laboratory and advanced imaging technology, according to a Dec. 22 Nutex Health news release.
  • “It replaces Homer G. Phillips Memorial Hospital, which surrendered its license and closed in March. The hospital had been temporarily closed since December 2024, when its license was suspended due to a blood supply shortage.”
• and
  • “Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co. has added Vegzelma, a biosimilar indicated for six cancer types, to its marketplace for hospitals and other healthcare providers. 
  • “The company plans to expand its biosimilar offerings amid growing demand for biologics among health systems, according to a news release shared with Becker’s. Cost Plus Drugs also offers Starjemza, a biosimilar to Johnson & Johnson’s Stelara (ustekinumab), at a price about $3,000 lower than retail at other pharmacies.
  • “Vegzelma is a biosimilar to Roche’s Avastin (bevacizumab), which is approved for treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer; non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer; recurrent glioblastoma; metastatic renal cell carcinoma; persistent, recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer; and epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube or primary peritoneal cancer.”  

• Cardiovascular Business reports,
  • “The American College of Cardiology (ACC) and American Heart Association (AHA) have both issued new scientific statements exploring the use of artificial intelligence (AI) software to evaluate the coronary CT angiography (CCTA) results of patients with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD).[1,2] These statements put a spotlight on one of cardiology’s biggest ongoing trends, sending a signal to heart teams that these technologies represent the future of care for CAD patients in the United States.
  • “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved noninvasive CCTA analysis tools from Heartflow, Cleerly, Keya Medical, Elucid, Circle Cardiovascular Imaging and Artrya that help cardiologists provide preventive care and develop treatment strategies. The ACC and AHA developed these statements was to provide care teams with additional details and recommendations when it comes to the implementation and use of AI-enabled CCTA evaluations.”