From Washington, DC,

• Healthcare Dive reports,
  • “America has entered its “golden age,” President Donald Trump argued in a lengthy State of the Union address Tuesday night that glossed over the biggest achievements of the president’s second term so far but was notably light on healthcare.
  • “The economy is improving, prices are coming down, illegal immigration is under control and crime is plummeting, the president said, while lauding guests in attendance like Erika Kirk and the Olympic gold medal-winning U.S. men’s hockey team. Trump’s remarks — the longest State of the Union speech in recorded history, at an hour and 47 minutes — were often met with chants of “U.S.A! U.S.A!” from Republicans in the gallery, and come as the president seeks to reverse plummeting approval ratings.
  • “However, Trump didn’t use the State of the Union to introduce many new policy ideas. He also didn’t devote much time to healthcare, spending only about five minutes of his speech on the sector.”

• Per an HHS news release,
  • “Today at the White House, Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Dr. Mehmet Oz announced new steps to crack down on fraud in Medicare and Medicaid to protect patients and taxpayers and improve affordability. The actions include deferring $259.5 million of quarterly federal Medicaid funding in Minnesota to prevent payment of questionable claims while further investigation is completed; a nationwide moratorium on Medicare enrollment for certain Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics, and Supplies (DMEPOS) suppliers; and a nationwide call to action for Americans to support fraud prevention, including stakeholder input on how CMS can continue to expand and strengthen its efforts. Together, these steps reflect a coordinated, data-driven strategy to prevent fraud before it occurs, hold bad actors accountable, and protect taxpayer dollars.”
  • * * * “CMS is looking to stakeholders to provide input, based on their experience and knowledge, on additional ways the agency can tackle fraud prevention to help inform the development of a possible future rule under CMS’ Comprehensive Regulations to Uncover Suspicious Healthcare (CRUSH) initiative. The CRUSH request for information (RFI) seeks input from a broad range of stakeholders – including states, providers, suppliers, payers, technology companies, patient advocates, beneficiaries, and others – on ways to strengthen CMS’ ability to prevent, detect, and respond to fraud, waste, and abuse, and program inefficiencies in Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the Health Insurance Marketplace.” * * * 
  • “Comments on the CRUSH Request for Information must be submitted by March 20, 2026, via the Federal Register at: https://www.federalregister.gov/public-inspection/2026-03968/request-for-information-comprehensive-regulations-to-uncover-suspicious-healthcare (refer to CMS-6098-NC).
  • “More information on CMS’ fraud prevention efforts is available at: www.cms.gov/fraud.”

• Govexec offers five things to watch concerning the Department of Homeland Security shutdown.

• The Wall Street Journal relates,
  • “President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general aligned herself with the administration’s moves on vaccines so far, including shrinking the number of recommended vaccines for children, as she told lawmakers in her confirmation hearing that her focus is fighting chronic disease. 
  • “Dr. Casey Means told the Senate health committee on Wednesday that she believes vaccines save lives but declined to promise recommending measles and flu shots for children. 
  • “I’m not an individual’s doctor, and every individual needs to talk to their doctor before putting medication in their body,” Means said, in response to a question about whether she would recommend other mothers get measles vaccines for their children.” 

• Per an OPM news release,
  • “The US Office of Personnel Management today issued a memorandum to federal agencies providing updated guidance ending use of the Administrative Careers with America (ACWA) assessment. This step reinforces the administration’s ongoing efforts to streamline hiring and ensure agencies recruit the most qualified applicants based on merit.
  • “From the beginning, ACWA (which was developed in response to the Luevano consent decree) was criticized by hiring managers and applicants alike as ineffective in identifying quality candidates for federal service. In light of OPM’s development of validated, state-of-the-art assessment tools (particularly the USA Hire platform), there is no longer a need for ACWA.”
  • * * * “Read the memo here and Director Kupor’s blog on this here.”

• Govexec also explains why “Why your federal benefits may not protect your family the way you think.”
  • “While federal employee benefits can assist beneficiaries in the event of a loved one’s death, it’s important to understand the rules of those plans and how to best seamlessly apply them to your survivors.”

• The American Hospital Association (AHA) News tells us,
  • “The Health Resources and Services Administration Feb. 25 said it will extend the deadline to April 20 to receive comments on its request for information on whether to implement a 340B rebate model program. Comments on the RFI were originally due March 19. The AHA, joined by several other national groups representing 340B hospitals, last week urged HRSA to extend the original deadline to allow stakeholders to provide feedback to HRSA’s detailed questions in the RFI.  
  • “HRSA also indicated that it may expand the 340B rebate model pilot program to all drugs included in the Inflation Reduction Act’s Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program through 2027.”   

• Per a Federal Register notice,
  • The Centers for Disease Control announced a meeting of its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
  • “The meeting will be held on March 18, 2026, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., EST, and March 19, 2025, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., EST, (times subject to change; see the ACIP website for updates: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/index.html). The meeting is expected to be held at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with virtual option. Written comments must be received between March 2 – 12, 2026.”

• Mercer lets us know,
  • “Mercer projects the 2027 inflation-adjusted amounts for health savings accounts (HSAs), high-deductible health plans (HDHPs), and excepted-benefit health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) will increase from 2026 levels. These unofficial 2027 amounts are determined using the Internal Revenue Code (IRC)’s cost-of-living adjustment methods, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published Chained Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (C-CPI-U) values through January 2026, and Mercer’s projected C-CPI-U values for February and March.
  • ‘The table [in the article] shows the projected HSA, HDHP, and excepted-benefit HRA amounts for 2027, along with the 2026 and 2025 values for comparison. The HSA catch-up contribution limit is set by statute and hasn’t changed since 2009.

• The Government Accountability Office notes,
  • “Mental health, suicide, and substance misuse issues have increased in the U.S. The federal agency that oversees such issues saw its budget more than double in FY21 due to increased COVID-19 and 988 Lifeline funding. This Q&A examines the use of that funding.
  • “The agency received $8.5 billion for COVID-19. It awarded about $8.3 billion in grants for activities such as community mental health. Recipients spent about $6.9 billion as of July 2025.
  • “The agency got $1.6 billion in FY21-24 for the 988 Lifeline, a call, text, and chat hotline supporting those in crisis. It awarded $1.2 billion to funding recipients, who had spent about $906.3 million.”

From the Food and Drug Administration front,

• MedPage Today informs us,
  • “Assorted flavors of cream cheese were recalled by Made Fresh Salads due to possible Listeriacontamination, according to an FDA notice.”

• The FDA issued today an “Early Alert: Heart Pump Purge Cassette Issue from Abiomed.”

From the judicial front,

• Healthcare Dive reports,
  • “Frustrated by a recent, dramatic overhaul of the U.S. childhood immunization schedule, 15 Democrat-led states have sued the Trump administration in a bid to undo those changes as well as what they alleged to be an “unlawful replacement” of a key vaccine panel. 
  • “The lawsuit, filed by 14 attorneys general and the governor of Pennsylvania [in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California], seeks to rescind the new schedule adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services and vacate the committee, known as ACIP, reformed last year by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the agency’s acting director, Jay Bhattacharya, are named as defendants in the suit.” 

From the public health, medical and Rx research front,

• The AHA News reports,
  • “An American Heart Association study published Feb. 25 found that 6 in 10 U.S. women are projected to develop a form of cardiovascular disease by 2050. The report found a growing prevalence of heart disease, heart failure, atrial fibrillation and stroke and projected increases of conditions leading to cardiovascular disease, such as high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes. Additionally, the study found that nearly 32% of girls age 2-19 may be obese by 2050.”

• Cardiovascular Business adds,
  • “Metabolic and bariatric surgery (MBS) is associated with better long-term cardiovascular protection than glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) in patients with type 2 diabetes and obesity, according to a new meta-analysis. The findings were published in full in Obesity Surgery.”

• Healio tells us,
  • “Cervical cancer incidence has declined close to 30% among women aged 20 to 31 years since the start of the millennium, but certain states have achieved significantly greater reductions.
  • “Washington, D.C., Rhode Island, Michigan and Hawaii all achieved decreases of more than 50%, but incidence in Vermont, West Virginia, Idaho, Arkansas and Alabama remained unchanged.
  • “Researchers observed an association between increased HPV vaccination rates and faster decline in incidence, as well.
  • “A decline of more than 50% observed in several states within such a relatively short period is rarely seen in cancer epidemiology, making these findings particularly striking,” Chenxi Jiang, MPH, associate scientist in surveillance, prevention and health services research at American Cancer Society, told Healio. “At the same time, they are highly encouraging, demonstrating what is achievable when prevention efforts are effectively implemented.”

• Cigna Healthcare, writing in LinkedIn, points out
  • “Proactive mental health care helps lower overall medical costs.
  • “Untreated mental illness leads to higher health expenses and lost productivity.
  • “Investing in treatment for depression and anxiety yields a fourfold return.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• Beckers Hospital Review identifies five forces reshaping pharmacy economics this year.

• Fierce Healthcare reports,
  • “There’s been a flurry of recent activity in the direct-to-consumer space as drug costs and spending continue to rise.
  • “It’s with that backdrop that GoodRx announced Tuesday it would launch Employer Direct, a new program that allows employers to offer workers lower costs on branded products, which often carry the highest prices. Through the program, these firms can select branded drugs and subsidize the cost for the cash-pay price available through GoodRx.
  • “Employers in the program can also tap into GoodRx’s telemedicine solutions, which bring together the clinical care with the prescription fulfillment to ensure patients get the drugs they need.”

• Modern Healthcare adds,
  • “Employers tired of dealing with health insurers now have another option at their disposal: Go through a different intermediary instead.
  • “Third-party vendors such as Lantern, Nomi Health and Transcarent are making a play for the employer market as businesses wage a perpetual struggle to manage rising health benefit costs. These platforms tout savings, flexibility and a seamless experience to enable direct contracting with providers at scale.
  • “Their reach, once limited, is now national and includes all types of medical services. Transcarent has more than 20 million members after it acquired care navigation company Accolade last year. Nomi Health serves 19 million members. Lantern’s specialty care platform has grown from 100,000 members to more than 12 million in the last decade.”
    
• Fierce Healthcare notes,
  • “Uber Health is rolling out a new feature that allows patients who are comfortable with its platform to book their own rides.
  • “Uber’s healthcare platform has traditionally been a back-end option for providers and other partners to book rides to and from appointments on the behalf of the patient. Through this approach, Uber supported processes like transportation benefits and discharge planning for its partners.
  • “However, the company heard feedback from clients that the administrative time to do this was not insignificant, and that there were many patients who were familiar enough with Uber to book trips themselves, Cory Warner, global head of growth and operations for Uber Health, told Fierce Healthcare in an interview at ViVE on Tuesday.
  • “We’re really excited, because we’ve been able to advance the technology to meet the needs of some of our customers who’ve been sharing with us that, while we have a lot of folks that may not have a smartphone, we do have a number of patients and members who have the Uber app in their everyday life,” she said.”

• Fierce Pharma informs us,
  • “Novartis is wasting little time sketching out the radiopharmaceutical details of its $23 billion U.S. investment push. Shortly after announcing a new manufacturing facility for the class of cancer meds in Florida, the pharma giant is revealing its intention to build another site in Texas. 
  • “The forthcoming 46,000-square-foot radioligand therapy (RLT) production plant will be set upin Denton, Texas—part of the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area—and becomes the fifth existing or planned radiopharmaceutical manufacturing site in Novartis’ U.S. network, the company said in a Feb. 25 release. 
  • “Construction is slated to kick off this year, with the site expected to come online in 2028, Novartis said. 
  • “The plant will generate jobs in fields like bioengineering, advanced manufacturing, quality and operations, although Novartis did not specify how many new hires it has planned.” 

• Per BioPharma Dive,
  • “Novo Nordisk announced Wednesday a collaboration with startup Vivtex that’ll give it access to technologies that could yield new oral biologics for obesity and other metabolic diseases.
  • “The companies did not disclose the amount of guaranteed cash going from Novo to Vivtex in the deal. But the Boston biotechnology startup stands to gain as much as $2.1 billion, as well as sales royalties, if drugs emerging from the alliance progress and are eventually commercialized.”
• and
  • “GSK is scooping up a promising experimental medicine for a dangerous type of high blood pressure through a $950 million acquisition of private Canadian drugmaker 35Pharma.
  • “The drug, HS235, has already completed Phase 1 testing in healthy volunteers and, according to GSK, should soon enter studies focused on either pulmonary arterial hypertension or a different pulmonary hypertension caused by a certain kind of heart failure. The company added that this medicine has potential to fight cardiovascular disease, deliver metabolic benefits and offer a lower risk of bleeding — a key limitation of current PH treatments.
  • “HS235 is a so-called activin signaling inhibitor, designed to fight the over-proliferation of cells that can thicken blood vessel walls. This drug class has already seen success; Merck & Co. won approval for one member, Winrevair, in 2024, and chalked up sales of more than $1.4 billion from it last year. Merck is looking to expand its usage as well.”

• Per MedTech Dive,
  • “Quantum Surgical, which specializes in medical robotics for cancer treatment, said Tuesday that it has acquired NeuWave Medical from Johnson & Johnson.
  • “Quantum, based in Montpellier, France, with an office in Miami, said the deal supports its strategy of expanding robot-assisted tumor ablation treatment to reduce cancer mortality.
  • “Last year, J&J informed customers that it planned to discontinue the NeuWave business, before announcing in September that it had received a binding offer from Quantum to buy NeuWave.”