From Washington, DC

• The American Hospital Association News reports,
  • “America’s hospitals and health systems are deeply committed to providing high-quality, accessible and affordable care, AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack March 18 told the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health during a hearing focused on lowering health care costs. 
  • “Pollack shared several efforts that hospitals are leading to make care more affordable, including increasing efficiencies, adopting innovative technologies and rethinking how they deliver care. 
  • “Many are investing in preventive care and care coordination programs that help patients better manage chronic diseases, avoid unnecessary hospital visits and stay healthier at home,” Pollack said. “These efforts improve outcomes, and they help lower costs for patients, families and the entire health care system.” * * *
  • “Pollack also said that there is more work to do to make health care more affordable for Americans and outlined several solutions focused on improving the health of individuals and communities; advancing value through care transformation; reducing regulatory and administrative waste; and innovating to improve care quality and outcomes. 
  • “We also know that to truly make care affordable for Americans, all stakeholders, including government, commercial health insurers, drug companies, providers and patients, must work together,” Pollack said.” 

• MedPage Today relates,
  • “NIH Director — and CDC Acting Director — Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, had little trouble Tuesday responding to questions from House members during an oversight hearing.
  • “While the promise of the NIH is strong, we must reflect upon policies and evolve with changing technology,” Bhattacharya told members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies. “And reform is already underway. A new office within the [Office of the Director] will support rigorous analysis of the NIH portfolio to strengthen performance management, accountability, and promote reproducibility of our research, because … it’s vital that the research that we do is reproducible, that an independent team looking at the same result find the same answer.”
  • “Committee members on both sides of the aisle seemed generally pleased with the way Bhattacharya was running things.” 

• Noah Peters, an OPM senior advisor, writing in the OPM Director’s Substack blog, explains why “Modernization is Essential to Effectively Manage the Executive Branch.”

• The Wall Street Journal tells us,
  • “The Trump administration, which has been skeptical of vaccines that prevent infections, is going all in on a new initiative to deploy novel vaccines against cancer.
  • “The Department of Health and Human Services, through the National Cancer Institute, has initiated a potential $200 million public-private partnership to fund clinical trials of vaccines that spark an immune attack on tumors. These vaccines may ward off cancer in patients who have been treated for the disease, but are at high risk for recurrence. 
  • “Dr. Anthony Letai, who became NCI director in September, said he wants to finance larger trials of vaccines that in smaller studies have shown potential to keep aggressive cancers at bay.
  • “What’s exciting about this is that there are early signals from clinical trials that we can actually have an impact even in some very difficult settings where we have very little to offer patients,” he said. 
  • “Instead of protecting against infection, these vaccines train the immune system to fight tumors. And unlike flu or Covid-19 shots, which are injected into healthy people, these vaccines would be used in patients who have been treated for cancer.”

From the Food and Drug Administration front,

• BioPharma Dive reports,
  • “Johnson & Johnson said Wednesday it won Food and Drug Administration approval to sell what it calls a “game-changing” pill to treat psoriasis.
  • “The drug is part of a class of medicines that work by blocking the action of a protein called IL-23, a key player in the body’s inflammatory response. It’s an approach that has proved extremely effective, spurring a generation of blockbuster injectable medicines including AbbVie’s Skyrizi and J&J’s own Tremfya.
  • “J&J’s new entry is the first in the class that can be taken orally, offering patients the convenience of a once-daily pill. The drug, icotrokinra, will be sold as Icotyde and is available to treat moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis in patients over the age of 12 who weigh at least 40 kilograms, or 88 pounds.”

• MedTech Dive relates,
  • “MiniMed, the diabetes tech firm spun out of Medtronic earlier this month, received Food and Drug Administration clearance for a smaller insulin pump.
  • “The device, called MiniMed Flex, is about half the size of the company’s previous 780G pump and is controlled using a smartphone.
  • “The new insulin pump is MiniMed’s first launch since the company went public in early March.”
• and
  • “JenaValve has received premarket approval from the Food and Drug Administration for its transcatheter heart valve to treat symptomatic, severe aortic regurgitation in patients who are at high risk for surgical valve replacement.
  • “The Trilogy valve is now the first transcatheter device with a dedicated indication for the condition, the company said Wednesday. 
  • “Edwards Lifesciences in January canceled its planned acquisition of JenaValve after the Federal Trade Commission challenged the $945 million deal, arguing it would combine the only two companies conducting U.S. clinical trials for transcatheter aortic valve replacement devices to treat aortic regurgitation.”

• Per an FDA news release,
  • “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today issued a draft guidance intended to help drug developers validate new approach methodologies (NAMs) to be used instead of animal testing in drug development, and to bring safe, effective drugs to market sooner based on human-centric data.  
  • “This marks another major milestone in the implementation of the FDA’s roadmap to reducing animal testing, and reflects the FDA’s commitment to moving away from using animal testing as the default method for gaining drug safety information. The draft guidance describes the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research’s (CDER’s) general recommendations to consider for validating NAMs when nonclinical NAMs data are provided in support of a drug application or regarding an order issued under section 505G of the FD&C Act for an OTC monograph.”

• A National Institutes of Health news release adds,
  • “The National Institutes of Health (NIH) today announced more than $150 million to develop and scale research methods that better simulate human biology and reduce reliance on animal models, a priority of the Trump Administration. The funding marks the first awards under the Complement Animal Research in Experimentation (Complement-ARIE) program, an initiative to develop, implement, and standardize lab or computer-based methods, also known as new approach methodologies (NAMs). Research teams across the United States will lead projects designed to produce more predictive models of human disease. 
  • “This is an exciting opportunity to create a repertoire of human-focused methods that are so sophisticated and comprehensive that successful clinical translation will rise and we will be able to answer questions beyond our reach with current research models,” said Nicole Kleinstreuer, Ph.D., NIH Deputy Director for Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives. “These new projects are key steps in expanding and strengthening our scientific toolbox. NIH’s investment in NAMs is critical to our mission to carry out gold-standard research.”

From the judicial front,

• Modern Healthcare reports,
  • “The Leapfrog Group is withdrawing safety grades for nearly 500 hospitals dating back to fall 2024. 
  • “A federal judge this month ordered Leapfrog to unpublish the grades for five Tenet hospitals that alleged in a 2025 lawsuit they received worse grades from the watchdog group after they stopped participating in its surveys as of the fall 2024 report.
  • “Although the judge’s order only applied to the five hospitals, Leapfrog is applying it to all hospitals that did not participate in the surveys during the same period.” * * *
  • “Leapfrog will not assign grades in its spring 2026 report to any hospital that has not participated in the survey in the past two years, Binder said. The next report is expected to be released by early May.
  • “The group plans to develop new methodology applicable to all hospitals in time for its fall 2026 report, she said.”

From the public health and medical / Rx research front,

• Cardiovascular Business reports,
  • “Little Rock, Arkansas, is the No. 1 most overweight city in the United States, according to a new WalletHub report. McAllen, Texas, came in at No. 2, followed by Memphis, Tennessee, at No. 3.
  • “WalletHub compared a total of 100 U.S. metro areas for this report, focusing on obesity rates among adults and children, cardiovascular health, food access and physical fitness levels. The final results reinforced trends that have been identified again and again: Americans in some parts of the country—particularly southern states and the Midwest—face an especially high risk of developing cardiovascular disease.  
  • “Click here for the full report.
  • “What can cardiologists living in these parts of the country do for their patients? According to Romit Bhattacharya, MD, a preventive cardiologist with Massachusetts General Hospital and member of the American College of Cardiology’s Prevention of Cardiovascular Diseases Council, it is critical for clinicians to consider proactive patient care whenever possible.”
• and
  • “New early clinical data from a study using artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor widely available consumer wearables may help transform how heart failure patients are monitored and managed outside the hospital.
  • “At the THT 2026 meeting in Boston, Afnan Tariq, MD, JD, an interventional cardiologist and assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, Irvine, presented first-in-man results from a passive, device-agnostic AI platform designed to turn data from consumer wearables into actionable clinical insights. The technology was able to lower the number of hospitalizations required over time thanks to earlier interventions.” 

• STAT News adds,
  • “CAR-T cells, immune cells engineered to fight cancer, are one of oncology’s most powerful tools. But making them is arduous, as the patient’s immune cells must be extracted, manipulated in a lab, then returned to the patient’s body. Instead, scientists at Azalea Therapeutics, a spinout from the lab of Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna, are seeking to make the engineered cells right in the patient’s own body.
  • “In a new paper published in Nature on Wednesday, the researchers showed some early signs of success with the process, known as in vivo CAR-T. With an infusion of gene editing particles, scientists were able to create CAR-T cells that could clear both solid and blood tumors in mice, a step forward for the field.
  • “Azalea Therapeutics isn’t the only group developing in vivo CAR-T. But, said Justin Eyquem, a cancer researcher at the University of California San Francisco and senior author on the paper, what makes their method unique is the ability to reliably genetically edit the right cells and the right part of those cell’s genomes. The method should practically eliminate the chances of accidentally editing the wrong cell or the wrong part of the genome, Eyquem said, both of which could pose serious risks to the patient.”

• The American Journal of Managed Care tells us,
  • “Maintaining or improving a healthy lifestyle after a hypertension diagnosis significantly lowers the risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) and type 2 diabetes (T2D), according to a new study.
  • “This prospective, population-based cohort study is published in JAMA Network Open.“

• Pulmonology Advisor points out,
  • “Women experience more frequent asthma attacks, and prior attack history is a statistically stronger predictor of future attacks in men vs women, according to study findings published in Chest.” * * *
  • “The overall annualized asthma attack rate was higher in women than men,” the investigators stated, concluding, “Prior attack history had stronger prognostic value for future attacks in men, while other clinical risk factors and type-2 biomarkers (blood eosinophils and FeNO) showed no major sex differences.”

• Healio notes,
  • “More than 80% of patients implanted with a transvenous phrenic nerve stimulation device for central sleep apnea had at least 4 hours of usage per night for 70% of nights at follow-up visits, according to study findings.
  • “The percentage of patients receiving adequate [transvenous phrenic nerve stimulation] therapy, based on the CMS CPAP adherence definition, appears to be higher than that for mask-based therapies reported in the literature,” Rami Khayat, MD, director of Penn State Health sleep services and division chief of pulmonary, allergy and critical care medicine at Penn State College of Medicine, and colleagues wrote in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.”

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

• The Peterson KFF Health System Tracker identifies eight trends shaping health care costs in 2026.
  • 1. Healthcare costs remain top of mind for many Americans.
  • 2. Premiums have increased across commercial and individual marketplaces.
  • 3. The public and private sectors are looking for solutions as U.S. spending on prescription drugs continues to increase.
  • 4. Price transparency for healthcare prices has momentum.
  • 5.  Federal and state policymakers show interest in addressing the impacts of healthcare consolidation.
  • 6. The use of artificial intelligence in healthcare is likely to accelerate coding intensity, placing upward pressure on healthcare spending.
  • 7. States are responding to funding and program implementation pressures with changes to Medicaid beginning in 2027, and
  • 8. Effective distribution of the Rural Health Transformation Funds will require rapid state action.

• MedCity News reports,
  • “San Diego-based startup Turquoise Health closed a $40 million Series C financing round on Tuesday, bringing the company’s overall fundraising total to $95 million.
  • “The round was led by Oak HC/FT, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Adams Street Partners and Yosemite.
  • “Turquoise, founded in 2020, originally built its business around collecting and analyzing price transparency data from hospital and payer disclosures. Providers used that data primarily for benchmarking and contract negotiations, said CEO Chris Severn.”
  • With its new funding, the startup plans to move beyond analyzing healthcare prices and into facilitating the transactions themselves, he stated. The goal is to enable guaranteed upfront prices for patients while reducing administrative waste between payers and providers.

• STAT News informs us,
  • “Today, 13 years, a sprawling mansion, a private jet, and a five-day Italian wedding later, Alla and Scott LaRoque are living lavishly. It’s all funded by their long-running strategy of squeezing as much money as possible from the health care system. 
  • “While they portray themselves as Robin Hood-esque heroes helping doctors take on big insurance, their story is emblematic of an American health care system that’s rife with profit-seekers who critics say repeatedly test the lines of legality. Each effort by lawmakers to rein in the excesses is met with retooled tactics.
  • “The LaRoques own a little-known middleman called HaloMD, which helps providers navigate a new federal arbitration process to resolve billing disputes with insurance companies. HaloMD is fighting lawsuits from four different Blue Cross Blue Shield insurers accusing it of rigging the system and triggering huge payouts for itself and its provider clients.” 
  • “HaloMD’s strategy works like this, according to lawsuits from health insurers: It floods the overburdened federal arbitration system with thousands of disputes, many of them ineligible, and demands much more money than providers had originally charged. Disputes aren’t eligible if they should go through state arbitration, if the patients are covered by Medicare and Medicaid, or if the parties didn’t negotiate beforehand. 
  • “This new tactic is possibly even more lucrative for providers than surprise billing was, said Chris Whaley, an associate professor of health services, policy, and practice at Brown University. 
  • “If you were balance-billing patients, you had to chase money down from patients,” Whaley said. “Now, you have a means to get that money directly from insurers.”

• Fierce Healthcare points out,
  • “Maven Clinic has introduced Maven Intelligence, an artificial intelligence-powered infrastructure embedded across its virtual clinic, care programs and benefits platform. 
  • “The company refers to Maven Intelligence as an orchestration layer that integrates agentic AI with longitudinal data and clinical expertise to personalize care. The layer is built on over 1 billion structured data points from Maven care journeys and will begin rolling out to members in March.
  • “Women’s health has [long been] a major gap in healthcare,” Jaya Savkar, senior vice president of product at Maven, told Fierce Healthcare. “We really believe that we have an opportunity to help close the gap … We’re the largest virtual clinic for women and families, and by coupling that with women’s health-focused AI, we believe that humans and AI can do more together.”

• Fierce Pharma offers a look at Highmark’s specialty pharmacy partnership with Free Market Health.

Notable Death

• Cardiovascular Business reports,
  • “Amir Lerman, MD, a veteran cardiologist with Mayo Clinic, died unexpectedly on Feb. 23. He was 69 years old. 
  • “Lerman was known as a leading voice in interventional cardiology, writing nearly 1,000 peer-reviewed publications and holding several leadership positions during his long tenure with Mayo Clinic. He helped found the hospital’s Chest Pain and Coronary Physiology Clinic, for example, and served as the director of its Cardiovascular Research Center at the time of his death. He has also been cited more than 69,000 times, highlighting the critical impact his work had on generations of cardiologists. 
  • “Lerman’s research covered a variety of subjects, but he is perhaps best known as a pioneer in the treatment of nonobstructive coronary artery disease (CAD), particularly those with coronary microvascular dysfunction (CMD).”
• RIP