Simplicity is a virtue.

From Washington, DC,

• The House of Representatives today suspended action on the FY 2027 continuing resolution (HR 9970) in order to consider the FY 2027 National Defense Authorization Act.

• Per a Department of Health and Human Services news release,
  • “The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today deferred more than $1 billion in federal Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota as the states submit additional documentation supporting certain high-risk Medicaid claims. The action advances the Trump administration’s effort to combat fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicaid and safeguard federal taxpayer dollars.” * * *
  • “CMS is deferring approximately $867.5 million in federal Medicaid payments to California and $199 million to Minnesota after focused financial reviews identified claims that require additional review before federal matching funds are released. These are payment deferrals (not permanent funding cuts) and both states will have the opportunity to provide documentation showing the claims meet federal Medicaid requirements.
  • “Additionally, under Secretary Kennedy’s direction, HHS and the HHS Office of Inspector General continue to exercise exclusion authorities as a critical tool to remove bad actors from Medicare and Medicaid programs — and, in many cases, permanently bar them from returning.”

• The American Hospital Association News reports,
  • “The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services today released a proposed rule that would update Medicaid provider tax policies included in the July 2025 reconciliation law and change how the agency determines whether certain healthcare taxes comply with federal requirements. States commonly use provider taxes to help finance Medicaid. CMS said the proposed changes are intended to ensure those taxes are not structured in a way that effectively guarantees providers receive their tax payments back. 
  • “The proposal would replace the current 6% indirect hold harmless threshold with state- and provider class-specific thresholds based on taxes enacted and imposed as of July 4, 2025, and would implement a phased reduction in allowable thresholds for Medicaid expansion states beginning in fiscal year 2028. The rule proposes revised interpretations of “enacted” and “imposed” taxes as described in CMS’ preliminary guidance issued Nov.14, 2025. CMS also proposes to sunset the current alternative “75/75” compliance test and establish a new provider tax class, “Services of Health Insurers,” bringing existing state taxes on health insurers under CMS oversight. 
  • “Comments are due 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.” 

• Govexec relates,
  • “The Office of Personnel Management is set to propose new rules this week implementing a 2022 law aimed at reforming retirement benefits for federal first responders who are injured during their service and forced to pursue jobs elsewhere in government.
  • “Federal workers in professions like law enforcement and firefighting participate in the federal government’s defined benefit retirement program on an accelerated basis—in exchange for paying more toward their pensions each paycheck, they become eligible for their full annuity once they have served 20 years and reached age 50. They are also subject to mandatory retirement at age 57.
  • “But if a federal first responder is injured on the job and unable to continue in their current role, they lose access to the accelerated retirement timeline, despite the increased payments they have already made along the way.
  • “A proposed rule set for publication Wednesday in the Federal Register would implement the First Responder Fair RETIRE Act, a 2022 law aimed at fixing this flaw. The legislation allows first responders forced to take a job elsewhere in the federal government to continue to pay accelerated contributions and reach retirement when they originally planned. And it grants feds the chance to be refunded the extra half-percentage point of their salary that went toward retirement if they leave federal service altogether prior to reaching retirement age.”

From the Food and Drug Administration front,

• Bloomberg Law reports,
  • “The FDA added eight new members to an advisory committee slated to review whether pharmacies can legally market peptides, after criticism the panel is stacked with those tied to peptide-related businesses and clinics.
  • “The panelists were added as temporary voting members to the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee, which is scheduled to convene Thursday and Friday to evaluate whether seven unapproved peptides can be reclassified to allow pharmacies to legally manufacture them. The committee will consider whether to reverse a 2023 Biden-era decision that nearly 20 peptides pose safety risks and can no longer be legally compounded.
  • “The temporary members include clinical researchers, professors of medicine, and pain and substance use experts.
  • “They seem considerably more qualified and less conflicted than the others who were added recently,” Peter Lurie, a former FDA associate commissioner, now the president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said in an email. “The new members are mostly confined to certain peptides, not the case for the earlier nominees.”

• MedTech Dive relates,
  • “Philips received 510(k) clearance for a new version of its pulse oximeter clip sensor that the company says is accurate across a broad range of skin tones. 
  • “The reusable clip sensor has optical refinements to improve signal quality and measurement consistency and support reliable oxygen saturation measurements across diverse patient populations and clinical conditions, the company said in the Tuesday announcement. 
  • “Medtech firms have sought to update their pulse oximetry technology after several studies raised concerns about the devices being less accurate for people with dark skin pigmentation. The Food and Drug Administration issued updated testing recommendations for pulse oximeters in a 2025 draft guidance, but has not finalized it.”

From the judicial front,

• The American Hospital Association News reports,
  • “The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia July 21 upheld a lower court’s decision that Section 340B of the Public Health Service Act does not permit drug companies to impose proposed rebate models on 340B purchasers unless the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services approves. The court did not weigh in on the lawfulness of the department’s proposed rebate program or any other version of a rebate model that it could approve.  
  • “The manufacturers’ reading would also counterintuitively let manufacturers, rather than the Secretary, take the lead in administering the 340B Program, rendering the Secretary’s role largely reactive,” the court explained. “Put simply, the statute places the Secretary, not the manufacturers, in the driver’s seat of this important program.” 
• FEHBlog observation: By upholding a lower court’s decision, the article is referring to an initial decision by a Magistrate Judge.

• BioPharma Dive relates,
  • “Novo Nordisk is suing its biggest obesity drug rival, alleging on Tuesday that Eli Lilly is engaging in deceptive advertising by intentionally using outdated studies to compare the higher doses of its medicines to lower doses of Novo’s products.
  • “Filed in a New Jersey [U.S.] District Court, the lawsuit follows a cease-and-desist order in which Novo asked Lilly to take down the advertisements. Lilly hasn’t, so the Danish drugmaker is seeking a permanent injunction to get the ads pulled and for Lilly to “conduct a corrective advertising campaign.” Lilly countered in a statement that the advertising is “truthful, it is transparent, and it is grounded in the most direct scientific evidence available.”
  • “The lawsuit comes as Lilly has gotten the upper hand in a high-stakes battle for market share. Lilly’s medicine, Zepbound, recorded $4 billion in sales in the first quarter of 2026 compared with the 18.2 billion krone, or $2.7 billion, generated by Novo’s Wegovy. The turf war escalated this year with both companies launching obesity pills that could extend the reach of weight-loss medicines.”

• Per a Department of Justice news release,
  • “A foreign national was arrested yesterday on criminal charges related to his orchestration of a scheme to defraud Medicare over half a billion dollars for unnecessary genetic testing.
  • “Khalid Satary, 54, was charged by indictment in 2019 in the Eastern District of Louisiana as part of one of the largest health care fraud schemes ever charged by the Department of Justice. According to the indictment and court documents, from 2016 to 2019, Satary owned and operated several diagnostic testing laboratories throughout the United States that billed Medicare for expensive and medically unnecessary genetic tests. Satary allegedly conspired with dozens of patient recruiters, telemarketing call centers, and telemedicine companies to utilize deceptive marketing campaigns and illegal kickbacks and bribes to generate cancer genetic test samples that reimbursed between $10,000 to $20,000 per sample. Through his laboratories, Satary billed Medicare for over $547 million. He also allegedly paid millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks and bribes to doctors and patient recruiters. In connection with the indictment, the government seized 16 bank accounts and restrained real estate from Satary.”

From the public health and medical / Rx research front,

• Phrma reports,
  • “A new study published in The Lancet offers some of the strongest real-world evidence to date that vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV) is saving lives.” * * *
  • “Researchers say these findings indicate that eliminating cervical cancer is now an achievable goal. But that progress depends on maintaining timely and high vaccination rates with policies that support coverage and access to vaccines.
  • “The new findings, drawing on population-level disease surveillance, show that HPV vaccination is changing what is possible in cancer prevention.
  • “Policymakers should support policies that preserve access and help ensure families can get recommended vaccines without unnecessary barriers.”
    
• Medscape adds,
  • More than 80% of patients with early Alzheimer’s disease (AD) treated with lecanemab (Leqembi, Eisai/Biogen) in routine practice remained clinically stable or improved over an average of 17 months of treatment, an interim analysis of the real-world LEADER study showed.
  • The real-world safety profile of the antiamyloid therapy was consistent with the drug’s US prescribing information, with most amyloid-related imaging abnormalities (ARIA) being asymptomatic and mild.

• The AP relates,
  • “Road deaths are declining in the U.S. and worldwide, but lower-income countries aren’t experiencing much of the improvement, according to a study published Monday.
  • “Global rates of road injuries and deaths each fell more than 30% between 1990 and 2023, according to the study published in Lancet Public Health, which noted the progress varied from country to country.
  • “Pedestrian and vehicle occupant deaths rose over that time in six countries — including the United States. However, more recent data shows road deaths fell in the U.S. in 2024 and 2025.”

• The New York Times tells us,
  • “Diet is one of the most important factors shaping health, but it’s surprisingly difficult for researchers to figure out what people eat.
  • “Researchers’ usual tools, like food frequency questionnaires or asking people to recall what they ate the day before, are tedious and expensive, said Christopher Gardner, a nutrition scientist at Stanford. Such efforts depend on people being candid and accurate; people forget about 15 to 20 percent of what they ate after a few days.
  • “It’s one of the reasons that nutrition research is so difficult and why the best evidence comes from small metabolic chamber studies, Dr. Gardner said. In such studies, researchers essentially “incarcerate someone,” he added. “They can’t leave. You cook the food for them, you slide it under the door, you know if they didn’t finish it.”
  • ‘But a new study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, points to a treasure trove of nutrition data: sewage. Using wastewater in North Carolina, researchers searched for traces of food DNA that had survived digestion. For less than a penny a person, they identified hundreds of foods that had been consumed — like chocolate, lettuce, turkey, blueberries, black pepper — and could even infer the socioeconomic profile of a community.”

• The Wall Street Journal informs us,
  • “When Molly Taylor started taking Mounjaro in the fall of 2024, she marveled at the speed of results. She wasn’t overweight, but she hadn’t been comfortable in her body. Now, she could eat whatever she wanted, just in smaller portions, and people were complimenting her looks. She no longer felt self-conscious. 
  • “Then her mindset began to shift. 
  • “I gradually started to worry about what I was eating, how many calories were in it, if it was going to stop me from losing more weight,” said the 23-year-old nanny, who is studying to be a nurse in London. “I think that’s when I was starting to develop anorexia.” 
  • “GLP-1s have been hailed as miracle drugs, their rise leading to critical breakthroughs in America’s fight against obesity. Roughly 13 million Americans are now on them, according to research from JPMorgan published in February. The drugs mimic naturally occurring hormones to suppress appetite and cravings and make people feel full. For those who’ve struggled with restrictive eating and anorexia, that can be a tantalizing proposition—and a dangerous one. 
  • “Anorexia kills a higher percentage of patients than any other eating disorder, and it is the second most deadly mental illness after opioid addiction, according to data compiled by the nonprofit National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders.”

• Cigna Healthcare, writing in LinkedIn, points out,
  • “Mental health challenges rarely arrive as a single, dramatic moment. More often, they accumulate quietly—sleep gets lighter, patience gets shorter, motivation slips, and everyday tasks start to take more effort than they used to. People may still be showing up and getting things done, but with less ease, less connection, and lower reserves.
  • “Telehealth and evidence-based mental health apps can make care easier to access and easier to stick with. When support fits more naturally into real life, people are more likely to seek help sooner. That often shows up at work as steadier attention, clearer communication, more consistent follow-through, and fewer days of simply pushing through.” * * *
  • “Telehealth and mental health apps won’t solve every problem, but they can make it easier to get help sooner and stay with it. For many common needs, the evidence suggests remote therapy can be as effective as in-person care, and structured digital programs can reinforce skills between sessions. In practice, that can make day-to-day life feel more manageable.”
    
• MedPage Today offers us “The Roadmap to DSM-6 — A look at conflicts of interest in the formation of psychiatry’s playbook.”

• Health Day notes,
  • “Snoring at night might not just disrupt a partner or pets; it could also impact memory function and dementia risk.
  • “A new study in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Associationexamined the link between obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), memory and dementia risk. Researchers used cognition testing on adults aged 40 to 77 to compare people with and without the sleep disorder.
  • “Those with untreated OSA had worse cognition and memory function. They also had an increased dementia risk. 
  • “If the sleep apnea was treated, however, that changed. Adults who managed their apnea had brain testing results on par with adults without it.”

• Per Radiology Business,
  • “A significant number of incidental breast masses are overlooked on CT scans of the chest, which could potentially lead to delays in diagnosis and treatment, researchers caution. 
  • “A new Academic Radiology analysis of incidentally detected cancers suggests that up to two-thirds of visible breast masses on emergency chest CTs go unnoticed by readers. At once center, such misses resulted in significant delays in cancer diagnosis, up to 33 months in some cases.  
  • “Although emergency chest CT scans are usually completed for other clinical indications, experts involved in the study say they present an opportunity to catch cancer earlier. However, visible lesions on these scans often are overlooked. 
  • “In recent years, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic, a significant increase in CT use in emergency departments has been observed,” Olgun Sahin, MD, with the Department of Radiology, Izmir City Hospital in Turkey, and colleagues explained. “The increasing number of chest CT scans is assumed to lead to a corresponding increase in the detection of incidental breast cancers. However, despite this increased detection potential, published data on clinical practice is striking. A retrospective study by Park et al. revealed that 64.3% of incidental breast cancers were missed in initial chest CT reporting. Similarly, Abougazia et al. recently reported 67.9% of such cases.” 

• Per Fierce Pharma,
  • “Detailed phase 3 results suggest the two-drug combination of Gilead Sciences’ lenacapavir and Merck & Co.’s islatravir has what it takes to become the first complete weekly pill for the treatment of HIV.
  • “Two Islend clinical trials confirmed that a once-weekly, single-tablet combination of islatravir and lenacapavir (ISL/LEN) matches daily treatments like Gilead’s Biktarvy at maintaining HIV viral suppression, according to data slated for presentation at the 26th International AIDS Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 
  • “Positioned to become the first complete weekly oral HIV treatment, ISL/LEN combines a major scientific leap with the promise of meeting diverse patient needs, Jared Baeten, M.D., Ph.D., Gilead’s clinical development lead in virology, said in an interview with Fierce Pharma.”

• Per BioPharma Dive,
  • “Agios Pharmaceuticals has decided not to further develop one of its more closely watched medicines as a treatment for sickle cell disease due to disappointing results from a mid-stage clinical trial.
  • “The drug, called tebapivat, “did not demonstrate the level of differentiation required to support continued development,” Agios said in a statement. Tebapivat has been billed as a “next-generation” version of another Agios medicine, mitapivat, which is already approved for use in two blood disorders. These drugs work by activating the “pyruvate kinase” enzyme that’s essential for the health and survival of red blood cells.”

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

• Modern Healthcare reports,
  • “Hospital systems are improving care transitions to help offset an expected decline of post-acute providers. 
  • “Systems are preparing for fewer post-acute referral partners, which could increase their costs, reduce revenue and slow patients’ recovery after a hospital stay. Home health, skilled-nursing, rehabilitation and hospice facilities are the focus of a sweeping fraud crackdown that has stripped some post-acute providers of their Medicare eligibility. Also, in May, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced a six-month moratorium on new Medicare enrollment of hospices and home health agencies.
  • “The increased oversight threatens to exacerbate persistent inpatient discharge delays that are limiting access to care. Hospital systems have not experienced additional care transition hurdles yet, and executives hope expanding workforce strategies and new technology will blunt any impact.”

• Fierce Healthcare relates,
  • “Nonprofit health systems AdventHealth and Intermountain Health announced plans Tuesday to bring Denver-area hospitals and ambulatory sites under a new, to-be-formed joint venture. 
  • “The pair have signed a letter of intent and expect to have a definitive agreement in hand “in the coming weeks” as they pursue an early 2027 close. 
  • “The proposed entity would comprise eight hospitals—five from AdventHealth and three from Intermountain—as well as “dozens” of their affiliated medical practices, clinics, urgent care and emergency centers. These represent the entirety of AdventHealth’s presence in the area, and all but one of Intermountain’s local hospitals (Intermountain Health Saint Joseph Hospital, in Denver, being the exception).”
• and 
  • “Cardinal Health is pursuing two tuck-in acquisitions to expand its home care business.
  • “The pharmaceuticals and specialty products distributor announced on Monday it had agreed to buy AdaptHealth Corp’s diabetes health business unit and medical supply provider Strive Medical in separate deals worth $360 million.
  • “The deals will accelerate Cardinal Health’s at-home solutions’ growth strategy, the company said.”
• and
  • “Amazon Pharmacy is collaborating with digital prescription platform eNAvvi to provide clinicians with real-time medication information and delivery options through its e-prescribing workflow.
  • “The partnership allows providers to see current pricing and stock for prescriptions, including cash pricing versus estimated insurance copays, and shows how quickly medications will reach patients, the companies said. The goal of the partnership is to support medication adherence and increase access for patients, especially for those in “pharmacy deserts.”
  • “eNavvi CEO Simon Chang said in a statement the collaboration “fundamentally changes what physicians can see and do at the moment of prescribing.”” 

• The Wall Street Journal tells us,
  • “[The Swiss drug maker] Novartis returned to sales growth in the second quarter, reporting net sales of $14.41 billion.
  • “Core operating profit for Novartis was flat at $5.94 billion, beating analyst expectations of $5.31 billion.
  • “Novartis expects core operating profit to decline by a low single-digit percentage this year as it faces the worst patent cliff in its history.”

• Healthcare Dive informs us,
  • “As employers grapple with worker demand for GLP-1 drugs for weight loss, 1 in 5 employers recommend employees use their FSA, HSA or integrated HRA to acquire them, according to new research from the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.
  • “While most employers don’t cover GLP-1s for weight loss, many try to support workers in other ways, said Carey Wooton, associate vice president of education at the International Foundation; nearly three-quarters provide disease management and case management, more than 6 in 10 offer nutritional counseling, and a similar share cover bariatric surgery.
  • “Cost remains a major impediment to coverage. GLP-1s for weight loss represented 11.4% of annual claims for corporations in 2025, up from 6.9% in 2023, the report found.”

• Alan Fein, writing in his Drug Channels blog, discusses “2025 Gross-to-Net Realities at Eight Top Drugmakers: The Net Pricing Drug Channel Emerges.”
  
• MedTech Dive lets us know,
  • “Medtronic on Tuesday said it has developed an application for its Hugo surgical robot that enables the use of artificial intelligence to support decision-making during procedures.
  • “The Touch Surgery Aide platform incorporates Nvidia’s computing infrastructure and runs Medtronic’s AI application, called Instrument Exit Point, or IEP. The application has received Food and Drug Administration clearance, Medtronic said.
  • “Medtronic will offer an early look at the new platform this week at the Society of Robotic Surgery meeting in Florida.”