From Washington, DC

• The Washington Post reports on the continuing shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.

• Federal News Network reports,
  • “Agencies are closing in on an opportunity to hire talent for temporary technology jobs, after the Office of Personnel Management released its first two shared certificates on Tuesday for the Trump administration’s “Tech Force” program.
  • “Lists of eligible candidates for software engineering and data engineering positions are now available for participating agencies to review and potentially hire, an OPM spokesperson confirmed to Federal News Network. If hired, selected employees would move into two-year roles to temporarily work on technology-related initiatives.
  • “Candidates who are listed on the new shared certificates have already passed three rounds of hiring evaluations, including a technical assessment, a resume review and a screening interview, said OPM Director Scott Kupor.”
  • “We hope to have several hundred people now who passed all three phases of that, where we will put them on a shared certificate, and then we will start to push that certificate out to all the participating agencies,” Kupor said during a March 5 event hosted by Federal News Network. “The agencies then have an opportunity, if they so choose, to do an additional round of interviews, if they want to make sure the person is the right fit for their organization.”
    
• MedTech Dive tells us,
  • “The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H, launched a new program on Tuesday to support development of biosensors that can track multiple signals such as inflammation markers, hormones or drug levels within the body.
  • ‘The program, called Delphi, will focus on using electronic “chiplets,” with the goal of being able to “mix and match” features across wearables and ingestible sensors.
  • “The initiative comes as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has emphasized a role for wearables in tracking health habits. Last year, the secretary said he wanted all Americans to use wearables, and the Food and Drug Administration’s device center launched a pilot that would allow the agency to waive premarket requirements for certain digital health devices while they collect real-world data under a Medicare program.”

• Kevin Moss, writing in Federal News Network, points out special features of FEHB and PSHB plans.

From the Food and Drug Administration front,

• Fierce Pharma reports,
  • “About five months after U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. touted leucovorin as “an exciting therapy that may benefit large numbers of children who suffer from autism” during a White House press conference, the FDA has approved the decades-old drug for a rare genetic condition with “autistic features” that represents a small subset of autism patients.
  • “The FDA has approved GSK’s brand-name leucovorin calcium tablets, Wellcovorin, to treat cerebral folate deficiency (CFD) but only in patients who have a confirmed variant in the folate receptor 1 (FOLR1) gene.”
• and
  • “Issues at a former Catalent plant now owned by Novo Nordisk have derailed another FDA application, with Incyte announcing Friday that the FDA handed over a complete response letter for its PD-1 inhibitor Zynyz as a first-line treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
  • “The rejection was not related to any efficacy or safety concerns but rather inspection findings at a fill-finish facility—specifically, the former Catalent plant in Bloomington, Indiana, which is now owned by Novo as part of Novo Holdings’ $16.5 billion acquisition of the CDMO in 2024.
  • “The setback comes more than a year after Incyte detailed a 25% reduction in the risk of death for a combination of Zynyz and chemotherapy versus chemo alone among patients with newly diagnosed metastatic NSCLC in the phase 3 Pod1um-304 trial.” * * *
  • “In a March 9 statement to Fierce Pharma, a Novo spokesperson said the company is “actively engaging with the agency to address its findings.”

• Beckers Hospital Review informs us,
  • “Ipsen, a Paris-based drugmaker, is removing its cancer drug Tazverik (tazemetostat) from the U.S. market because of safety concerns. 
  • “An ongoing Tazverik clinical trial has reported adverse events of secondary hematologic malignancies — which are blood cancers — indicating “the risks may outweigh potential benefits for patients,” Ipsen said in a March 9 news release. 
  • “The FDA granted Tazverik accelerated approval in 2020. The drug is approved to treat epithelioid sarcoma, a rare, aggressive soft tissue cancer that affects a few hundred patients each year, and relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma, a form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
  • “The company said it is voluntarily withdrawing Tazverik in all indications.”

From the judicial front,

• Beckers Payer Issues reports,
  • “On March 8, a judge for the U.S. District Court in Connecticut approved a preliminary injunction against Aetna, ordering the insurer to alter its gender-affirming care policy for two plaintiffs.
  • “Several transgender women sued Aetna in 2024 over denied gender-affirming facial reconstructions. The complaint pointed to Aetna’s Clinical Policy Bulletin 0615, which outlines parameters for gender-affirming care.” * * *
  • “Under the preliminary injunction, Aetna must individualize coverage for Jamie Homnick, PhD, and Gennifer Herley, PhD, two of the plaintiffs. Both women lack access to this coverage and have been facing depressive symptoms due to gender dysphoria, a court document said.
  • “Aetna has a strong track record as a proud ally of the LGBTQ+ community and is committed to meeting the healthcare needs of all our members. As a third-party administrator for self-funded plan sponsors, our role is to administer benefits in accordance with the specific terms set forth by each plan,” Aetna said in a statement shared March 10 with Becker’s. 
  • “Many employer benefit plans may include customized coverage for gender-affirming procedures. We work closely with our plan sponsors to meet their unique needs and preferences while complying with all applicable regulations and legal requirements,” the statement continued. “We strongly disagree with the allegations in this lawsuit and will defend ourselves vigorously.” 

• Here’s a link to the Leapfrog CEO Leah Binder’s statement about the Tenet Healthcare decision mentioned in yesterday’s post.

• Per a Justice Department news release,
  • “The Department of Justice released today the first-ever Department-wide corporate enforcement policy for criminal matters, promoting uniformity, predictability, and fairness in how it pursues white-collar cases to protect the American people.”

From the public health and medical / Rx research front,

• Bloomberg Law reports,
  • “South Plains, Texas, had long declared its measles outbreak over when in January wastewater testing picked up what Zachary Holbrooks called “a blip, a spike.”
  • “The testing found measles after months without traces of the virus, which by the 2025 West Texas outbreak’s end infected over 750 people, hospitalized nearly a hundred, and two children died.
  • “With samples sent to Baylor University weekly, subsequent testing hasn’t picked up further traces, said Holbrooks, executive director for the South Plains Public Health District. The goal is to “test long-term” and see “if anything shows up.”
  • “With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting over 1,200 confirmed measles cases and 12 new outbreaks in 2026, states across the US are taking similar steps to those taken in West Texas to manage infections, mounting outreach strategies, easing access to vaccines, and more.
  • “Working against such efforts are low vaccination rates in pockets of states where misinformation and distrust of government spur outbreaks.
  • “Any state should be looking across its communities and identifying areas where the vaccination rates are lower than 95%. Those are the places that are very ripe for outbreaks,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of Brown University’s Pandemic Center.”
  • “Given 2025’s outbreak cycle, states should’ve been better prepared, Nuzzo said. Now, they’ll need to undertake “the very slow, laborious ground game of building trust” in communities to encourage vaccination.”

• The latest issue of NIH’s Research Matters covers the following topics:
  • Immune cells may underlie sex differences in chronic pain
  • 3D human liver reconstruction reveals changes in cirrhosis, and
  • Engineered immune cells target Alzheimer’s disease protein
    
• Healio relates
  • “Adults with type 2 diabetes who adhered to eight healthy lifestyle habits had a 60% lower risk for cardiovascular events than those who reported zero or one healthy lifestyle habits, researchers reported.
  • “In a prospective cohort study of adults with type 2 diabetes enrolled in the U.S. Veterans Affairs Million Veteran Program, researchers assessed the risk for major adverse CV events according to the number of self-reported healthy lifestyle habits for each participant. The risk for CV events declined with each additional lifestyle habit a person reported, and the findings were similar regardless of whether adults were using a GLP-1 receptor agonist.”
• and
  • “Risks for cognitive impairment increased with more advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD) stages. 
  • “Associations were strongest for higher urinary protein-to-creatinine ratio plus lower eGFR. ***
  • “Our findings suggest that measures of CKD severity may be relevant to consider in combination with known dementia risk factors, such as age or comorbid conditions,” [Tanika} Kelly [PH.D, MPH] told Healio. “Cognitive screenings should be considered if a patient or family member notice cognitive or behavioral changes.”

• Health Day informs us,
  • “People think of aging as a steady decline, with seniors gradually losing their physical abilities and mental agility as the years wear on.
  • “But a new study suggests that seniors can – and often do – improve over time, with the right mindset.
  • “Nearly half of seniors 65 and older showed measurable improvement in their brain health, physical function or both over time, researchers reported in the journal Geriatrics.
  • “Many people equate aging with an inevitable and continuous loss of physical and cognitive abilities,” lead researcher Becca Levy, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at the Yale School of Public Health, said in a news release.
  • “What we found is that improvement in later life is not rare, it’s common, and it should be included in our understanding of the aging process,” Levy said.”
• and
  • “Smoking weed, taking a hit of cocaine or popping some amphetamines can raise a person’s risk of stroke – even if they’re a younger adult.
  • “Coke and amphetamines can double or triple the risk of stroke for any adult, researchers reported in the International Journal of Stroke.
  • “Weed also increases stroke risk, but to a lesser extent, British researchers said.
  • “This is the most comprehensive analysis ever conducted on recreational drug use and stroke risk and provides compelling evidence that drugs like cocaine, amphetamines, and cannabis are causal risk factors for stroke,” lead researcher Megan Ritson said in a news release. She’s a postdoctoral research associate with the University of Cambridge.”

• Cigna, writing in LinkedIn, discusses how employers can help improve the mental health of their male employees.
  • “Men face unique barriers to seeking mental health support, including stigma, societal expectations, and concerns about confidentiality at work.
  • “Untreated mental health conditions among men contribute to higher healthcare costs, absenteeism, and turnover.
  • “Employers that normalize mental health conversations, protect privacy, and offer tailored support men’s mental health can improve outcomes for employees and business performance.”

• STAT News notes
  • “Several years ago, nephrologists attempted a first-of-its-kind effort: remove race from a key clinical algorithm, and attempt to undo the harms of the race-based equation for those who were still being negatively affected by it. 
  • “Until 2021, eGFR, which is used to measure kidney function, was inflated by around 16% to 21% for Black patients — which could mask severe kidney disease and delay urgently needed transplants. Not only was the equation phased out in 2022, but the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network mandated that transplant programs submit modifications for Black patients waiting for transplants. 
  • Several years ago, nephrologists attempted a first-of-its-kind effort: remove race from a key clinical algorithm, and attempt to undo the harms of the race-based equation for those who were still being negatively affected by it. 
  • Until 2021, eGFR, which is used to measure kidney function, was inflated by around 16% to 21% for Black patients — which could mask severe kidney disease and delay urgently needed transplants. Not only was the equation phased out in 2022, but the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network mandated that transplant programs submit modifications for Black patients waiting for transplants. 
• and
  • “Vertex said Monday that a drug it secured as part of a $4.9 billion acquisitionsuccessfully reduced by half a key marker of a kidney disease known as IgA nephropathy.
  • “The results, from a Phase 3 trial, match data from a study of Otsuka’s recently approved Voyxact and are numerically superior to data released last year by Vera Therapeutics.
  • “All three companies have been racing to treat a disease that affects 330,000 people across the U.S. and Europe, according to Vertex’s estimates, putting many at risk of developing end-stage renal disease. Analysts have projected Vertex’s drug could eventually bring in $4 billion or more in annual sales.” 

From the HIMSS conference front,

• Health Tech Magazine reports,
  • The HIMSS Global Health Conference and Exhibition is back in Las Vegas this year, with the tagline “Expert Insights, Exceptional Impact.” 
  • The annual conference kicks off Tuesday with an opening keynote from venture capital leader Jon McNeill (whose experience includes Tesla and Lyft) and Dr. John Halamka, the Dwight and Dian Diercks President of the Mayo Clinic Platform. 
  • Other notable keynote speakers throughout the week include Sumbul Ahmad Desai, vice president of health and fitness at Apple, on Wednesday; and Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, on Thursday (the final day of the conference). 
  • Before HIMSS 2026 began in full swing, Monday saw a day of preconference sessions organized around topics such as artificial intelligence in healthcare, cybersecurity, interoperability and health information exchanges, among others. 
  • The AI in healthcare preconference track saw healthy attendance with a focus on tangible use cases and lessons on how to deploy AI into improved or better-integrated workflows.

• Heathcare Dive digs into regulation of artificial intelligence issues.

• MedCity News adds,
  • “Verily and Samsung are teaming up to accelerate clinical research using wearable data, the companies announced Monday at the HIMSS conference in Las Vegas. 
  • “The companies are integrating user data from Samsung Galaxy smartwatches into Verily’s precision health platform, Verily Pre, so pharma companies and government agencies can run studies and monitor participants remotely.
  • “Researchers will be able to collect continuous health data from study participants wearing Samsung watches, including metrics such as heart rate, sleep and physical activity. The information will flow back into Verily’s data platform, allowing pharma companies and regulators to track patients’ health over time and quickly analyze real-world data.
  • “Consumer wearables are becoming “real, bonafide research-grade instruments,” according to Myoung Cha, Verily’s chief product officer.” 

• In related news, “Ratnakar Lavu, chief digital information officer at Elevance Health, sat down with MobiHealthNews for an in-person interview to discuss the framework the health insurance company uses to validate and scale AI in healthcare.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• Fierce Healthcare reports,
  • “Centene’s stock took a nosedive on Tuesday as the company’s top brass offered further color on the marketplace headwinds battering its performance.
  • “CEO Sarah London said during the Barclays Global Healthcare Conference that membership in its Affordable Care Act exchange plans was down to 3.6 million as of February, from 5.5 million at the end of 2025. She said the team expects that to decline further to about 3.5 million by the end of Q1.” * * *
  • “The company had braced for a likely downturn in enrollment following the expiry of the enhanced premium tax credits and the planned implementation of program integrity measures that proved controversial in the industry.” * * *
  • “Given that these shifts are driven in part by the end of the enhanced subsidies, London said that the member mix in the bronze tier does look different than in years past. Prior to the rollout of the enhanced subsidies in response to the pandemic, the bronze tier was largely made up of younger, healthier individuals.
  • “Now, the insurer is seeing people select a bronze plan because it’s a lower cost option to ensure they maintain coverage, even if they were previously in a silver or gold plan, she said.”
    
• Modern Healthcare relates,
  • “Elevance Health is expanding [to California] a policy to penalize hospitals that refer patients to out-of-network providers. [The purposes of this sensible policy is to reduce No Surprises Act claims.}
  • “The insurance company has introduced the policy in at least 11 other states. 
  • “The American Hospital Association and Federation of American Hospitals have pushed back against the policy.”

• Beckers Hospital Review tells us,
  • “Private equity firms have become a major force in healthcare, investing more than $1 trillion over the last ten years, according to a recent report from New York University’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.
  • “The report, published March 10 and authored by Michael Goldhaber, examines how private equity’s investments have impacted patient care, hospital finances and medical access.
  • “There is a healthcare crisis in the United States. Costs are rising, driven by market consolidation, increased insurance premiums, escalating drug prices and other changes,” the report said. “Many hospitals and healthcare facilities are experiencing staffing shortages. These and other factors mean that the poorest people in the U.S. have worse health outcomes than those in other high-income countries, despite the high level of spending.”

• Fierce Healthcare adds,
  • “Highly concentrated—and, by extension, less economically competitive—hospital markets are ubiquitous across the country and the norm in rural states Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota, according to a market analysis tool unveiled this week by Yale University’s recently launched Health Care Affordability Lab.
  • “Every hospital in those three states operates in a market deemed to be highly concentrated or even monopolistic based on their Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), a metric used by the “Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to determine when it should intervene in a deal on competitive grounds. 
  • “More broadly, the tool shows that 94% of the nation’s hospitals operate in markets with HHIs above 1,800, reflecting a highly concentrated market.” 

• BioPharma Dive lets us know,
  • “Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci, who co-founded BioNTech and led its rise to prominence as a COVID-19 vaccine maker, are leaving the company to establish a new startup focused on mRNA technology. 
  • “BioNTech said Tuesday that Sahin and Türeci, who’ve been serving as CEO and Chief Medical Officer, respectively, will step down by the end of the year. Afterwards, they’ll steer a startup working on “next-generation mRNA innovations.” BioNTech will grant that unnamed biotech certain rights to its mRNA technology in exchange for a minority stake, but won’t provide ongoing capital support, the company said.
  • “BioNTech, meanwhile, will focus on advancing a late-stage portfolio that now includes several different cancer medicines. The company said its supervisory board has initiated a search to identify successors for Sahin and Türeci and ensure a “smooth transition.” It’ll provide more details on the partnership with the new startup once an official deal is signed. Paperwork should be completed by the end of the first half.”

• Beckers Hospital Review points out,
  • “Statista, a global data company that publishes insights for 170 industries, projects four cancer therapies will be among the top 10 best-selling pharmaceutical products in the U.S. this year. 
  • “The company projects Merck’s cancer drug Keytruda will earn $12.7 billion in U.S. revenue in 2026 — nearly twice that of the second top-selling medication, according to data shared March 9 with Becker’s. 
  • “[The article identifies] the medications Statista projects will be the 10 best-selling U.S. pharmaceutical products in 2026.”

• Fierce Pharma notes,
  • “Sandoz has not minced words about the massive yet largely untapped opportunity biosimilar makers are presented with as dozens of branded medicines inch toward the patent cliff in the next decade. 
  • “Now, in an effort to fully capitalize on what the company recently referred to as a potential “‘golden decade’ of affordable medicines” after 2030, Sandoz is committing even further to its biosimilar business with plans to launch a dedicated unit that will operate separately from the company’s remaining small molecule generics division.”
  •  “The new biosimilar unit, focused on development, manufacturing and supply of copycat biologic drugs, will be led by Armin Metzger, most recently chief technical operations officer at fellow Swiss drugmaker Ferring Pharmaceuticals.”

• Per MedTech Dive,
  • “Medtronic said Tuesday it agreed to acquire neurovascular technology company Scientia Vascular for $550 million, with the potential for undisclosed milestone payments after the acquisition.
  • “Scientia’s neurovascular access devices are used to navigate the brain’s complex vasculature to treat conditions such as strokes and aneurysms.
  • “The Scientia proposal is Medtronic’s second deal of the year, after the company announced an acquisition of CathWorks for up to $585 million in February.”