Simplicity is a virtue.

From Washington, DC,

• This is the last week that both Houses of Congress are out of town on State/District work period. The House of Representatives returns to Capitol Hill on August 31 and the Senate returns on September 14. Both Houses head out on the campaign trail on October 1 until the week following the national election day on November 2.

• Global BioDefense reports,
  • “The federal government wants to lock in vaccine manufacturers now, well before the next flu pandemic arrives, rather than scramble to build production capacity after one begins. The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) released a request for proposals on August 17 seeking companies to maintain what the agency calls warm base manufacturing capacity for pandemic influenza vaccines, a standing readiness posture that keeps production lines, seed stocks, and regulatory groundwork in place so doses can start flowing quickly once a pandemic strain emerges.”

From the Food and Drug Administration front,

• MedTech Dive reports,
  • “After receiving Europe’s CE mark earlier this year, Abbott is preparing to bring a dual glucose-ketone sensor to the U.S.
  • “The company has filed an application for its new device, called Libre Duo, with the Food and Drug Administration, with expectations for approval before the end of the year.
  • “Abbott hopes that by allowing people to be more aware of ketone levels, the new device will help prevent diabetic ketoacidosis, or DKA, a serious complication of diabetes where the body lacks insulin. However, broader access to ketone measurement also brings questions around best practices for interpreting and acting on this new data.”
  • MedTech Dive interviews endrinologists about this development in the article. 

From the public health and medical / Rx research front

• Tech Times lets us know where with stand with the summer Covid surge and what it means for the fall season.

• Medscape relates,
  • “Adults on GLP-1s who lost weight during their first year on the medications are likely to maintain that loss through the second year of use, according to two new Cosmos studies.
  • “That finding was true for those with diabetes and without.
  • “We did observe that patients without diabetes had higher rates of maintaining that weight loss,” said Kersten Bartelt, RN, a researcher at Epic Research and a coauthor on both studies. And those on tirzepatide had lower rates of weight regain that those on semaglutide, the two medications studied.
  • “Bottom line? Continued use of GLP-1s means continued weight loss benefit or maintenance, Bartelt said.”
    
• STAT News tells us,
  • “If you could design an oral treatment that limits appetite and mimics some effects of physical activity, you might call it exercise in a pill. Now a company is releasing early results for a compound to do just that.
  • “The pill, the company hopes, can maintain weight loss without the common gastrointestinal effects of GLP-1s. The component of exercise it is designed to re-create is preservation of lean muscle mass, a concern when people yo-yo on and off GLP-1 drugs, losing more muscle each time.
  • “Those researchers showed in a 2022 Nature paper that lac-phe can suppress appetite and lower obesity in animals. Lac-phe and ENV-308, Enveda’s chemically engineered version, both act on leptin, a hormone that has been the target of scientists and drug developers for decades. If confirmed in clinical trials, the company says, ENV-308 would be the first “leptin sensitizer in a pill.” 
  • “ENV308 is our attempt to put the chemistry of exercise into a daily tablet,” said Viswa Colluru, Enveda’s founder and CEO.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• Kaufmann Hall released its 2nd Quarter 2026 Physicians’ Flash Report last week.
  • The investment curve for providers has flattened. The investment/subsidy per both provider and physician has remained steady year-over-year, a positive sign for medical group performance.
  • Advanced practice providers (APPs) are helping control costs. The number of APPs continues to steadily increase, now making up 41.2% of the Total Provider FTEs represented in this sample. As medical groups continue to design strategic APP and physician staffing models, organizations may continue to see stronger returns in overall team effectiveness, productivity, and cost control.
  • Continued increases in productivity are offsetting expense growth but stretching providers. Physician and provider (APPs or otherwise) work relative value units (wRVUs) per FTE grew 3% and 2%, respectively, showing continued increases in productivity. While this may drive revenue to help offset expense growth, it can also increase burnout and impact quality of care.
  • Support staff levels continue to tighten, leaving providers to absorb more work. Support staff expense fell slightly, reflecting ongoing hiring and retention challenges. As staffing tightens, physicians and APPs may need to take on more non-clinical tasks, presenting challenges in working at the top of their license.

• An AHIP news release adds,
  • “Each year brand drugmakers make tens of millions of dollars in payments to physicians— consulting fees, speaking honoraria, meals, travel and more. A new analysis of disclosures from 10 of the largest brand drugmakers, contained within the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Open Payments data, reveals these manufacturers spent nearly $200 million on payments to more than half a million physicians in 2024 alone.
  • “CMS data shows that physicians receiving payments from these 10 brand manufacturers then billed fee-for-service Medicare nearly $45 billion for drugs made by those same manufacturers in 2024. The return on investment for those manufacturers was a staggering $220 in sales for every dollar in physician payments. 
  • “This analysis builds on mounting evidence that physicians who receive manufacturer payments prescribe more drugs sold by those manufacturers.”