Wednesday Report

From Washington, DC,
- NBC News reports
- “Two Key House committees advanced their portions of a sweeping package for President Donald Trump’s agenda on party-line votes Wednesday following marathon meetings.
- “The tax-writing Ways and Means Committee advanced its bill, which would permanently extend Trump’s 2017 cuts, Wednesday morning after a session that clocked in at more than 17 hours.
- “Later Wednesday, the Energy and Commerce Committee passed its legislation, which includes steep Medicaid cuts, after meeting for more than 26 hours.”
- “The House Agriculture Committee was still debating its part of the broader package which includes a $290 billion cut to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), late Wednesday afternoon. The panel began its markup around 7:30 p.m. Tuesday before breaking around midnight and reconvening Wednesday morning.
- “The Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce committees did not make substantive changes to the original plans offered by their chairs.”
- Following the creation of committee recommendations, the House Budget Committee will take responsibility for the budget reconciliation bill. Per a Budget Committee news release today,
- “On Friday, May 16th, 2025, at 9:00 AM in 210 Cannon House Office Building, the House Committee on the Budget will hold a markup to provide for reconciliation pursuant to title II of the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2025, H. Con. Res. 14.
- “Committee hearings and markups are available LIVE from our website or YouTube.”
- The American Hospital Association News tells us,
- “Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. May 14 testified on President Trump’s discretionary budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 in hearings before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. The proposal includes $93.8 billion for HHS, which is a 26.2% reduction from the FY 2025 enacted level.”
- The Wall Street Journal offers its insights on these hearings here.
- Federal News Network lets us know that OPM is proceeding with its retirement application processing improvements, notwithstanding the cancellation of the Workday contract.
- Govexec takes on “Age gap retirement planning for federal employees: Avoiding the ‘Widow’s Penalty,’ Medicare planning and more. How to think about the best ways to utilize your retirement and health care benefits when you may be older, or younger, than your spouse.”
- Per a CMS news release,
- “The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is taking bold steps to modernize the nation’s digital health ecosystem with a focus on empowering Medicare beneficiaries through greater access to innovative health technologies. The agency, in partnership with the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy/Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ASTP/ONC), is seeking public input on how best to advance a seamless, secure, and patient-centered digital health infrastructure. The goal is to unlock the power of modern technology to help seniors and their families take control of their health and well-being, manage chronic conditions, and access care more efficiently.” * * *
- “The request for information (RFI) invites input from patients, caregivers, providers, payers, technology developers, and other stakeholders on how CMS and ASTP/ONC can:
- “Drive the development and adoption of digital health management and care navigation applications;
- “Strengthen interoperability and secure access to health data through open, standards-based technologies;
- “Identify barriers preventing the seamless exchange of health information across systems; and
- Reduce administrative burden while accelerating progress toward value-based, patient-centered care.”
- “The public comment period will be open through June 16. The RFI is available at https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-08701.pdf, and the public should submit all comments through the provided weblink.”
From the public health and medical research front,
- The Wall Street Journal reports,
- “The number of people who died of drug overdoses in the U.S. dropped dramatically in 2024, a promising sign amid a national fentanyl crisis that has fueled a surge in drug-related deaths in recent years.
- “Drug-overdose deaths dropped by 27% to around 80,000 deaths in 2024 from about 110,000 in 2023, according to preliminary data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday. The deaths reported last year fell closer to levels not seen since before the Covid-19 pandemic, which exacerbated the country’s drug-overdose crisis and led to a surge in deaths.
- “Yearly declines in new overdose deaths are rare and tend to be small, making 2024’s drop unprecedented in its scope. This is also only the fourth year in more than three decades in which the U.S. reported fewer drug fatalities, but also the second in a row after a modest reduction in 2023.” * * *
- “Despite the drop in drug-overdose related deaths in 2024, the yearly tally is still much higher than those recorded less than a decade ago and before the opioid crisis took off in the 1990s. The U.S. recorded well over 100,000 deaths a year from 2021 to 2023, according to federal data.”
- Reuters informs us,
- “The Texas health department reported 717 cases of measles in the state on Tuesday, an increase of eight since its last update on Friday, as the U.S. battles one of the worst outbreaks of the childhood disease in the country.
- “Cases in Gaines County, the epicenter of the outbreak, rose to 405 from 403 since the last update, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
- “Texas had reported seven additional cases in the last update on Friday, which was the lowest increase since the outbreak began in February.
- “New Mexico’s health department reported 71 cases, unchanged from its last update. Most of the state’s cases are from Lea County, adjacent to Gaines County in Texas.”
- Per Becker’s Hospital Review,
- “Seventy-six percent of oncologists reported seeing an increasing number of patients presenting with advanced-stage cancer. Of those, 75% attributed the increase to screening barriers, according to a survey published May 13 by the Harris Poll on behalf of Quest Diagnostics.
- “The Harris Poll surveyed 174 medical oncologists and 76 surgical oncologists on their experiences with advanced-stage cancer diagnoses and recurrence between Aug. 6 and Sept. 4.” * * *
- “Read the full survey results here.”
- The National Cancer Institute (NCI) posted its latest edition of Cancer Currents, which is a research blog.
- Per HCPLive,
- “Findings from a recent study suggest iron deficiency anemia (IDA)independently and significantly increases the odds of ischemic stroke in young adults.
- “IDA is the most common form of anemia globally. It results from iron deficiency, when there are insufficient iron stores to support the production of red blood cells. IDA disproportionately affects women due to regular iron losses through menstruation and increased iron demands during pregnancy. Maternal anemia can lead to the child exhibiting intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
- “Additionally, it is currently estimated that 10-15% of all strokes occur in adults aged 18-50, a group that also exhibits an increased prevalence of IDA. However, little data has been collected regarding the association between IDA and stroke in young adults.
- “Although multiple studies have explored the association of IDA and thrombotic events in children, our study was the first to explore its role in ischemic stroke in a young adult population, that is, most susceptible to IDA,” wrote Jahnavi Gollamudi, MD, University of Cincinnati, and colleagues.
- “Investigators classified patients into 2 groups: those with a first-time ischemic stroke diagnosis were defined as Group A, and those without a history of ischemic stroke were defined as Group B.”
- Per a National Institutes of Health news release,
- “Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have identified a series of changes in the architecture and cell composition of connective tissues of the breast, known as stromal tissue, that is associated with an increased risk of developing aggressive breast cancer among women with benign breast disease, and poorer rates of survival among women with invasive breast cancer. This process, which they call stromal disruption, could potentially be used as a biomarker to identify women with benign breast disease who are at high risk of developing aggressive breast cancers, as well as those with breast cancer who may be at increased risk of recurrence or death.
- “Such insights could help inform the development of cancer prevention and treatment strategies that target the stromal microenvironment. In addition, stromal disruption is inexpensive to assess and could be widely adopted, particularly in low-resource settings where molecular analysis is impractical or very expensive.”
- Per Fierce Pharma,
- “After flexing its antibody-drug conjugate bona fides at last year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference, AbbVie is advancing its solid tumor ambitions with a new FDA green light.
- “The FDA on Wednesday granted an accelerated approval to AbbVie’s c-Met-directed ADC Emrelis, also known as telisotuzumab vedotin, as a new treatment option for adults with locally advanced or metastatic, non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who’ve previously received systemic therapy. The drug is cleared in patients whose tumors exhibit high overexpression of the c-Met protein.
- “The c-Met protein is overexpressed in around 25% of patients with advanced epidermal growth factor receptor wild-type, non-squamous NSCLC, and roughly half of those patients have high c-Met overexpression, AbbVie explained in a press release.”
- Per BioPharma Dive,
- “A two-drug regimen involving an experimental cancer immunotherapy from iTeos Therapeutics and GSK didn’t significantly delay tumor progression in a Phase 2 trial, leading the companies to end development and terminate the collaboration they formed around the drug four years ago.
- “When added to GSK’s drug Jemperli, the immunotherapy, known as belrestotug and aimed at a cellular target called TIGIT, didn’t meet preset criteria for progression-free survival compared to Jemperli alone in people with non-small cell lung cancer. The study showed a “trend below the meaningful threshold” for drug responses in study arms including people with head and neck cancer, the companies said Tuesday.
- “Based on the results, iTeos and GSK are stopping all ongoing trials of belrestotug, including an ongoing Phase 3 study in lung cancer. iTeos is “taking immediate steps to preserve capital” as well as starting a strategic review.”
From the U.S. healthcare business front,
- We start with global news from the Wall Street Journal,
- “GSK will acquire a liver-disease treatment from Boston Pharmaceuticals for up to $2 billion as it seeks to boost its pipeline of new drugs.
- “The British pharma giant said Wednesday that it will pay the U.S. biotech company $1.2 billion upfront, with a further $800 million in potential success-based milestone payments.
- “The drug is currently in late-stage trials, with a potential market launch in 2029. It aims to treat a form of liver disease characterized by inflammation and damage caused by a build-up of fat. GSK said the drug is also being explored for use in alcohol-related liver disease, and that mid-stage data has shown potential to reverse liver fibrosis and halt disease progression.
- “Unlike current daily tablet treatments, efimosfermin is designed to be administered as a monthly shot. GSK plans to develop it both as a monotherapy–which uses one type of treatment–and in combination with its own experimental liver-disease therapies.”
- and
- “Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk has signed a collaboration deal with U.S. biotech Septerna that will see the two companies develop pills to treat obesity, type 2 diabetes and other cardiometabolic diseases.
- “Under the terms of the agreement, Septerna is eligible to receive around $2.2 billion from Novo Nordisk, including over $200 million in upfront and near-term milestone payments.
- “The U.S. company will also receive research, development and commercial milestone payments, on top of tiered royalties on global net sales of marketed products. Novo Nordisk will cover all research-and-development costs.”
- STAT News lets us know,
- “The mood at the annual meeting of the American Society of Cell and Gene Therapy isn’t amazing. The biotech market has been bad for years. The FDA and NIH are shrouded in uncertainty. But many researchers tried to project confidence. Over the last four years, 16 gene and cell therapies have been approved, as one presenter noted Tuesday. Also, there was a purple-clad Mardi Gras-style stilt walker directing attendees into the main hall — so there’s that.”
- Beckers Hospital Review points out that “A total of 66 hospitals [named in the article] received both Healthgrades’ Outstanding Patient Experience and Patient Safety Excellence awards.”
- Per Beckers Payer Issues,
- “Contract disputes between insurers and health systems are down in 2025 compared to the second half of 2024.
- “According to data from FTI Consulting, there were 133 total disputes in 2024, compared to 86 in 2023 and 51 in 2022. In the first quarter of 2025, 26 total disputes have been recorded, compared to 50 in Q4 2024 and 37 in Q3 2024. Network breaks between Medicare Advantage plans and health systems tripled from 2022 to 2024.
- “FTI has tracked media reports regarding negotiations over reimbursement rates between provider organizations and insurance companies during each quarter since early 2022.”
- HR Dive notes,
- “While 86% of employers think their benefits are modern, only 59% of workers agree, according to the results of Prudential’s 2025 Benefits and Beyond study, released Monday.
- “Workers say their top challenges are saving for retirement (45%), cost of everyday goods (44%), cost of housing (29%) and making it paycheck to paycheck (26%); and 1 in 10 workers identified being able to survive paycheck to paycheck as their No. 1 worry, the study found.
- “The study’s findings are clear: When it comes to workplace benefits, there is a disconnect on what companies offer and what employees actually need — now and in the future,” the press release said.”