Midweek Report

NIH

Midweek Report

David Ermer–CMS, Congress, FDA, Generative AI, Medical / Rx research, NIH, U.S. Healthcare–

From Washington, DC

  • FedScoop informs us,
    • “President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law the Government Service Delivery Improvement Act, legislation that targets improving customer service interactions with the government.
    • “The bill (H.R. 5887) was first introduced by Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., Byron Donalds, R-Fla., Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., and William Timmons, R-S.C., in October 2023. Now as law, it requires the Office of Management and Budget to choose a senior official as a “Federal Government Service Delivery Lead” to coordinate government service delivery improvement within agencies. 
    • “That service delivery lead would also work with new agency-appointed senior officials, who must be named within a year of the bill’s enactment, to oversee their organizations’ delivery improvements.”
  • Per an HHS press releases,
    • “Today, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra announced he would delegate the authority vested in the HHS under the Dr. Emmanuel Bilirakis and Honorable Jennifer Wexton National Plan to End Parkinson’s Act to the National Institutes of Health, with support from the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health.”
  • and
    • “Today, the White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (WHIAANHPI) unveiled Rising Together, its final report to President Joe Biden. The report showcases how the Biden-Harris Administration has leveraged the full force of the federal government to make real the promise of America for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AA and NHPI) communities. Read the full report at wh.gov/whiaanhpireport2025 – PDF“
  • and
    • “Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced seven winners of the KidneyX Sustainability Prize, designed to incentivize development of solutions to reduce water or power usage during dialysis care.” * * *
    • “HHS congratulates the winners of the KidneyX Sustainability Prize, who will each receive an equal share of the $7.25 million prize purse:  
      • “Kuleana Technology Inc. Advancing Hemodialysis Sustainability: Dialysate Regeneration via Uremic Toxin Photo-Oxidation. “Kuleana Technology’s Dialysate Regeneration Module enables hemodialysis with just 2 liters of water per treatment, making dialysis portable and accessible while saving 300 billion liters of water per year worldwide.”
      • “Micro Nano Technologies Inc. Handheld Water-Free and Battery-Powered Renal Replacement System. “The proposed technology mimics kidney filtration, eliminating the need for water and operating on a laptop-sized battery for 8 hours, ensuring dialysis access during disasters without traditional infrastructure.”
      • “Particle4X. SMART-PD: Sustainable Home Dialysis Revolution. “SMART-PD is an advanced home dialysis system that produces sterile PD fluid from tap water, reclaims effluent, and employs AI-powered monitoring to enhance sustainability and patient safety.”
      • “Qidni Labs Inc. Qidni/D: A Novel Sorbent Platform for Dialysis. “The Qidni/D is a portable and nearly waterless hemodialysis system that can offer accessible and sustainable access to care anywhere.”
      • “Stephen Ash. Sorbent Regeneration of Dialysate with Improved Ammonium Capacity. “We have developed a sorbent with high capacity for NH4+ (from urea) and minimal binding of Ca++ and Mg++, which should make regeneration of dialysate simpler, smaller and more practical.”
      • “University of Minnesota. Decentralized Dialysis Fluid Production: Enhancing the Sustainability of Dialysis Care. “Our innovation enables decentralized production of peritoneal dialysis fluids, reducing dialysis energy and water consumption by 48% and 66%, respectively, increasing supply chain resilience, and improving patient outcomes worldwide.”
      • “Wearable Artificial Organs Inc. Green dialysis on batteries using only 300ml of water. “A 2 lb. miniaturized Wearable Artificial Kidney (WAK) powered by rechargeable batteries, continuously regenerates dialysate water and delivers continuous dialysis 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”
    • Kudos to the prize winners.
  • The American Hospital Association News tells us,
    • “The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Jan. 8 announced 23.6 million consumers have signed up for a 2025 Health Insurance Marketplace plan. Of that total, approximately 3.2 million are new consumers. Open enrollment continues until Jan. 15 for the 31 states that use HealthCare.gov and most state-based marketplaces for coverage beginning Feb. 1.” 
  • Kevin Moss, writing in Federal News Network, answers the question “If someone is on Federal Health Benefits, what happens when they turn 65 and become eligible for Medicare, and what happens when their spouse turns 65 and is also eligible for Medicare?” It’s worth adding that OPM regulations grant special FSHB/PSHB open enrollment period to employees and annuitants who turn 65:
    • On becoming eligible for Medicare. An employee [or an annuitant] may change the enrollment from one plan or option to another at any time beginning on the 30th day before becoming eligible for coverage under title XVIII of the Social Security Act (Medicare). A change of enrollment based on becoming eligible for Medicare may be made only once. 5 CFR Secs 890.301(k), 890.306(p)
  • Stars and Stripes gives us an update on the “pilot program aimed at helping Department of Defense civilian employees [based in Japan] find health care from Japanese providers is up and running, according to the DOD. The program, which aims to connect the civilians with local health care providers without paying large, upfront service fees, among other advantages, began Jan. 1, according to a fact sheet emailed to employees Wednesday by the U.S. Army Civilian Human Resources Agency. The program complements existing health insurance coverage for eligible DOD employees.”

From the judicial front,

  • Bloomberg Law reports,
    • “A trade group representing consumer credit reporting companies and a Texas-based credit union association sued to block the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s new rule barring most medical debt from credit reports.
    • “The CFPB overstepped its authority in eliminating medical debt from credit reports and banning creditors from considering medical debt in lending decisions, the Consumer Data Industry Association and the Cornerstone Credit Union League said in a complaint filed Tuesday in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
    • “Only Congress has the power to determine whether information can or can’t be included in credit reports, the complaint said.
    • “The ban will make it harder for lenders, employers, and rental housing providers to make informed decisions about the creditworthiness of borrowers, the industry groups said. 
    • “Knowing whether a consumer has debt is an important element of underwriting, and unilaterally eliminating consideration of coded medical debt information erodes the predictive nature, and therefore the value, of consumer reports,” the complaint said.
    • “The suit came on the same day the CFPB finalized its medical debt rule.”

From the Food and Drug Administration front,

  • Fierce Pharma lets us know,
    • “The FDA will require GSK and Pfizer to include on the label of their respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines a warning about the risk of developing Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), a rare neurological condition that can cause paralysis.
    • “The ruling will affect GSK’s Arexvy and Pfizer’s Abrysvo, both of which were approved by the agency in May of 2023 for adults 60 years or older and realized booming sales in their first year on the market.
    • “Seven months ago, however, the sales potential for both shots declined significantly when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that they only be used by adults aged 75 and older and those 60 and older who have a high risk of severe disease due to underlying medical conditions.
    • “In narrowing the population with its revised recommendation, the CDC cited the potential link between the vaccines and GBS.
    • “On Tuesday, the FDA explained that its new guidelines come after the agency conducted a post marketing observational study and evaluated the results of clinical trials and reports to its Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).”
  • Per Healthcare Dive,
    • “The Food and Drug Administration’s device center clarified how manufacturers should approach artificial intelligence in a draft guidance issued on Monday.
    • “The document outlines recommendations for design, development and maintenance to ensure AI-enabled devices are safe and effective. In particular, the guidance outlines how device makers should address transparency and bias and when post market monitoring is needed. 
    • “Troy Tazbaz, director of the FDA’s Digital Health Center of Excellence, said the agency has authorized more than 1,000 AI-enabled devices to date. 
    • “As we continue to see exciting developments in this field, it’s important to recognize that there are specific considerations unique to AI-enabled devices,” Tazbaz said in a statement.”
  • Per MedTech Dive,
    • “Johnson & Johnson said Wednesday it paused all U.S. Varipulse caseswhile the company investigates the cause of four reported neurovascular events.
    • “J&J said the cases were part of an external evaluation in the U.S. The pause was initiated on Jan. 5. J&J completed more than 130 cases across 14 sites as of Jan. 3.
    • “An external evaluation is a limited rollout intended to collect physician feedback on a new technology before a full release, a J&J spokesperson said in an email to MedTech Dive.
    • “Because the evaluation used a unique platform configuration, the pause does not affect the rollout of Varipulse outside of the U.S., where more than 3,000 commercial cases have been completed, J&J said.
    • “The pause of U.S. cases comes two months after J&J received Food and Drug Administration approval for Varipulse, becoming the third device company to offer a PFA system in the U.S.”

From the public health and medical research front,

  • The National Cancer Institute released its Cancer Information Highlights concerning “Targeted Therapy for Head and Neck Cancer & CAR T-Cell Therapy for Brain Cancer.”
  • MedPage Today informs us,
    • A study of older adults showed that 6% had depression, with higher prevalences in certain groups, including women, those who were unmarried, and those with chronic medical conditions. (Journal of the American Geriatrics Society)
    • A single 25-mg dose of synthetic psilocybin significantly improved depressive symptoms by week 3 among participants with severe treatment resistance in a small single-arm open-label trial. (American Journal of Psychiatry)
    • Older adults with major depressive disorder displayed riskier driving compared with those without depression, according to a prospective longitudinal cohort study. (JAMA Network Open).
  • MedPage Today adds, “Two types of Wicklow Gold cheddar cheese sold in five states were recalled due to potential contamination with Listeria monocytogenes, Abbey Specialty Foods said [last Friday].”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • Healthcare Dive expects that “Health insurers will step off the roller coaster in 2025. After a turbulent year, things should calm for payers with the advent of a business-friendly Trump administration — though challenges will persist.”
  • MedCity News discusses
    • How Can Employers Manage Rising Healthcare Costs in 2025? Multiple reports indicate that employers can expect rising healthcare costs in 2025. To address these costs, employers are holding their vendor partners accountable and evaluating their health plan and PBM partners.
  • and
    • “Biopharma in 2025: Outlook for Obesity Meds, Drug Prices, Regulation & More. Metabolic medicines dominated life sciences headlines in 2024, a trend expected to continue into the new year. Other things to look for include more widespread adoption of artificial intelligence technologies and the IPO market’s return to normal levels.”
  • STAT News reports
    • “Next week brings the return of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, and with it another fabled opportunity for companies in the industry to court possible mergers, acquisitions, and licensing deals. This year, there will be even greater pressure to make a good match, as the pharmaceutical industry, which drives more than $1 trillion in economic activity and thousands of jobs, faces one of the largest patent cliffs in recent history. 
    • “Between now and 2033, the patents on dozens of brand-name medications will expire, allowing generic drugmakers to begin selling cheaper versions. Drug companies stand to lose more than $400 billion in revenue as patents expire for Keytruda, Eliquis, Jardiance, Opdivo, and other blockbuster therapies. (By comparison, the last major patent cliff that hit the industry, in 2011, jeopardized around $250 billion in drug revenue.) 
    • “One of the few tried-and-tested methods for navigating a patent cliff is to acquire startups and new drugs — and lots of them. As a result, many experts anticipate pharma ramping up M&A activity in 2025, starting at the J.P. Morgan conference. 
    • “We always have a handful of deals announced around JPM. But the real work is the meetings that happen at JPM, that start the discussions.… I think people need to buckle up, because it’s already twice as frothy and could get even more,” said Charles Ruck, an attorney at Latham Watkins who specializes in M&A.”
  • Per Fierce Healthcare,
    • “Two-thirds of insured Americans say they would trust a health insurer’s artificial intelligence copilot to accurately inform them about a health plan’s benefits, a survey conducted by virtual care navigation platform Pager Health and market research firm The Harris Poll reveals.
    • “Of the respondents, 66% believe AI can correctly personalize digital healthcare with the goals and needs of the member. Even more respondents think AI can find doctors accepting new members and schedule appointments.
    • “The survey, shared exclusively with Fierce Healthcare, provide insights into how members want insurers to offer a better customer experience, sometimes through AI. However, health plans do not fully capitalize on this opportunity.
    • “Only 41% of people say they receive personalized messages, while 17% don’t receive health plan recommendations at all. About one-third of respondents say an insurer’s wellness programs would be more enticing if they received progress alerts, biometric information or claims data.
    • “Only health plans that fully leverage the power of AI to analyze the wealth of health data available will be able to meet this demand and, in the process, boost member engagement and satisfaction,” said Rita Sharma, chief product officer at Pager Health, in a news release.”
  • The Wall Street Journal reports,
    • “Novo Nordisk expanded a deal with Valo Health, a U.S. company, to discover and develop treatments for obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease using human data and artificial intelligence.
    • “The deal extends an agreement signed in 2023 and will see Valo become eligible for increased payments and funding.
    • “Under the original deal, the companies agreed to develop up to 11 drug programs, primarily focused on cardiovascular disease, with Valo eligible to receive up to $2.7 billion in milestone payments, plus research and development funding and potential royalty payments.
    • “The new agreement set out Wednesday expands the scope to put a stronger focus on obesity and type 2 diabetes and includes near-term payments to Valo of up to $190 million.
    • “A further $4.6 billion in potential milestone payments will be made for up to nine new drug programs and Valo will also be eligible for more research and development funding and potential royalty payments.
    • “The companies will continue to use Valo’s drug discovery and development platform that uses patient data and AI to generate new insights and translate them into potential therapeutics.”
  • Per Healthcare Dive,
    • “Transcarent, a healthcare platform for self-insured employers, will acquire benefits navigator Accolade for about $621 million, the companies announced Wednesday. 
    • “The deal will combine Transcarent’s offerings — including an artificial intelligence-backed information and navigation service, health benefits guidance and virtual care — with Accolade’s services, like providing virtual primary care and specialist consultations, as well as patient advocates and care navigation. 
    • “The acquisition will net Accolade stockholders $7.03 per share in cash, an approximately 110% premium over the company’s closing stock price on Tuesday. Transcarent’s CEO, noted entrepreneur and investor Glen Tullman, will head up the combined organization, according to a spokesperson.”

Friday Report

David Ermer–CDC, Congress, COVID-19, FDA, Medical / Rx research, NIH, Rx coverage, U.S. Healthcare–
Photo by Josh Mills on Unsplash

Public service notice — January 3 is the statute of limitations for wishing another person Happy New Year, according to Larry David.

From Washington, DC,

  • The Wall Street Journal reports,
    • “Incumbent Mike Johnson won re-election as speaker of the House on the first ballot, after President-elect Donald Trump pressured GOP holdouts to change their votes, handing the Louisiana Republican the narrow majority needed to claim the gavel.
    • “Johnson’s dramatic victory clears the way for Republicans to charge headlong into Trump’s second term, taking on an ambitious agenda of tax cuts and border security. While Johnson avoided a repeat of the GOP’s calamitous January 2023 speaker vote, the tally underscored how little room he has to maneuver with the party’s razor-thin margin. It also showed the power of any small group of dissidents to derail the party’s plans.
    • “Working together, we have the potential to be one of the most consequential congresses in the history of this great nation,” Johnson said.
    • “The chain of events previewed how Trump and Johnson will need to move in lockstep to get legislation across the finish line and tamp down dissent, even though the party controls both chambers of Congress and the White House.”
  • Roll Call adds,
    • “A last-minute insertion into House Republicans’ rules package for the 119th Congress substantially raises the bar for voting on legislation under suspension of the rules late in the week or over the weekend, in a concession to conservatives upset about recent deals with Democrats on big-ticket spending bills.
    • “The change requires the House to adopt a special rule to consider bills under suspension of the rules — which bars amendments but requires the support of two-thirds of members present and voting for passage — on any days other than Mondays, Tuesdays or Wednesdays.” * **
    • The House adopted the new rules package on a 215-209 vote late Friday.
  • The Wall Street Journal tells us,
    • “The U.S. surgeon general said alcoholic beverages should carry cancer warnings to increase awareness that the drinks are a leading cause of preventable cancers.
    • “An act of Congress would be required to change the existing warning labels on bottles of beer, wine and liquor. Today, federal rules require only a warning against drunken driving and drinking while pregnant, as well as a general warning that alcohol “may cause health problems.”
    • “Alcohol is a well-established, preventable cause of cancer responsible for about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths annually in the United States,” Dr. Vivek Murthy said in his advisory issued Friday. “Yet the majority of Americans are unaware of this risk.”
  • Per a Health and Human Services Department press release,
    • “Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced it would award $306 million dollars to continue its H5N1 Avian Flu response. While CDC’s assessment of the risk of avian influenza to the general public remains low, USDA and HHS continue to closely collaborate with Federal, State, local, industry and other stakeholders to protect human health, animal health, and food safety.
    • “While the risk to humans remains low, we are always preparing for any possible scenario that could arise. These investments are critical to continuing our disease surveillance, laboratory testing, and monitoring efforts alongside our partners at USDA,” said Secretary Xavier Becerra. “Preparedness is the key to keeping Americans healthy and our country safe. We will continue to ensure our response is strong, well equipped, and ready for whatever is needed.”
  • MedTech Dive informs us that the “FDA closed 2024 with string of early alerts on device safety risks. Olympus advised providers to stop using an endoscope accessory due to an infection risk linked to 120 injuries and one death.”

From the judicial front,

  • Fierce Healthcare lets us know,
    • “Aetna is taking legal action against Pfizer, Novartis, Teva Pharmaceuticals and others, saying the list of drugmakers conspired to overcharge the insurer, consumers and the federal government for generic drugs.
    • “The complaint, filed Dec. 31, claims the drugmakers communicated secretly at trade conferences or through phone calls, beginning in 2012, to determine the market share, prices and bids of certain drugs. If communication was in writing, they destroyed the evidence, Aetna claimed.
    • “They effectuated their market allocation by either refusing to bid for particular customers or providing outrageously high cover bids,” the complaint said. “This created an artificial equilibrium that enabled the conspirators to then collectively raise and/or maintain prices for a particular generic drug.”
    • “Aetna said that drug purchasers, predominantly insurers, suffered as a result of these actions. Insurers place generic drugs on their formularies to lower costs but instead were paying unfairly high prices for these products.”

From the public health and medical research front,

  • The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced today,
    • “COVID-19 activity is increasing in most areas of the country. Seasonal influenza activity continues to increase and is elevated across most of the country. RSV activity is very high in many areas of the country, particularly in young children.
    • “COVID-19
      • “COVID-19 activity is increasing in most areas of the country, with high COVID-19 wastewater levels and increasing emergency department visits and laboratory percent positivity. Based on CDC modeled estimates of epidemic growth, we predict COVID-19 illness will continue to increase in the coming weeks as it usually does in the winter.
      • “There is still time to benefit from getting your recommended immunizations to reduce your risk of illness this season, especially severe illness and hospitalization.
      • “CDC expects the 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccine to work well for currently circulating variants. There are many effective tools to prevent spreading COVID-19 or becoming seriously ill.
    • “Influenza
    • “RSV
      • “RSV activity is very high in many areas of the country, particularly in young children. Emergency department visits and hospitalizations are highest in children and hospitalizations are elevated among older adults in some areas.
    • “Vaccination
      • “Vaccination coverage with influenza and COVID-19 vaccines are low among U.S. adults and children. COVID-19 vaccine coverage in older adults has increased compared with the 2023-2024 season. Vaccination coverage with RSV vaccines remains low among U.S. adults. Many children and adults lack protection from respiratory virus infections provided by vaccines.”
  • Following up on the Surgeon General’s advisory, the Wall Street Journal considers,
    • “How much drinking is bad for you?
    • “Though more people are calling themselves sober-curious or are trying zero-proof replacements for alcohol, drinking is a regular part of social life for most of us. A coupe of champagne can add fun to a celebration. A cocktail can take the edge off a tough day. And a cold beer can liven up a sports game. 
    • “Yet scientists’ warnings about the potential health problems of even small amounts of alcohol are growing more dire. For moderate drinkers, it can be hard to know what’s actually OK to consume: Is two a day that much worse than one? Are two drinks over a week the same as two in a day? 
    • “Averaging no more than about one drink a day is relatively low risk, according to scientists who study alcohol. They warn the risk of cancer rises significantly when you exceed that. Studies have suggested that alcohol contributes to about half a dozen types of cancers, including breast and colorectal, as well as heart and liver disease, among other conditions.” 
  • Per MedTech Dive,
    • “The Food and Drug Administration said a literature review found no safety concerns associated with tampon use and contaminant exposure.
    • “FDA officials commissioned the independent review in September in response to a study that found tampons may expose users to metals. After seeing the findings, the agency continues to recommend FDA-cleared tampons as a safe option for use as a menstrual product.
    • “The FDA is still running an internal bench laboratory study designed to show if metals from tampon materials are released or absorbed in the body. That study will better enable the FDA to complete a risk assessment, the agency said in a Dec. 23 statement.”
  • The Wall Street Journal notes,
    • Researchers have identified a focal point for the forces they suspect of driving up cancer cases in young people: the gut. They are searching people’s bodies and childhood histories for culprits.
    • Rates of gastrointestinal cancers among people under 50 are increasing across the globe. In the U.S., colorectal cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in men under 50 and second for women behind breast cancer. Each generation born since the 1950s has had higher risk than the one before. 
    • “Everything you can think of that has been introduced in our society since really the 1960s, the post-World War II era, is a potential culprit,” said Dr. Marios Giannakis, a gastrointestinal oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
    • “Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary, has pointed to ultra-processed foods and chemicals in medicines and the environment. Cancer doctors share some of his suspicionsabout diet and exposure to contaminants such as microplastics, shards that make their way from packaging or clothing into our bodies through water and food. They are scrutinizing those and other potential hazards including “forever chemicals” and even light.   
    • “We’re all concerned and want to do something quickly and act quickly, but we want to do so based on sound science,” said Dr. Andrew Chan, director of epidemiology at Mass General Cancer Center in Boston.” 
  • Per HealthDay,
    • “Not sure what’s causing your child’s asthma?
    • “A new quick-and-easy nasal swab test for kids can diagnose the specific immune system drivers behind their asthma, potentially opening the door to better treatments, researchers say.
    • “The test diagnoses a child’s asthma subtype, also called an endotype.
    • “Because asthma is a highly variable disease with different endotypes, which are driven by different immune cells and respond differently to treatments, the first step toward better therapies is accurate diagnosis of endotype,” senior researcher Dr. Juan Celedon, chief of pulmonary medicine at the UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, said in a news release from the hospital.”
  • A National Institutes of Health news release points out,
    • “A novel class of antibodies that binds to a previously untargeted portion of the malaria parasite could lead to new prevention methods, according to a study from researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) published today in Science. The most potent of the new antibodies was found to provide protection against malaria parasites in an animal model. The researchers say antibodies in this class are particularly promising because they bind to regions of the malaria parasite not included in current malaria vaccines, providing a potential new tool for fighting this dangerous disease.
    • Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by Plasmodium parasites, which are spread through the bites of infected mosquitoes. Although malaria is not common in the United States, its global impact is devastating, with 263 million cases and 597,000 deaths estimated by the World Health Organization in 2023. Of the five species of Plasmodium that cause malaria, Plasmodium falciparum is the most common in African countries where the burden of malaria is largest and where young children account for the majority of malaria deaths. Safe, effective countermeasures are critical for reducing the immense burden of this disease. * * *
    • “Findings from the study will inform future strategies for the prevention of malaria and may facilitate the development of new antibodies and vaccines against the disease, the researchers indicate. The scientists also note that more research is needed to examine the activity and effectiveness of the newly identified antibody class and epitope, according to their paper. The approach used in this study could also aid the development of a new generation of countermeasures against other pathogens, in addition to malaria.”  

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • Modern Healthcare reports,
    • “Ardent Health has acquired 18 facilities from urgent care provider NextCare, following through on its plan to expand its urgent and ambulatory care presence.
    • “The for-profit health system, which went public in July, said Friday it acquired six facilities in New Mexico and 12 in Oklahoma. Financial details and terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
    • “An Ardent spokesperson said the deal was part of a larger growth strategy and the system planned to acquire more ambulatory facilities.”
  • Beckers Payer Issues relates,
    • UnitedHealth Group is the world’s largest insurer by net premiums written for a 10th year in a row, according to AM Best’s annual ranking published Jan. 2.
    • In 2025, UnitedHealth expects revenues of up to $455 billion and adjusted net earnings of $29.50 to $30.00 per share.
    • Top four insurers ranked by 2023 NPW:
      • UnitedHealth Group
      • Centene
      • Elevance Health
      • Kaiser Permanente
  • Per Beckers Hospital Review,
    • “The Women’s Choice Award has recognized 457 hospitals on its annual list of the Best Hospitals for Patient Safety.
    • “To compile the ranking, the organization analyzed hospitals’ performance on 13 surgical complication and infection measures from CMS, including central-line associated bloodstream infections, sepsis and serious blood clots after surgery. Hospitals had to report on at least six measures to be included in the analysis and could not rank worse than the national average on any measure.  
    • “Hospitals on the patient safety list were among the top 10% of organizations nationwide with the lowest incidence of adverse medical events and infections. See the full list of winners here.” 

Thursday Report

David Ermer–Congress, FDA, Medical / Rx research, NIH, Obesity, U.S. Healthcare–

From Washington, DC,

  • According to the House of Representatives and Senate press galleries, each body will assemble before noon to adjourn the 118th Congress sine die and at noon will convene for the start of the 119th Congress.
  • Govexec tells us,
    • “Current federal employees, retirees and others impacted by widespread breach of personal data maintained by the Office of Personnel Management took advantage of only a small portion of the money made available in a settlement agreement following the 2015 hack. 
    • “Plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit reached a settlement in 2022 with the government that made $63 million available for those who could demonstrate financial hardship as a result of the breach. A federal judge closed out the case last month after OPM and the Treasury Department doled out just $4.8 million to just more than 5,000 individuals. The remaining $58.2 million is set to go back to the Treasury on Thursday, according to court documents last month.” 

From the public health and medical research front,

  • The Washington Post reports, “More children are getting kidney stones. Experts think it’s their diet.”
    • “Some research suggests that genetic predisposition may play a role, but experts say the increase more likely reflects dietary habits and lifestyle.
    • “A North Carolina doctor detected a potential culprit: salt-laden diets. Sodium intake has increased significantly among children in the past few decades.
    • “There is so much added salt to the American diet today, and when the kidney is excreting the sodium, it pulls calcium with it and increases the risk of calcium-based stones,” John S. Wiener, a pediatric urologist at Duke Health, said.”
  • The American Medical Association discusses “Raw milk: Questions patients may have and how to answer.” Econtalk host Russ Roberts chats with Brown University economist Emily Oster about raw milk and similar public health issues in his latest podcast.
  • HealthDay lets us know,
    •  “Alzheimer’s disease experts have updated their diagnosis guidelines for the first time in more than 20 years, laying out how family doctors and brain specialists can best detect dementia.
    • “The guidelines call for the use of three general criteria to assess a person’s brain health, according to a report published Dec. 23, 2024, in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia:
      • “The patient’s overall level of cognitive impairment
      • “Specific symptoms they’re suffering, which can involve memory, reasoning, language or mood
      • “Brain diseases most likely to be causing these symptoms
    • “These three areas of diagnosis were intentionally left broad, so that new tests can be incorporated into the guidelines as researchers learn more about dementia and Alzheimer’s, Dr. Alireza Atri, a lecturer on neurology at Harvard Medical School, said in a news release from the Alzheimer’s Association.”
  • Per National Institutes of Health news releases,
    • “Based on new brain mapping research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), scientists have discovered that not all cell types in the brain age in the same way. They found that some cells, such as a small group of hormone-controlling cells, may undergo more age-related changes in genetic activity than others. The results, published in Nature, support the idea that some cells are more sensitive to the aging process and aging brain disorders than others.
    • “Aging is the most important risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease and many other devastating brain disorders. These results provide a highly detailed map for which brain cells may be most affected by aging,” said Richard J. Hodes, M.D., director of NIH’s National Institute on Aging. “This new map may fundamentally alter the way scientists think about how aging affects the brain and also provide a guide for developing new treatments for aging-related brain diseases.”
    • “Scientists used advanced genetic analysis tools to study individual cells in the brains of 2-month-old “young” and 18-month-old “aged” mice. For each age, researchers analyzed the genetic activity of a variety of cell types located in 16 different broad regions — constituting 35% of the total volume of a mouse brain.”
  • and
    • ‘In a small clinical trial, a CAR T-cell therapy—a type of immunotherapy that uses a patient’s own immune cells to fight cancer—shrank tumors in several children and young adults with diffuse midline gliomas. This fast-growing form of brain and spinal cord cancer typically causes death within a year of diagnosis.
    • “In the trial, several participants were still alive 2 years or more after receiving the treatment.” * * *
    • “This study breaks new ground,” said study co-investigator Crystal L. Mackall, M.D., of Stanford Medicine. “It demonstrates that CAR T cells can have real, meaningful benefit for solid cancers, something that many people have not believed [was possible].”  
    • “In the trial, 9 of 11 patients who received the GD2 CAR T-cell therapy had neurological improvement. Of those, 7 had tumor shrinkage and in some cases the effects were quite dramatic. As patients’ tumors shrank, their symptoms improved and many regained physical functions they had lost from the disease, such as hearing, walking, and taste sensation. 
    • “Participants lived a median of nearly 2 years after treatment, with two patients still alive past the study’s 2.5-year follow-up period. One of these patients had a complete disappearance of his tumor and remains cancer free 4 years after his diagnosis. 
    • “It’s really remarkable,” said Rosandra N. Kaplan, M.D., of NCI’s Center for Cancer Research, who is also running a GD2 CAR T-cell therapy clinical trial but was not involved in this study. “This is a tumor for which nothing has ever worked. I think this is the start of a revolution in understanding how to treat these patients.”   
  • The Hill reported yesterday
    • “Broccoli sold at Walmart stores in 20 states has been recalled.
    • “Braga Fresh last week issued a voluntary and precautionary advisory for 12-ounce bags of Marketside Broccoli Florets that may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.” * * *
    • “According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which posted the advisory Tuesday, the pathogen can cause “serious and sometimes fatal infections” in young children, elderly people and others with weakened immune systems.” * * *
    • “It was distributed to stores in Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
    • “No illnesses have yet been reported in connection with the product, the advisory said.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • Modern Healthcare reports,
    • “Sanford Health closed its merger with Marshfield Clinic Health System on Wednesday.
    • “The combined system, led by Sanford President and CEO Bill Gassen, has more than $10 billion in revenue and operates 56 hospitals across seven states, in addition to two health plans with roughly 425,000 members. It has almost 56,000 employees, including about 13,000 employees from Marshfield, according to a Thursday news release.“
  • and
    • “CareSource has completed its acquisition of Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative, the nonprofit health insurers announced in a news release Thursday.
    • “Privately held CareSource, which has 2 million Medicare, Medicaid and health insurance exchange members, gains 54,000 marketplace customers in Wisconsin through the deal. Common Ground CEO Cathy Mahaffey remains as chief executive of Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative and was named CareSource market president for the Badger State.”
    • “Common Ground had been one of three remaining member-owned cooperative health insurers supported with funding from the Affordable Care Act of 2010.” * * *\
    • “Of the 23 co-ops that debuted on the exchanges in 2013, only Community Health Options in Maine and Mountain Health CO-OP in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are still in operation.”
  • Beckers Hospital Review lists “the hospitals patients are most likely to recommend in every state using Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems data from CMS.”
  • Beckers Payer Issues identifies the fifteen insurers exiting Medicare Advantage markets in 2025.
  • BioPharma Dive points out “ten clinical trials to watch in the first half of 2025. Expected readouts in diabetes, cancer and depression headline a series of study results that could help the biotechnology sector regain its footing after a shaky year.”
  • Forbes reports,
    • “The anti-obesity drug Zepbound made by Eli Lilly & Co. could be one of the biggest cost drivers for health insurers, employers and government health programs that cover it this year.
    • “Already, GLP-1 weight loss prescriptions Wegovy, Rybelsus and Saxenda—along with Ozempic—are the “single biggest driver” of employer health costs, adding 1% to the total premium expense for 2025, data released last fall from the benefits consultancy Aon said.
    • ‘These GLP-1 drugs are adding to general healthcare inflation that is projected to increase employer-sponsored health insurance coverage by 9%, eclipsing $16,000 per employee in 2025. The spike in premiums, which is higher than the 6.4% increase employers faced in 2024 and in 2023, comes before any “cost savings strategies” are implemented, Aon said.
    • “But a new report from GlobalData indicates Zepbound is poised to overtake other GLP-1 drugs.
    • “Zepbound’s superior efficacy and strategic market expansion suggest that the drug will dominate the obesity market, surpassing Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy (semaglutide),” GlobalData said in a report the market research firm released Tuesday.”
  • Per BioPharma Dive,
    • “Neumora Therapeutics, a well-funded biotechnology company, lost more than 80% of its value Thursday because its most advanced drug failed a major test.
    • “After seeing positive signs in a smaller study in 2023, Neumora pushed the drug into a trio of late-stage clinical trials to evaluate it as a treatment for the most common type of depression. The company just released data from the first of those trials, which found the drug no better than a placebo at alleviating depression.
  • and
    • “Pfizer won’t move forward with asking regulators to approve a gene therapy for hemophilia A and instead will hand back rights to development partner Sangamo Therapeutics in a blow to the California-based biotechnology company. In a Dec. 30 statement, Sangamo CEO Sandy Macrae said his company was “surprised and extremely disappointed” by Pfizer’s decision, which comes some five months after the treatment met its goal in a Phase 3 study of people with the inherited bleeding disorder. Sangamo plans to search for an “optimal path” forward, which could include partnering with another company. Pfizer has steadily retreated from gene therapy, although it sells a hemophilia B gene therapy called Beqvez that it obtained from Spark Therapeutics.”
  • and
    • “After many years of effort, Novartis has obtained positive results from a Phase 3 study for a form of its spinal muscular atrophy gene therapy Zolgensma that’s delivered via spinal injection rather than intravenous infusion. Data from the study, called Steer, showed treatment improved motor abilities in people with the neuromuscular disease who were two years of age or older and could still sit but had never walked independently. U.S. regulators suspended testing of the intrathecal formulation in late 2019 over safety concerns, but in August 2021 permitted Novartis to begin the Steer study. Novartis plans to share the new data with health authorities to support approval of the gene therapy in a broader range of people with spinal muscular atrophy.”

Happy New Year!

David Ermer–CDC, FDA, Medical / Rx research, NIH, U.S. Healthcare–
Photo by Natalie Kinnear on Unsplash

Happy New Year, FEHBlog readers, and greetings to the Postal Service Health Benefits Program which launched today.

The New York Times offers “10 Ways to Keep Your Mind Healthy in 2025” and “12 Ways to Get Fitter in 2025.”

The Wall Street Journal advises “Want to Lose Weight This Year? Start With What You Drink. Sugary drinks are sneakier than equally high-calorie foods—and even diet soda can affect your metabolism.” Stick with water.

From the public health and medical research front,

  • Per an NIH news release,
    • “Since 1996, HPAI H5N1 influenza viruses have circulated in at least 23 countries. In late 2021, HPAI H5N1 spread from Europe to North America causing sporadic infections among wild birds and poultry farms. In 2022, the virus spread to South America where it devastated birds and marine mammals. In March 2024, USDA scientists identified HPAI H5N1 in U.S. dairy cows, and it subsequently reached herds in 16 states. The virus has been detected in dairy herds in three states over the past 30 days, according to USDA/APHIS. In 2024, the virus has caused 66 confirmed and 7 probable cases of influenza in people in the U.S. and one case in Canada. These human cases have been caused by either the H5N1 type circulating in birds (D1.1) or the type circulating in dairy cows (B3.13).
    • “Against this backdrop, Drs. Marrazzo and Ison say there are four keys to controlling the current outbreak. The first imperative is timely, effective collaborations among investigators in human and veterinary medicine, public health, health care, and occupational workers, such as dairy and poultry workers.
    • “This involves cultivating trust not only between numerous entities, but with people seeking care for symptoms of concern, including conjunctivitis, the authors write. Fortunately, so far most U.S. cases of HPAI H5N1 have been mild and resolved on their own without the need for treatment.
    • “Their second key is a focus on the Canadian HPAI H5N1 patient, who developed respiratory failure and required life-saving medical intervention and treatment before recovering. The authors write that mutations found in the virus in this patient highlight an urgent need for vigilant disease surveillance to identify and assess viral changes to evaluate the risk for person-to-person transmission. Effective surveillance, they say, requires that complete genomic sequencing data from animals and people are made rapidly and readily available.
    • Without information pertaining to where and when isolates were collected, the data cannot be linked phylogenetically to other reported sequences, limiting insight into how the virus is spreading, they write. These data would also provide opportunity for early detection of mutations that might portend avidity for human respiratory epithelium, which may require as little as one mutation in the virus.
    • “Third, researchers must continue to develop and test medical countermeasures—such as vaccines and therapies that eliminate or alleviate disease—against H5N1 and other influenza viruses. Fortunately, current vaccine candidates neutralize the circulating strains, which so far are susceptible to antivirals that could mitigate transmission and severity of illness, they write.
    • “Lastly, Drs. Marrazzo and Ison encourage people to take precautions to prevent exposure to the virus and minimize the risk of infection. For example, people who work with poultry and cows should use personal protective equipment and educate themselves about occupational risks when working with birds and mammals, as CDC and USDA have repeatedly recommended.
    • “Ideally, following these four steps will help scientists and public health officials investigating HPAI H5N1 to answer the many remaining questions more quickly about how the virus is spreading, evolving, and affecting people, other mammals, and birds.”
  • MedPage Today adds,
    • “A 13-year-old Canadian girl recovered after being hospitalized in critical condition with H5N1 avian influenza, researchers reported.
    • “The girl was hospitalized on Nov. 7 and transferred to BC Children’s Hospital the next day, where she was intubated and put on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and treated with three different antivirals, David Goldfarb, MD, of BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, and colleagues reported in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).”
  • Precision Vaccinations lets us know,
    • “A recent study found that 73% of adult Portuguese patients with urinary tract infections (UTIs) reported a reduction in symptom severity or duration of illness after treatment with Uromune™ (MV140). This inactivated oral spray serves as a novel sublingual mucosal-based bacterial vaccine.
    • “This prospective observational study, which involved 125 patients with complicated and uncomplicated recurrent UTIs, was published in the journal MDPI Vaccines (12(12), 1426) on December 18, 2024. In addition to the primary outcome of symptom reduction, the study assessed overall patient satisfaction, adverse events, and the effectiveness of Uromune in subgroups with specific UTI risk factors.
    • “During the 12 months following the start of treatment, 38% of patients were free of UTIs. Meanwhile, 34% reported experiencing one or two episodes, while the remaining 28% had three or more recurrent UTIs.”
  • Beckers Hospital Review informs us,
    • “The FDA approved a subcutaneous injection version of Bristol Myers Squibb nivolumab and hyaluronidase-nvhy for the treatment of several cancers including melanoma, non-small cell lung cancer and renal cell carcinoma. 
    • “The approval covers both monotherapy and combination therapy options, including use of chemotherapy and combination therapy options including use with chemotherapy or cabozantinib, according to a Dec. 27 news release from the agency. “
  • Here’s a link to the December NIH Office of Reseach on Women’s Health Pulse newsletter.
  • Per Medscape,
    • “Researchers are gaining new insight into the relationship between the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), a common herpes virus found in the gut, and the immune response associated with CD83 antibody in some individuals with Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
    • ‘Using tissue samples from deceased donors with AD, the study showed CD83-positive (CD83+) microglia in the superior frontal gyrus (SFG) are significantly associated with elevated immunoglobulin gamma 4 (IgG4) and HCMV in the transverse colon (TC), increased anti-HCMV IgG4 in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and both HCMV and IgG4 in the SFG and vagus nerve.
    • “Our results indicate a complex, cross-tissue interaction between HCMV and the host adaptive immune response associated with CD83+ microglia in persons with AD,” the investigators including Benjamin P. Readhead, MBBS, research associate professor, ASU-Banner Neurodegenerative Disease Research Center, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, noted.
    • “The results suggest antiviral therapy in patients with biomarker evidence of HCMV, IgG4, or CD83+ microglia might ward off dementia.
    • “We’re preparing to conduct a clinical trial to evaluate whether careful use of existing antivirals might be clinically helpful in preventing or slowing progression of CD83+ associated Alzheimer’s disease,” Readhead told Medscape Medical News.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • STAT News asked “Four digital health unicorns on what they expect in 2025.” For example,
    • “Sean Duffy, the CEO of Omada Health, jokes that 2024 was “the year of Gs” when GLP-1s and GPT were all anybody talked about. While the description could have just as easily applied to 2023, Omada’s most important move this year was all about GLP-1s: a deal with Cigna subsidiary Evernorth to offer its digital behavior change program as a key piece of EncircleRx, which helps employers manage the growing boom in interest for the weight loss drugs. In October, Cigna reported that it had 8 million covered lives in the program. 
    • “Looking ahead to 2025, Duffy said that by the end of the year, Omada hopes to have data that show the company’s lifestyle programs have a meaningful impact on the success of GLP-1s.
    • “Glen Tullman, the CEO of Transcarent, is elated that next year Apple, a company that’s legendarily fastidious about design, will be one of the first users of Transcarent’s new WayFinding tech. The AI chat interface answers questions about care and benefits and represents a sophisticated real-world example of patient-facing generative AI. 
    • “Transcarent already has plans to launch the tool to 1 million people, and Tullman said that ambitiously, he’d like to roll it out to 5 million members by the end of 2025. Tullman thinks of Transcarent as a more sophisticated health care benefit for self-insured employers. Over the last few years, he said the company has poured over $100 million into developing AI for its app that serves as the focal point for the company’s services including virtual care, pharmacy benefits, as well as specialized services for mental health, cancer, surgery and more.” 
    • “Maven Clinic has grown to be a vanguard in the women’s health space by taking a broad approach to fertility benefits, which includes access to additional family planning resources, menopause care, and support for men.
    • “CEO and founder Kate Ryder says in 2024, she’s proud the company launched a comprehensive fertility benefit offering that integrates care coordination, coaching, virtual care, and financial support. One stat the company often cites is that 30% of members in its fertility program conceive without IVF — which Ryder points out can save tens of thousands of dollars per family. * * *
    • “Looking ahead, Ryder said she believes the company can lean on artificial intelligence to create a more personalized experience for members.  “We know what great personalization looks like in other areas of consumer tech, but we haven’t seen that in health care yet,” she said.”
  • The Healthcare Management Financial Association tells us,
    • “Accelerating hospital-focused expenditures helped spur a 2023 increase in national health spending, according to newly released actuarial data.
    • ‘Spending on hospital services surged by 10.4% for the year, up from a 3.2% increase in 2022 and 3.4% for the three-year period spanning 2020-22. The 2023 increase was the biggest seen since a 10.8% jump in 1990.
    • “Partially as a result, total healthcare spending (including clinical research and public health activities) jumped by 7.5% to reach $4.9 trillion, or 17.6% of GDP. In 2022, spending had risen by 4.6% and amounted to 17.4% of GDP. The 2023 share of GDP still was lower than in the peak pandemic years of 2020-21 and roughly the same as it was in 2019.
    • “The spending increase dropped from 7.5% to 4.4% when accounting for healthcare price inflation, up from 1.4% using that adjustment in 2022. Spending per capita reached $14,570.”
  • Modern Healthcare reports,
    • “Elevance Health completed its acquisition of Indiana University Health Plans, according to a Tuesday news release from the insurance company’s subsidiary Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
    • “IU Health Plans — which will operate under Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Indiana — offers Medicare Advantage plans in 36 Indiana counties, with 19,000 members. It also offers fully insured commercial plans to employers, covering approximately 9,600 members.”
  • Per MedPage Today, “IV fluid shortage [created by Hurricane Helene is] likely to extend Into early 2025. Major supplier damaged by Hurricane Helene continues to bring production lines back online.”
  • Beckers Hospital Review reports,
    • “Several major pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, Bristol Myers Squibb and Sanofi, are set to raise prices on more than 250 branded medications in the U.S. starting Jan. 1, 2025, according to a Reuter’s exclusive report. 
    • “Data analyzed by healthcare research firm 3 Axis Advisors showed the price increases will affect a range of drugs, including Pfizer’s COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid, Bristol Myer Squibb’s cancer therapies and vaccines from Sanofi. 
    • “Most of the price hikes are below 10%, with the median increase across affected drugs at 4.5%. This aligns with the median price increase for 2024, as drugmakers have scaled back large price hikes over the years following public scrutiny. 
    • “The price adjustments apply to list prices, which do not include rebates or discounts negotiated with pharmacy benefit managers.”

Monday report

David Ermer–Generative AI, Medical / Rx research, Mental health care, NIH, Obesity, OPM, SDOH, U.S. Healthcare–
Thanks to Justin Casey for sharing their work on Unsplash.

From Washington, DC

  • Per a press release,
    • “OPM joins the nation in mourning the passing of President Jimmy Carter. President Carter showed that public service isn’t just a line of work – it is life’s calling. From a young naval officer to a political leader, to leading as a humanitarian building homes and curing diseases, President Carter answered the call to public service. He set an example for every American to give back to their communities. He will truly be missed.” 
  • The Washington Post reports,
    • Memorial services for former president Jimmy Carter are expected to span several days and include public events in Atlanta and Washington.
    • Carter’s state funeral will be held Jan. 9 at 10 a.m. inside Washington National Cathedral after a procession from Georgia and a ceremony in which his body will lie in state in the U.S. Capitol, according to a news release from the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region.
    • “The 39th president will then be buried in a private ceremony in his hometown, Plains, Georgia.”
  • Govexec adds,
    • “President Biden issued an executive order on Monday to close federal agencies and offices next month in recognition of former President Jimmy Carter, who died Sunday at 100 in his home in Plains, Georgia.”
    • In accompanying guidance, Office of Personnel Management acting Director Rob Shriver said all federal employees would be excused from duty Jan. 9 “except those who, in the judgment of the head of the agency, cannot be excused for reasons of national security, defense, or other essential public business.” 
    • The day off applies to federal employees nationwide and will be treated like a holiday for purposes of pay and leave, the memorandum said.  

From the public health and medical research front,

  • The Wall Street Journal reports,
    • “When President Jimmy Carter was diagnosed in 2015 with cancer in his liver and brain, he said that he would like to see the last Guinea worm die before he did.
    • “That just about came true.
    • “There were 3.5 million cases of the parasitic worm disease in 1986, when the 39th U.S. president took up the cause of eradicating it. In 2023, there were 14 human cases, and 11 from January through early December 2024, according to a provisional count.
    • “We’re not there yet, but thanks to him we’re very close,” said Dr. Donald R. Hopkins, former vice president of health programs and now special adviser on Guinea worm eradication to the Carter Center, the human-rights nonprofit the former president founded in 1982 with his wife, Rosalynn Carter.”
  • The Washington Post reports,
    • “Cases of the illness known as norovirus — which induces miserable bouts of vomiting and diarrhea — are surging across the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ninety-one outbreaks of the gastrointestinal bug were reported the week of Dec. 5, the latest period for which data is available. That’s 22 more outbreaks than in the last week of November.
    • “While sometimes referred to as the stomach flu, the disease is not caused by the influenza virus, which results in respiratory illness.
    • “There are about 2,500 reported outbreaks each year in the United States, happening most frequently between November and April. When new strains of norovirus emerge, case counts usually rise, according to disease trackers.
    • “This year, the number of reported norovirus outbreaks have exceeded the numbers that we’ve seen recently and in the years before the pandemic,” according to the CDC.”
    • The article delves into signs and symptoms, treatment options, etc.
  • The American Medical Association tells us what doctors wish their patients knew about depression.
  • Neurology Advisor adds, “One in 6 women experienced symptoms of postpartum depression 2 months after cesarean delivery, according to study findings published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.“
  • The Wall Street Journal tells us about a 24 year old man who is trying to “outrun” schizophrenia.
    • “For the past four years, Kevin has been part of a living experiment. Shortly after he began hallucinating, during his junior year at Syracuse University, his doctors recommended him for an intensive, government-funded program called OnTrackNY. It provided him with therapy, family counseling, vocational and educational assistance, medication management and a 24-hour hotline.
    • “Such programs — there are around 350 in the United States — challenge the old idea that psychotic disorders are degenerative, a long slide to permanent disability. They operate on the notion of a golden hour. By wrapping a young person in social supports early on, the theory goes, it may be possible to prevent the disorder from advancing.” * * *
    • “But now, after four years, his time in the program was up. An estimated 100,000 people experience a first episode of psychosis every year, roughly four times the number of spots available in early intervention programs. So in December, it would all go away: the team of five providers and the hotline and the therapist who reminded him of his mother.
    • “What would happen to him without their support? Even as enthusiasm for early intervention builds, long-term studies are casting doubt on whether its benefits last after discharge. For Kevin, leaving the program meant a sudden blast of autonomy and a million questions about what his future, with schizophrenia, would look like.
    • “The training wheels are coming off,” he said.”
  • Per MedPage Today,
    • “There was “low but improving uptake” of reporting about the diversity of participants in summary documents for FDA-cleared pulse oximeters after voluntary guidance was issued in 2013, an analysis of public FDA records found.” * * *
    • “The most important finding is that although there were more mentions of skin color descriptors in performance testing after the FDA’s guidance, a majority of the public clearance documents for pulse oximeters did not include any mention of testing in diverse individuals,” Ferryman told MedPage Today in an email.
    • “Clinicians who work in hospital settings often do not get to choose which pulse oximeter device they use with their patients,” Ferryman said. “Because this research is based on the public record, it suggests that even if clinicians wanted to do their own research on the performance of pulse oximeters across diverse populations, the majority of FDA-cleared device records do not include any information about testing in different skin tones.”
    • Pulse oximeter readings in patients with darker skin tones tend to overestimate oxygen saturation, a long-standing issue described in multiple studies and discussed by an FDA advisory committee. * * *
    • “Newer FDA guidance on pulse oximeter testing that’s under development may correct some of these problems, but no single change in guidance “is likely to be sufficient to fully correct the problems of development, marketing, and dissemination of fully equitable pulse oximeters,” the [researchers] wrote.”
  • Per National Institutes of Health press releases,
    • “A study of nearly 10,000 adolescents funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH has identified distinct differences in the brain structures of those who used substances before age 15 compared to those who did not. Many of these structural brain differences appeared to exist in childhood before any substance use, suggesting they may play a role in the risk of substance use initiation later in life, in tandem with genetic, environmental, and other neurological factors.
    • “This adds to some emerging evidence that an individual’s brain structure, alongside their unique genetics, environmental exposures, and interactions among these factors, may impact their level of risk and resilience for substance use and addiction,” said Nora Volkow M.D., director of NIDA. “Understanding the complex interplay between the factors that contribute and that protect against drug use is crucial for informing effective prevention interventions and providing support for those who may be most vulnerable.”
    • “Among the 3,460 adolescents who initiated substances before age 15, most (90.2%) reported trying alcohol, with considerable overlap with nicotine and/or cannabis use; 61.5% and 52.4% of kids initiating nicotine and cannabis, respectively, also reported initiating alcohol. Substance initiation was associated with a variety of brain-wide (global) as well as more regional structural differences primarily involving the cortex, some of which were substance-specific. While these data could someday help inform clinical prevention strategies, the researchers emphasize that brain structure alone cannot predict substance use during adolescence, and that these data should not be used as a diagnostic tool.”
  • and
    • “Among people with dialysis-dependent kidney failure, a form of psychological therapy called pain coping skills training reduced how much pain got in the way of their daily lives, also known as pain interference. The clinical trial, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), found that training people on how to manage pain reduced the extent to which pain affected their work and social activities, mood, and relationships. The pain coping skills training, which was adapted for people undergoing long-term dialysis, also improved other effects of pain, including the intensity of pain, depression, anxiety, and quality of life. Pain coping skills training is an approach widely used for chronic pain, but it had not previously been tested for people treated with dialysis.
    • “Very few interventions have been shown to improve the quality of life for people with end-stage kidney disease being treated with dialysis,” said Dr. Paul Kimmel, program director at NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), which led the study. “For example, opioids, which have been a main treatment for pain in this population, have side effects that can be more pronounced in the presence of kidney failure, making pain management challenging.” * * *
    • “The study results indicate that pain coping skills training may be an appealing alternative or complement to pain medications. Although the effect of the pain coping skills training on the overall cohort was modest, its high acceptability, tolerability, and safety and its observed benefits to pain, anxiety, depression, and quality of life support further research on developing nonpharmacologic, non-invasive strategies for managing pain in dialysis populations.
    • “Future work will focus on how to prolong the favorable effects of pain coping skills training and how to broadly implement this intervention in clinical practice,” said lead author Dr. Laura M. Dember, nephrologist and clinical investigator at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia. “Based on the successful results of this study, our hope is that this intervention can be made available broadly to patients receiving dialysis.”
  • The Wall Street Journal offers a quiz about the FDA’s latest guidance on whether a particular food is healthy. For what it’s worth, the FEHBlog scored 100.

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • Fierce Pharma offers a “2025 forecast: After Novo, Lilly expansion sprees, ‘positive signals’ emerge around future supply of GLP-1 drugs.”
  • The Washington Post informs us,
    • “They don’t get fruitcakes or Christmas cards from grateful patients, but for decades robots have been helping doctors perform gallbladder removals, hysterectomies, hernia repairs, prostate surgeries and more. While patients lie unconscious on the operating table, robotic arms and grippers work on their bodies at certain stages in these procedures ― all guided by doctors using joystick-like controllers, a process that minimizes human hand tremor.
    • “Now, a team of Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University researchers has reported a significant advance, training robots with videos to perform surgical tasks with the skill of human doctors.
    • “The robots learned to manipulate needles, tie knots and suture wounds on their own. Moreover, the trained robots went beyond mere imitation, correcting their own slip-ups without being told ― for example, picking up a dropped needle. Scientists have already begun the next stage of work: combining all of the different skills in full surgeries performed on animal cadavers.
    • “A new generation of more autonomous robots holds the potential to help address a serious shortage of surgeons in the United States, the researchers said.
  • Check this out!
    • “As 2025 nears, healthcare is undergoing unprecedented transformation, particularly with headlines about artificial intelligence (AI) technologies shifting away from grandiose promises as the dust starts to settle around the potential of Generative AI (GenAI). These innovations and others aim to reshape how healthcare is delivered. 
    • “To shed light on anticipated trends, challenges and opportunities in healthcare technology in 2025, leading experts from Wolters Kluwer Health offer their outlook on 2025 across a variety of topics. Diffusing the hype, the predictions offer an eye-opening look at what’s ahead and lead us toward a smarter, more resilient future in healthcare technology.” 

Thursday Report

David Ermer–CDC, CMS, Congress, FDA, Federal employment benefits, Medical / Rx research, Medicare, NIH, No Surprises Act, OPM, U.S. Healthcare, Uncategorized–

From Washington, DC,

  • This evening, the House of Representatives turned down the President-elect approved, 121-page long version of the Continuing Resolution this evening. The Wall Street Journal adds that “Talk circulated among lawmakers about a possible weeklong funding extension, which would push the shutdown deadline past Christmas. But that too would need bipartisan support to get through the Senate.” The current CR funding the federal government expires at 12:01 AM on December 21.
  • Govexec informs us,
    • “The House passed a compendium of veterans care proposals, packaged into a single bill, on Monday, sending it to the president’s desk in the waning days of the congressional session. 
    • “The Senator Elizabeth Dole 21st Century Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act (S.141) — which provides the Veterans Affairs Department with everything from community care improvements to expanded home care and educational assistance benefits — cleared the chamber in a 382-12 vote Monday night after previously passing the Senate by unanimous consent on Dec. 12.
    • “The legislation serves as an omnibus package of previous House and Senate bills designed to improve VA community care offerings, quality care standards and other programs, while offering benefit increases for veterans and some providers. 
    • “We worked hard to craft this legislation to put veterans – not government bureaucracy – at the core of it,” said House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., in a statement. “The Dole Act will do that by expanding economic opportunities, simplifying the disability claims process, reforming services for aging veterans, opening more doors for mental health support and a lot more.”
  • Federal News Network lets us know,
    • “Federal agencies will be closed on Tuesday, Dec. 24, President Joe Biden announced, giving federal employees an extra day off the day before Christmas.
    • “The president made the announcement via an executive order that he signed Thursday.
    • “All executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall be closed and their employees excused from duty on Tuesday, December 24, 2024, the day before Christmas Day,” the executive order states.”
  • Modern Healthcare reports,
    • “A mandatory hospital payment model finalized this year by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services could make earnings uncertain for providers, researchers said.
    • “Under the Transforming Episode Accountability Model, or TEAM, hospitals could lose out on an average of $500 per episode of care covered in the model, according to a December report from the Institute for Accountable Care. But the forecast results vary widely: Hospitals in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region could gain an average of $900 per episode of included care, the report said, while Denver providers stand to lose $1,300 per episode, on average. 
    • Beginning in 2026, TEAM sets 30-day episode-based payments for lower-extremity joint replacements, femur fracture surgeries, spinal fusions, coronary artery bypass grafts and major bowel procedures. CMS will set bundled payments for these services based on regional benchmarks. In other words, hospitals will need to reduce spending for select care to a threshold set by their neighbors, or risk having to make up the difference.  
    • “It creates a really strong incentive” to manage costs, said Rob Mechanic, executive director of the Institute for Accountable Care, an independent nonprofit initially funded by the National Association of ACOs. On the flip side, he said, the regional benchmarks mean hospitals can significantly reduce their costs but still lose money.
    • The government selected 741 hospitals to participate in the five-year model, which gives safety-net hospitals extra time to prepare before taking on downside risk. Since the model is mandatory, hospitals can’t opt out. Ambulatory surgical centers are not included. According to the IAC report, the covered services represent about 15% of Medicare revenue, on average, for participating hospitals.

From the judicial front,

  • The Wall Street Journal reports,
    • “Federal prosecutors charged ex-Ivy Leaguer Luigi Mangione with murder and stalking Thursday for the Dec. 4 shooting of UnitedHealth executive Brian Thompson, alleging he was arrested with a notebook stating an intent to “wack” the CEO of an insurance company.” * * *
    • “The latest charges, brought by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, mean federal prosecutors could pursue a death-penalty case against him.” * * *
    • The new federal charges capped a whirlwind day that began in Pennsylvania, where Mangione agreed at a hearing to waive his right to contest his transfer to New York. He had been detained in Pennsylvania since his arrest last week.”

In Food and Drug Administration News,

  • Healthcare Dive relates,
    • “The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday reaffirmed its assessment that Mounjaro and Zepbound, popular drugs for diabetes and obesity, are no longer in shortage,
    • “The agency’s decision will largely prevent so-called compounding pharmacies from making off-brand copies of the drug, closing a lucrative market niche that had opened as Eli Lilly, the drug’s maker, found itself unable to meet skyrocketing demand.
    • “However, the FDA won’t take enforcement action against compounding pharmacies until early next year, a grace period the agency said is to “avoid unnecessary disruption to patient treatment.”
  • Per STAT News,
    • “Ionis Pharmaceuticals on Thursday won Food and Drug Administration approval for a therapy that treats patients with a rare and deadly genetic disease that impedes the body’s ability to break down fats, setting the stage for the company to kick off the first solo drug launch in its 35-year history.
    • “The treatment, Tryngolza, also known by its scientific name of olezarsen, was approved for patients with familial chylomicronemia syndrome, or FCS, on the basis of late-stage trial results showing the therapy lowered triglyceride levels and was generally safe. Patients on the drug were less likely to develop an inflamed pancreas, an excruciating and sometimes life-threatening complication.
    • “Ionis executives believe the drug could also help patients with more common forms of sky-high triglycerides and have ongoing trials aiming to show that. If the drug is approved for more common conditions, market analysts have forecasted that Tryngolza could bring in $1.8 to $2 billion in peak sales.”
  • and
    • “Spinal cord injuries dramatically reduce a person’s mobility and independence, but a new device could aid rehabilitation efforts.
    • “Onward Medical received Food and Drug Administration clearance on Thursday for its non-invasive spinal cord stimulator, the ARC-EX. In a recent trial, the stimulator boosted hand sensation and strength in 72% of participants. While the treatment cannot replace rehabilitative therapy, device users rave about its effects.
    • “They tell patients the golden window of recovery is that first year or two,” said Sherown Campbell, one of the trial participants who signed up after he broke his neck wrestling in 2014. “I’ve made significant progress since then. I didn’t think that I would be able to move as much as I do, or I guess, as close to normal as I am.”
  • Per an FDA press release,
    • “Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is announcing a final rule to update the definition of the nutrient content claim “healthy.” There is an ever-growing crisis of preventable, diet-related chronic diseases in the U.S. that requires immediate action. The updated “healthy” claim marks an important step in fulfilling the FDA’s nutrition priorities, which are part of a whole-of-government approach to address this crisis. This rule will help ensure that consumers have access to more complete, accurate, and up-to-date nutrition information on food labels.
    • “The “healthy” claim has been updated to help consumers find foods that are the foundation of a healthy dietary pattern and could also result in the development of healthier foods. Manufacturers can voluntarily use the “healthy” claim on a food package if a product meets the updated definition.”
  • The Wall Street Journal adds,
    • “Under the updated claim, eggs, nuts and seeds, olive oil and higher-fat fish such as salmon will now qualify to use the “healthy” claim. Examples of products that qualified as healthy under the original claim but not the updated one include fortified white bread, highly sweetened yogurt, and highly sweetened cereals.
    • The agency said it would work with interested parties to support use of the updated claim, adding it had entered a partnership with grocery-delivery company Instacart to help shoppers find products.
    • Both the original and updated claims have limits on saturated fat and sodium. The updated claim has a limit on added sugars, while ending the limit on total fat.

From the public health and medical research front,

  • The American Hospital News lets us know,
    • “Life expectancy in the U.S. grew an average of 10.8 months in 2023, to 75.8 years for men and 81.1 years for women, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The overall death rate declined by 6%.  
    • “The 10 leading causes of death were unchanged from 2022, with heart disease, cancer and unintentional injuries remaining the top three. COVID-19 dropped from fourth to 10th, which moved stroke up to fourth, followed by chronic lower respiratory diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, kidney disease, and chronic liver disease and cirrhosis.”
  • Per Healio,
    • “As many as 15 million adults in the United States have a 10% or greater risk for heart failure, results of a research letter published in Annals of Internal Medicine showed.
    • “The majority of those at higher risk for heart failure (HF) had uncontrolled modifiable risk factors for the condition, including obesity and hypertension, according to the researchers.
    • “Identifying populations at such a risk, along with implementing prevention strategies, “has the potential for dramatic public health impact,” the researchers wrote.”
  • The National Institutes of Health Director, Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, writes in her blog,
    • “Clinical trials are essential for advancing new treatments that improve patient care and lives. But far too many clinical trials face challenges in identifying and enrolling eligible trial participants. Now, an NIH-led team has introduced an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that promises to speed up the process of matching patients to clinical trials to help boost enrollment. They call it TrialGPT.
    • “As reported in Nature Communications, TrialGPT takes advantage of large language models, a type of AI that can generate human-like responses to questions and explanations familiar to users of ChatGPT. The research team adapted it for matching patients to thousands of possible clinical trials in a data-efficient and transparent way. While earlier studies have shown the potential for using this type of AI for answering clinical questions, designing clinical trials, and retrieving initial lists of potential trials, TrialGPT is the first end-to-end solution, generating a list of potential trials before more precisely matching and ranking them. The team’s preliminary testing of this tool suggests TrialGPT can achieve a high degree of accuracy while cutting the time required of clinicians for screening patients. * * *
    • “In a pilot user study conducted at NCI, the researchers compared patient-trial evaluations based on short summaries about six patients made by one medical expert with TrialGPT and another who made the same evaluation manually without TrialGPT. Both experts conducted evaluations with and without AI to account for any differences in their speed or skill. The study found that clinicians using TrialGPT could generate similarly accurate lists of trial options in 40% less time.
    • “More study is needed to assess TrialGPT’s practical application in real-world settings across diverse groups of patients. But these findings already show the remarkable potential of AI technology for connecting patients to relevant trial opportunities, with tremendous potential for speeding trial recruitment and treatment advances while giving clinicians more time for other tasks only humans can do, including caring for their patients.”
  • The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute offers an update featuring the “latest research on hypertension, educational resources on blood donation, and more.”
  • The Wall Street Journal reports,
    • “Roche said a Parkinson’s disease experimental drug missed its primary goal in a mid-stage trial, the second setback this week for candidate treatments for the neurodegenerative condition.
    • “The update from the Swiss pharmaceutical giant came after Belgian peer said a similar drug candidate for Parkinson’s developed jointly with Novartis failed to meet key goals in a clinical trial.
    • “Roche said Thursday that its drug candidate, prasinezumab, didn’t delay progression of motor symptoms in the trial, which included early-stage Parkinson’s patients, to an extent considered statistically significant.
    • “However, the company said the drug did show potential clinical efficacy, as well as positive trends on several other goals of the trial and was well tolerated. Roche will continue to evaluate the data and work together with health authorities to decide on next steps, it said.”
  • Per BioPharma Dive,
    • “Merck & Co. has long been dominant in cancer immunotherapy, with its drug Keytruda earning 40 approvals en route to becoming the world’s best-selling medicine. But the New Jersey-based drugmaker has had difficulty finding a successor, and a Monday announcement is the latest evidence.
    • “In a statement, Merck said it will end development of two experimental cancer drugs that are currently in late-stage testing. One, called vibostolimab, is aimed at a target called TIGIT. The other, favezelimab, homes in a protein named LAG-3. Both were being evaluated in combinations with Keytruda and have been touted by Merck as a way to extend Keytruda’s market advantage beyond 2028, when its main U.S. patent will expire.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • The Wall Street Journal explores the question “Why Are Americans Paying So Much More for Healthcare Than They Used To?”
    • “National healthcare spending increased 7.5% year over year in 2023 to $4.867 trillion, or $14,570 per person, according to data released Wednesday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. 
    • “Total spending on healthcare goods and services, everything from prescription drugs to back surgeries, accounted for 17.6% of gross domestic product, a measure of goods and services produced by the U.S. economy.
    • “The 7.5% rise represented a much faster pace of growth than the 4.6% increase in 2022. It came as pandemic federal funding for the healthcare sector expired and private health insurance enrollment increased. More people with insurance led to increased demand for medical procedures, and spending on hospital care grew at the fastest pace since 1990. Spending on drugs also rose, including for medications to treat diabetes and obesity.  
    • “A full 92.5% of Americans were covered by insurance last year, and 175.6 million, or just over half the population, got it through their employer, according to the government’s new annual data. 
    • “Over 65 million Americans are on Medicare, a government health-insurance program mainly for people ages 65 and older, and nearly 92 million are on Medicaid, a state-federal program for the low-income and disabled.”
  • STAT News relates,
    • “Most of the formularies run by some of the largest health plans in the U.S. generally provide “fair access” to 11 treatments for several serious diseases, although transparent coverage information is often lacking for some medicines, a new analysis has found.
    • “Almost uniformly, the 11 formularies made the drugs available fairly when judged on three criteria: eligibility based on clinical data, restrictions placed on prescribers, and step therapy, which requires patients to try other medicines before insurers approve a prescription. The formularies are run by health plans, pharmacy benefit managers, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
    • “But only 81% of the formularies scored well on a fourth criterion: cost-sharing, which is the portion of expenses paid by insured individuals. Although there is a caveat: This particular metric was based on a subset of just three drugs that were deemed to be fairly priced based on a cost-effectiveness assessment — the Mounjaro type 2 diabetes treatment, and the Wegovy and Qsymia obesity drugs.
    • “Meanwhile, transparency into coverage information for three gene therapies — Zynteglo for combating beta thalassemia, the Hemgenix hemophilia B treatment, and Roctavian for treating hemophilia A — remains less than optimal. Of the six formularies covering the therapies, 83% provided clinical criteria, cost-sharing information was only available in two or three, and none provided site of care information.”
  • Per Fierce Healthcare,
    • “Tech platform Uno Health is rolling out a self-service guide that shows users financial savings they could be eligible to obtain.
    • “The tool boasts of its ability to save the average user $4,500 a year after asking just a few questions. It is designed to improve accessibility and simplify the application process for everything ranging from federal and state health programs, heating bills, phone and internet services and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.
    • ‘These programs and benefits can be difficult for individuals to sift through, potentially leaving hundreds, or thousands, of dollars on the table if they do not enroll. Uno Health CEO Anna de Paula Hanika, formerly at Clover Health and Google, says the tool is an encapsulation of the company’s broader offerings.
    • “She said at least 50% of Medicare members are eligible for, but not enrolled in, other financial assistance programs. That figure increases to nearly 90% for Medicaid members. Unused benefits strain health programs and insurers.”

Weekend update

David Ermer–Congress, NIH, OPM, U.S. Healthcare–
  • Fedsmith reports that the President’s 2025 Pay Agent report creates no new locality pay areas for 2025.
  • Govexec lets us know that
    • The Office of Personnel Management this week quietly released its report analyzing the results of the 2024 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey alongside agency-by-agency data from the annual census of federal workers’ job sentiment.
    • The report affirms preliminary data released in October, which found that employee engagement ticked up one point to tie a record high of 73 out of 100, while the governmentwide global satisfaction index, a tool used to measure federal worker morale, followed suit, increasing from 64 out of 100 last year to 65 in 2024. And the response rate crept up two points over 2023 to 41%.
  • HR Dive informs us,
  • The Washington Post points out,
    • “Want to know the latest about research funded by the National Institutes of Health on topics including menopause, polycystic ovary syndrome and other conditions affecting women’s health? Discover Women’s Health Research (DiscoverWHR), a recently launched website on federally funded women’s health research across the lifespan, offers answers.
    • “The portal is a resource from NIH in support of the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research, which is focused on closing research gaps and improving prevention, detection and treatment of health issues affecting girls and women.”
  • STAT News relates,
    • “Novo Holdings, the parent company of Novo Nordisk, can proceed with its planned $16.5 billion acquisition of Catalent, a leading contract drug manufacturer, after U.S. regulators declined to challenge the deal following months of scrutiny.
    • “The companies expect to close the transaction in the next several days, after a deadline passed for the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to raise objections and other regulatory conditions were fulfilled, according to statements issued by Novo Nordisk and Catalent. We asked the FTC for comment and will update you accordingly. Last week, the European Commission approved the transaction.
    • “The deal had generated enormous interest over concerns that competition in the pharmaceutical industry could be harmed. Indeed, the move was prompted by sporadic shortages of one of the world’s hottest-selling medications — Novo Nordisk’s weight loss treatment Wegovy — and designed, in part, to solve what has been a critical and seemingly intractable problem for Novo Nordisk.
    • “This made Catalent an attractive buyout target for Novo Holdings, which owns 77% of the voting shares in Novo Nordisk, because it is already a subcontractor that helps manufacture Wegovy. But one part of the plan sparked complaints because Novo Holdings said it would sell three Catalent facilities to Novo Nordisk for $11.7 billion after completing the deal.”

Thursday Report

David Ermer–Congress, FDA, Federal employment benefits, Medical / Rx research, Mental health care, NIH, Obesity, Rx coverage, U.S. Healthcare, Uncategorized–
Photo by Josh Mills on Unsplash

From Washington, DC

  • Govexec tells us,
    • “Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told unions and federal employee groups Wednesday that he will schedule a vote on the Senate floor on legislation to repeal two controversial tax provisions that reduce some public servants’ retirement benefits just weeks before the end of the congressional session and Democrats’ control of the chamber.
    • “Schumer’s remarks came at a rain-soaked rally, organized by lawmakers and organized labor on Capitol Hill in support of the Social Security Fairness Act (H.R. 82), which passed the House by a 327-75 vote last month.” * * *
    • “If enacted, the legislation would repeal Social Security’s windfall elimination provision and government pension offset. The windfall elimination provision reduces the Social Security benefits of retired federal employees who spent a portion of their careers in the private sector in addition to a federal, state or local government job where Social Security is not intended as an element of their retirement income, such as the Civil Service Retirement System. And the government pension offset reduces spousal and survivor Social Security benefits in families with retired government workers.”
  • FedSmith adds,
    • “The OPM retirement backlog has dropped to levels not seen since 2016. As of the end of November 2024, the total outstanding retirement claims at the Office of Personnel Management is 13,844. The last time it was at or below that level was June 2016 when it was 13,529.
    • “OPM received 6,808 new retirement claims in November and processed 7,872. It took an average of 55 days to process claims.
    • “So far in 2024, the average level of the OPM retirement backlog is 16,083. The average number of retirement claims submitted by federal employees to OPM each month has been 7,558, and the average number processed each month is 7,599.
    • “The end of a year is the peak time for federal employees to retire, so it’s good news for federal employees who plan to retire soon that the number of pending retirement claims at OPM has fallen as the end of 2024 approaches.
    • “However, even though most federal employees retire at the end of a calendar year, the impact on the processing doesn’t hit until January. The peak time at OPM for processing retirement claims is January through March, and January is typically the month with the largest spike in the retirement backlog based on past data. For example, the OPM retirement backlog grew by 46% last January.”
  • BioPharma Dive lets us know,
    • “When the Food and Drug Administration took Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Mounjaro off of its drug shortage list in October, companies making cheap “compounded” versions found themselves in a bind.
    • “By ending compounders’ ability to manufacture and sell their off-brand versions in bulk, the FDA’s decision also left some patients wondering how they would be able to access the popular obesity and diabetes drugs at an affordable price. About 12% of American adults have taken a GLP-1 medication, according to a May poll from KFF Health. And compounded versions may account for as much as 20% of all GLP-1 prescriptions, CNN reported.
    • “But when the FDA backed down, letting compound pharmacies resume their activities for the time being, the industry was left in something of a limbo. * * *
    • “The FDA said it will issue another update Dec. 19, although it’s possible it will be another extension of the review. The agency said in a late November joint status update to a court hearing the compounders’ challenge that it had not yet made a determination, according to Beaver.
    • “In the interim period, FDA has indicated it does not intend to take enforcement action against the continued compounding of tirzepatide,” Beaver said.
    • “With a new presidential administration set to take over next month, the FDA may simply wait.”
  • STAT News adds,
    • “Eli Lilly, which has been directing patients to various telehealth sites as it sells its blockbuster obesity medication Zepbound, is broadening its reach, announcing a partnership Wednesday with major telehealth platform Ro.
    • “Under the new agreement, Ro patients who are prescribed Zepbound will be able to get vials of the drug through its app. Previously, Lilly had only made these vials, which are priced lower than its injectable pens, available to patients who filled prescriptions through an online portal created by Lilly, called LillyDirect.”
  • MedTech Dive offers “four takeaways from the FDA’s first digital health advisory committee. Industry and patient representatives debated how the FDA should regulate generative AI in medical devices and address new challenges with the technology.”

From the judicial front,

  • Reuters informs us,
    • “The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services overstepped its authority when it boosted Medicare reimbursements to hospitals in low-wage areas to help them recruit and retain staff, a divided federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday.
    • “A 2-1 panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that HHS’s 2020 policy shift ran afoul of the law governing Medicare, the federal health insurance program for seniors and some people with disabilities.
    • “The decision was a victory for a group of 53 California hospitals that sued HHS in 2020 in Los Angeles federal court, saying their Medicare reimbursements were cut by a total of about $3.8 million to make up for the increased payments to hospitals in low-wage areas.
    • “HHS said earlier this year that it would not continue the policy in 2025, meaning that Wednesday’s decision will affect only reimbursements for past years going back to 2020.”

From the public health and medical research front,

  • The Wall Street Journal reports,
    • “When a woman learns she has breast cancer, her reaction is often: take it out. Now doctors say that might not always be necessary.
    • “Some women with the earliest stages of breast cancer could be carefully monitored, undergoing surgery and radiation only if the disease advances, new data suggests.
    • “The strategy is akin to one already used in early prostate cancer, as doctors are increasingly looking at whether they can pull back on some cancer therapies, to spare patients side effects and costs.
    • “This is really the first study to confirm our suspicions that there’s a subset of low-risk patients that could do just as well without surgery,” said Dr. Nancy Chan, a breast-cancer specialist at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, who wasn’t involved in the study. “It’s really encouraging.” * * *
    • “It was a data-free zone because we already treated it like a cancer,” said Dr. E. Shelley Hwang, a breast-cancer surgeon at Duke Cancer Institute, who led the trial. “We didn’t know what we could dial back on.”
    • Hwang and her colleagues recruited some 950 women ages 40 and older with a type of low-risk DCIS that is sensitive to hormones. The women were split into two groups: One was recommended standard care—surgery with or without radiation—while the other was recommended mammograms every six months. The monitoring group could opt for surgery at any time and had to get surgery if the disease progressed.
    • Most women in both groups took hormone therapy to help keep cancer growth in check. Some 17% of women in the monitoring group ended up getting surgery, and some assigned to the treatment group declined to get an operation.
    • Two years later, the rates of women who developed invasive breast cancer were similar between the groups, less than 10%, the researchers found. The women also reported comparable rates of anxiety, a concern when doctors are considering dialing-back treatment.
    • Women who got standard care reported more arm problems and breast pain, but that resolved over time. The results were published in the academic journals JAMA and JAMA Oncology and presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium on Thursday.
  • STAT News points out,
    • “Pfizer said Thursday its drug Ibrance showed efficacy in a group of breast cancer patients who do not currently have access to the medicine, potentially expanding its use.
    • “Ibrance, which generates annual sales of $4.3 billion, is currently used for patients whose tumors are positive for the estrogen receptor (ER) and negative for a second biomarker, called HER2. That population represents 70% of women with breast cancer. But the new results are in patients whose tumors test positive for both the estrogen receptor and HER2, a population that represents 10% of breast cancer patients.”
  • The New York Times relates,
    • “Over the last 20 years, clinicians have increasingly recognized that A.D.H.D. symptoms, which begin in childhood, can linger into adulthood, and that some groups — like women and people of color— are more likely to be underdiagnosed early in life. Now, with the rise of telemedicine, increased awareness of A.D.H.D. and changing attitudes about mental health treatment, new A.D.H.D. diagnoses are surging among older Americans.
    • “An analysis by Truveta, a health care data and analytics company, shows that the rate of first-time A.D.H.D. diagnoses has been on the rise since 2021, but the increase has occurred only among people 30 and older. From January 2021 to October 2024, the rate of first-time diagnoses rose about 61 percent among those ages 30 to 44 and 64 percent among those ages 45 to 64.
    • “As a result, about 31 percent of first-time diagnoses are now among people ages 30 to 44, the largest proportion of any age group. (In 2018, younger adults took the top spot.)
    • “The analysis, which was done at the request of The New York Times, drew on Truveta’s database of 30 health systems, which included more than one million people who had received first-time A.D.H.D. diagnoses.”
  • The National Institutes of Health Director, Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, writes,
    • “In people with brain tumors known as diffuse gliomas, cancerous cells often spread and invade nearby tissue to mix with healthy cells. As a result, it can be challenging for neurosurgeons to differentiate cancerous from healthy tissue during surgery as is required to safely remove as much of the cancer as possible. Many patients with glioma are found to have residual tumor after surgery, which can mean additional surgeries, earlier recurrence, and decreased survival. But research is showing that artificial intelligence (AI) tools could enable doctors to not only predict if a cancer will respond to treatment, but also to differentiate cancerous from healthy tissue rapidly enough to guide more brain surgeries in real time.
    • “In one promising example of this, an NIH-supported study in Nature  recently reported the development of an open-source, AI-based diagnostic system that can determine in just 10 seconds if part of a cancerous brain tumor that could be removed still remains. The new system, called FastGlioma, combines rapid, user-friendly, optical microscopy with AI models trained on diverse data, including over 11,000 surgical specimens and 4 million microscopy images, to give surgeons needed answers very quickly.
    • “Today, neurosurgical teams locate residual tumor during surgery guided by MRI or fluorescent imaging. The research team for this study—led by Todd Hollon , University of Michigan Health, Ann Arbor, and Shawn Hervey-Jumper , University of California, San Francisco—reports that the new system significantly outperforms current methods for identifying tumor remains, working faster and more accurately.” * * *
    • “The presence of residual tumor tissue following surgery is a significant and costly public health problem in the U.S. and around the world, for brain cancers and other solid cancers alike. The research team reports that FastGlioma can already accurately detect residual tumor in many other brain cancer types, including both adult and childhood brain cancers, suggesting it has potential to one day serve as a general-purpose tool for guiding brain tumor surgeries. The researchers also plan to explore the system’s application to other cancers, including lung, prostate, breast, and head and neck cancers. Through this kind of work, the researchers hope this tool and others like it can help unlock the potential of AI for improving cancer care in the years ahead.”
  • Per MedPage Today,
    • “Postmarketing data on obeticholic acid (Ocaliva) identified a risk for serious liver injury in primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) patients without cirrhosis, the FDA said in a safety communication on Thursday.
    • “The agency’s review of a mandated clinical trial “found that some cases of liver injury in patients without cirrhosis resulted in liver transplant. This risk was notably higher for patients taking Ocaliva compared with a placebo,” the FDA said.”
  • Per Beckers Hospital Review,
    • “The FDA has placed a hold on all clinical studies of vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus in infants due to safety concerns following a trial involving two mRNA-based vaccine candidates from Moderna. 
    • “A briefing document released by the FDA ahead of the Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee revealed that a phase 1 trial evaluating two RSV vaccines in infants aged 5 to 8 months was paused in July after five severe cases of RSV-related illness were reported among infants receiving the vaccine candidates.” * * *
    • “VRBPAC will review the safety data and discuss implications for the future development of RSV vaccines for infants Dec. 12.” 

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • Per a press release,
    • The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) today published its latest report on Unsupported Price Increases (UPI) of prescription drugs in the United States, highlighting the top 10 drugs with substantial net price increases in 2023. ICER determined that five of those drugs lacked adequate evidence to support any price increase, which resulted in a total of $815 million incremental added costs to US payers in 2023. The five drugs with unsupported price increases are Biktarvy, Darzalex, Entresto, Cabometyx, and Xeljanz.
    • Downloads: Final Report
    • “We continue to see list price increases that are far above the rate of inflation for many of the costliest drugs,” stated Foluso Agboola, MBBS, MPH, ICER’s Vice President of Research. “These price hikes resulted in over $800 million in excess costs to the US health care system in just one year alone. This impacts everyone in the country, especially patients and their families. Over the past few years, ICER has played a role in highlighting substantial price increases. Since launching this report in 2019, we have noticed a decrease in the number of drugs that have significant price hikes without any new clinical evidence. In this report, half of the drugs we assessed had price increases in the setting of new evidence of additional benefits or reduced harm, while the other half lacked such evidence to support their higher price tag.”
  • STAT News discusses “AI versus AI: The emerging arms race over health insurance denials. New startups are harnessing artificial intelligence to appeal denials by health insurers.
    • “Like many Americans, Holden Karau said she was fed up with health insurance. * * *
    • Karau’s company, FightHealthInsurance.com, is one of many upstart businesses seeking to harness the power of artificial intelligence to combat denials by health insurers that block access to medical services.
    • “There’s a lot of technology on the insurance side to automate denials,” Karau said. “I think it’s time to build the tools for patients and providers.”
    • “Her company, and its companions in the market, are just getting off the ground. But they promise to help automate appeals for providers and patients, making it much faster and easier to contest denials that often go unchallenged.”
  • Beckers Hospital Review shares weight loss drug fills by states.
    • “Alaska recorded the highest percentage of medication fills for weight loss drugs this year, according to data from GoodRx. 
    • “To assess state-level trends, GoodRx examined fill rates for all medications, excluding vaccines, from a nationally representative sample between Jan. 1 and Oct. 31. The figures below reflect the percentage of total medication fills for GIP and GLP-1 drugs prescribed for either diabetes or weight loss indications. Medications for Type 2 diabetes included Ozempic, Mounjaro, Victoza and liraglutide, while medications prescribed for weight loss included Wegovy, Zepbound, Saxenda, Qsymia and phentermine.
    • “Regionally, states in the South had higher fill rates for medications prescribed for diabetes while states in the Northeast had the highest fill rates for medications prescribed for weight loss.” 
  • and points out “US News’ 118 maternity care access hospitals.”
    • “On Dec. 10, U.S. News & World Report released its annual Best Hospitals for Maternity Care ratings, which also recognize hospitals providing services to underserved communities.
    • “U.S. News identified 118 hospitals as Maternity Care Access Hospitals for providing maternity services in areas that would otherwise lack access to such care.
    • “To qualify, these hospitals met specific geographic and quality criteria. They were eligible if they were the only hospital providing maternity care within their county, and the county had fewer than 60 obstetric providers per 10,000 births. Alternatively, hospitals qualified if they were the only facility within a 15-mile radius and were located in a county with fewer than 128 obstetric providers per 10,000 births.”
  • Per Fierce Healthcare,
    • “Centene released its earnings guidance for 2025 as a part of its investor day on Thursday.
    • “The health insurer expects to bring in between $166.5 billion and $169.5 billion in revenue for the year, including between $154 billion and $156 billion in premium and service revenue, according to the announcement. It also estimates earnings per share of at least $7.25 in 2025.
    • “The company is bracing for elevated utilization trends to continue as well, according to the announcement. It projects a medical loss ratio of between 88.4% and 89%.”

Midweek Update

David Ermer–ACA, CDC, Congress, Electronic health records, FDA, Medical / Rx research, NIH, U.S. Healthcare–

From Washington, DC

  • The Wall Street Journal reported this morning
    • “A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation to break up pharmacy-benefit managers, the drug middlemen that have now faced yearslong scrutiny from Congress and the Federal Trade Commission.
    • “A Senate bill, sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Josh Hawley (R., Mo.), would force the companies that own health insurers or pharmacy-benefit managers to divest their pharmacy businesses within three years.
    • “A companion bill, which sponsors say draws on a history of government prohibitions on joint ownership within industries, was also introduced in the House on Wednesday.
    • “If passed, the legislation would be the most far-reaching intervention yet into the operations of pharmacy-benefit managers, known as PBMs, and their parent companies, cutting off a major source of revenue for the companies and frustration for patients.”
  • STAT News added this afternoon,
    • “A proposed Senate bill that would prohibit companies that control health insurers or pharmacy benefit managers from owning pharmacies rattled investors on Wednesday, but some Wall Street analysts believe the legislation is unlikely to gain much traction, at least for now.
    • “The bipartisan bill, which would require divestiture within three years, is aimed at what the lawmakers call an “inherent conflict of interest” that has forced Americans to pay more for medicines and hastened the demise of independent pharmacies. A companion bill, that refers to a history of government prohibitions on joint ownership within industries, is scheduled to be introduced in the House.” * * *
    • Wall Street watchers believe the lower stock prices are an overreaction. Although the insurers are a juicy target, various factors suggest the bill is far from a sure bet, given the upcoming change in administrations. Securities analysts believe other legislative priorities will get more attention, despite a focus on health care matters more broadly.”
  • The Wall Street Journal also lets us know,
    • “The House voted Wednesday to approve a nearly $900 billion annual defense policy bill that includes a controversial provision that would block some transgender medical care for minors covered by the military’s healthcare program.
    • “The package, which sets national defense standards and priorities for the 2025 fiscal year, notably calls for a 14.5% pay raise for junior enlisted service members, dwarfing the 4.5% pay raise included for all other members of the armed forces. The package passed 281-140, with most Republicans voting for the bill but more than half of Democrats voting no.
    • “The 1,800-page National Defense Authorization Act would increase the national security budget to $895 billion, about a 1% increase from last year’s total, less than inflation. * * *
    • “The NDAA authorizes appropriations but doesn’t provide budget authority, making it a guide to what military spending is ultimately passed separately by Congress. It is set to be the 64th consecutive NDAA successfully passed through Congress—a rarity in what has increasingly become a divided and chaotic legislature. 
    • “The bill is now expected to be fast-tracked in the Senate, where the chamber will likely pass it before Congress leaves at the end of next week. From there, it would go to President Biden’s desk, where he is expected to sign it.”
  • Federal News Network tells us,
    • “With just a few weeks left in the year for President Joe Biden to finalize the 2025 federal pay raise, House and Senate Democrats are calling for a larger pay boost than the currently planned raise for civilian federal employees on the General Schedule.
    • “In a letter sent to Biden Wednesday morning, a group of 22 Democrats pushed for what they said should be “pay parity” between civilian and military federal employees. Currently, civilian and military personnel are slated for likely different pay raises for 2025.
    • “We believe it is imperative you revise your budget to align military and civilian employee pay raises,” the lawmakers, led by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), wrote in the letter, shared with Federal News Network.
    • “Currently, most civilian employees are on track to receive a 2% federal pay raise beginning in January, according to the alternative pay plan Biden sent to congressional leaders in August. In contrast, military personnel are expected to likely receive a 4.5% raise for 2025. Although the raise amounts appear to be heading in those two directions, neither raise amount is final just yet. Unless Congress or Biden opts for a different pay plan, the 2% raise is expected to become final through signing an executive order by the end of December.”
  • The American Hospital Association News informs us,
    • The Senate Dec. 10 unanimously passed legislation reauthorizing the Emergency Medical Services for Children Program (H.R. 6960) for an additional five years. The program provides funding for equipment and training to help hospitals and paramedics treat pediatric emergencies. The program was authorized at $24.3 million per year from 2025-2029. The bill was passed by the House in May.”
  • and
    • “The Department of Health and Human Services Dec. 11 published a final rule implementing provisions related to the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement. The rule is intended to advance equity, innovation and interoperability by promoting the use and exchange of electronically captured health information as specified in certain provisions of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009.  
    • “The provisions today’s final rule adopts were first proposed in August as part of a much larger rule and will be effective 30 days after it is officially published in the Federal Register.”
  • The New York Times relates,
    • “In the final days of the Biden administration, the Food and Drug Administration is seeking White House approval to propose a drastic reduction in the amount of nicotine in cigarettes, a longstanding goal of public health experts that has faced stiff opposition from the powerful tobacco lobby.
    • “The F.D.A. submitted the proposal to the Office of Management and Budget only on Tuesday, a sign that the move was perhaps more wishful and symbolic than realistic for a White House juggling many late-term agenda items. And traditionally, the budget office’s review of agency proposals can take months.”
  • Per Fierce Pharma,
    • “As Donald J. Trump gradually fills out his cabinet, the President-elect’s latest pick could bode well for biopharma business development over the next four years.
    • “Trump on Tuesday nominated Andrew Ferguson to lead the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Ferguson is one of two Senate-confirmed Republican FTC commissioners appointed by President Joe Biden, Reuters notes.
    • “At the same time, Trump said in a post on Truth Social that he plans to nominate Mark Meador, a partner at the law firm Kressin Meador Powers, to become an FTC commissioner. Should he be confirmed for the job, Meador will take over the spot currently filled by FTC chair Lina Khan, whose term at the antitrust agency has expired, the news agency said.”

From the public health and medical research front,

  • Per MedPage Today,
    • “A possible case of H5N1 bird flu virus in a California child has been linked to raw milk consumption and is under investigation by state health officials and the CDC.
    • “The patient experienced fever and vomiting after drinking raw milk and has since recovered, according to an announcement by Marin County Public Health. Officials said that the risk to the public remains low, as there was no evidence of person-to person transmission between the child and her family members.
    • “The case stands out for being outside the usual farm work setting.”
  • The New York Times adds,
    • “Domestic cats could provide an unexpected new route for the bird flu virus H5N1 to evolve into a more dangerous form, according to a new study published on Monday.
    • “In the year since the virus began circulating in dairy cattle, it has killed many cats, primarily on farms with affected herds. It has also sickened at least 60 people, most of whom had close contact with infected dairy cows or poultry.
    • “So far, H5N1 does not spread easily among people, although studies have suggested that just one or two key mutations could allow the virus to make that leap.
    • “There is no evidence that cats have spread H5N1 to people and they may not represent a major avenue for the evolution of bird flu, experts said. Still, if a cat were simultaneously infected with H5N1 and a seasonal flu virus, the H5N1 virus could potentially acquire the mutations it needed to spread efficiently among people.”
  • ABC News reports,
    • “The rates of late-stage breast cancer at diagnosis have risen among women in all racial and ethnic groups, but Black women have been hit the hardest, according to a new study published in the journal Radiology.
    • “The study, which looked at data from 2004 to 2021, found that advanced breast cancer rates have risen among women of all ages, with the sharpest increases in young women aged 20 to 39, and women over 75.
    • “Black women experience advanced diagnoses 55% more often than white women and are more likely to die from the disease, the study found.
    • “While mammography does save lives by catching cancer earlier, fewer than 70% of eligible women are up to date on their screenings, the study found.
    • “This trend is particularly alarming because early detection significantly improves survival. Five-year survival rates drop drastically from 99% for early-stage breast cancer to just 31% when the cancer is more advanced and has already spread to other parts of the body, the study found.”
  • BioPharma Dive adds,
    • “An experimental breast cancer drug developed by Eli Lilly met its main goal in a Phase 3 study, helping people with a form of HER2-negative, ER-positive disease stay alive and progression free for longer than standard hormone-suppressing therapies, according to data disclosed Wednesday.
    • “When combined with Lilly’s approved medicine Verezenio, the experimental drug, called imlunestrant, also helped women stay alive and progression free longer than treatment with imlunestrant alone regardless of their mutation status, according to results of the EMBER-3 trial presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. The data were also published in The New England Journal of Medicine.”
  • Per a National Institutes of Health press release,
    • “National Institute of Health (NIH) scientists have made a significant breakthrough in understanding how “bad” cholesterol, known as low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol or LDL-C, builds up in the body. The researchers were able to show for the first time how the main structural protein of LDL binds to its receptor – a process that starts the clearing of LDL from the blood – and what happens when that process gets impaired.
    • “The findings, published in Nature, further the understanding of how LDL contributes to heart disease, the world’s leading cause of death, and could open the door to personalizing LDL-lowering treatments like statins to make them even more effective.
    • “LDL is one of the main drivers of cardiovascular disease which kills one person every 33 seconds, so if you want to understand your enemy, you want to know what it looks like,” said Alan Remaley, M.D., Ph.D., co-senior author on the study who runs the Lipoprotein Metabolism Laboratory at NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.” * * *
    • “The study findings could open new avenues to develop targeted therapies aimed at correcting these kinds of dysfunctional interactions caused by mutations. But, as importantly, the researchers said, they could also help people who do not have genetic mutations, but who have high cholesterol and are on statins, which lower LDL by increasing LDLR in cells. By knowing precisely where and how LDLR binds to LDL, the researchers say they may now be able to target those connection points to design new drugs for lowering LDL from the blood.” 
  • STAT News points out,
    • “Gilead said Tuesday that it will soon begin Phase 3 testing for a drug it believes could prevent HIV infection with just a single shot every year.
    • “Such a medicine, if proven effective, would be the closest thing to a vaccine the HIV field has produced in four decades of research. The company plans to begin the trial next year, with an eye toward regulatory filings in late 2027.”

From the U.S. healthcare business report,

  • Health Affairs reports,
    • “Numerous studies show that employer plans pay providers significantly more than Medicare, but less is known about prices in nongroup plans sold both on and off the Marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), where narrow networks and low-cost insurers are more prevalent.
    • “We estimated prices for three market segments (Marketplace nongroup, off-Marketplace nongroup, and employer small group) and three types of services (professional, outpatient hospital, and inpatient hospital) relative to a Medicare benchmark.
    • “We used 2021 claims data covering virtually all enrollment in ACA risk-adjusted plans. In aggregate, in 2021, Marketplace prices were 152 percent of Medicare prices, whereas the prices paid in small-group employer plans were 179 percent of Medicare prices.
    • “Comparing across market segments, relative to employer small-group plans, Marketplace professional prices were 6.9 percent lower, inpatient prices were 13.3 percent lower, and outpatient prices were 26.3 percent lower. Off-Marketplace prices fell between Marketplace and employer small-group prices.
    • “The finding that nongroup prices were significantly lower than prices paid by employer small-group plans—more so than indicated by prior research—is important for understanding federal subsidies and affordability for nongroup coverage and evaluating policies such as a nongroup public option with prices capped at a percentage of Medicare prices.”
  • Per Healthcare Dive,
    • “For the first time in 27 months, Fitch Ratings is revising its credit outlook for the nonprofit hospital sector — lifting it from deteriorating to neutral in its 2025 outlook report and adding that hospitals have made “enough meaningful strides” to warrant the revision.
    • “Hospitals have seen “steady improvement” on operating margins, according to the Monday report. The trend is attributable to providers’ success controlling labor expense growth, as well as stronger cash flows and equity returns.
    • “Fitch predicts margins will continue to improve, with operators reporting median operating figures between 1% and 2% in 2025. However, if President-elect Donald Trump announces cuts to Medicaid or supplemental Medicaid funds, margins could be adversely impacted and the sector’s outlook may be reverted to deteriorating.”
  • Modern Healthcare informs us,
    • “Labcorp has completed its acquisition of select non-hospital lab assets from Ballad Health, the independent laboratory company said Wednesday. A purchase price was not immediately available.
    • “Johnson City, Tennessee-based Ballad Health will retain operations of its inpatient and emergency department laboratory services, as well as lab services for hospital-based practices, according to a news release.” * * *
    • “The latest deal continues a trend of health systems selling off parts of their laboratory business to save on costs and focus on other areas of their operations. Independent lab companies often can provide a higher volume of tests at a lower cost compared with hospitals performing tests at their own facilities.” 

Thursday Report

David Ermer–ACA, CDC, Congress, FDA, Federal employment benefits, Medical / Rx research, NIH, Obesity, OPM, Telehealth, U.S. Healthcare–

Healthcare Dive shares observations and news about yesterday’s murder of United Healthcare’s CEO Brian Thompson.

Yahoo News delves into the investigation of Mr. Thompson murder by the New York City Police Department. The FEHBlog has the utmost confidence that this investigation will end with at least one arrest.

From Washington, DC

  • Federal News Network informs us,
    • “Enrollees in the new Postal Service Health Benefits program will have a few extra days of Open Season to review their plan options and make changes to their benefits for plan year 2025.
    • “The Office of Personnel Management officially extended Open Season for PSHB participants until Dec. 13, Federal News Network has learned. Participants in the Federal Employees Health Benefits program and other federal benefits programs will still see Open Season end on the original Dec. 9 deadline.
    • “OPM said the transition to the new PSHB program is “a big change” for enrollees, and it’s extending Open Season by four days to give Postal employees, annuitants and their family members additional time to look at plans and make changes as they see fit.
    • “We feel it is important to extend Open Season for customers of the PSHB program to give them ample time to shop for plans and change their elections if they want to,” OPM said.
  • Tammy Flanagan, writing in Govexec, discusses Open Season and tax savings.
  • Politico reports,
    • “The House is losing several health policy leaders after this Congress, and they’ll likely want to make their mark in their last two months on Capitol Hill.
    • “While Congress negotiates its end-of-year legislative package, some key departing lawmakers are rallying to pass projects before their terms end — although expectations for a health care package are low. Historically, Congress has sometimes shown a willingness to give outgoing lawmakers a win.”
    • Politico shares the legacy goals of the retiring House members.
  • Among the bills for possible inclusion in the lame duck health care package is S. 1339, Pharmacy Benefit Manager Reform Act. The Congressional Budget Office issued a report on this bill today.
  • The Washington Post informs us,
    • “A bipartisan group of senators grilled Food and Drug Administration officials Thursday on the agency’s failure to more tightly regulate ultra-processed foods and food dyes, highlighting a key part of the health agenda promoted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
    • “Kennedy, President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial pick to lead the sprawling Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the FDA, has blamed the nation’s surge of chronic disease and declining life expectancy on ultra-processed foods — a position that aligns with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), who convened the hearing as chairman of the Senate health committee.
    • “Congress and the FDA have allowed large corporations to make huge profits by enticing children and adults to consume ultra-processed food and beverages loaded up with sugar, salt and saturated fat,” Sanders said Thursday, pointing to the billions of dollars the food-and-beverage industry spends on advertising.”
  • Govexec notes,
    • “The leaders of President-elect Trump’s new advisory panel aiming to slash government spending, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, met with Republican lawmakers at the Capitol on Thursday in what leaders pitched as an informational session to share ideas. 
    • “Congressional Republicans and a handful of Democrats have embraced Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, which will function as a non-governmental commission, and on Thursday were eager to share their ideas for identifying areas for cuts. Some Republicans cautioned, however, that the advisory panel must work through the appropriate channels and win congressional support for their initiatives. 
    • “Nearly every House and Senate member that emerged from the various meetings called them productive and suggested a unifying idea supported by both lawmakers and Trump’s designated efficiency czars: recalling teleworking employees back to the office.”  
  • Per Department of Health and Human Services press releases,
  • and
    • “Today, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR), issued a “Dear Colleague” letter – PDF to help federally funded health care providers, plan grantees, and others better understand their civil rights obligations under the new final rule on Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (“Section 1557”).  
    • “Section 1557 provides nondiscrimination protections by requiring covered entities (e.g., recipients of Federal financial assistance, programs administered by HHS, and entities established under Title I of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)) to provide language assistance to individuals with limited English proficiency (LEP) or disability.”
  • Modern Healthcare reports,
    • “Hospitals have expanded their legal push for the federal government to boost Medicare reimbursement.
    • “More than 500 hospitals last week sued the Health and Human Services Department for allegedly miscalculating a 40-year-old Inpatient Prospective Payment System base reimbursement rate that providers say has lowered years of subsequent Medicare payments to hospitals. The lawsuit is the latest in a series of similar complaints that allege the Health and Human Services Department must increase Medicare inpatient pay.
    • “Each lawsuit challenges different batches of denied requests to amend reimbursement rates, but the arguments are largely the same. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, providers allege. If the federal government changes the inpatient base pay rate, hospitals stand to not only recoup money from prior fiscal years but also increase future reimbursement rates.”
  • The American Hospital Association News tells us,
    • “A $2.8 billion settlement from Blue Cross Blue Shield to health care providers resolving a 12-year antitrust lawsuit received preliminary approval yesterday from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. The settlement will also “significantly improve how Providers will interact with the Blues, bringing more transparency and efficiency to their dealings, and increase Blue Plan accountability,” according to the court filing. 
    • “The lawsuit alleged that BCBS member companies violated antitrust laws by agreeing to allocate markets via exclusive service areas and fixing prices paid to health care providers through the organization’s BlueCard Program.”
  • and
    • “Approximately 988,000 consumers who currently do not have health insurance coverage through the individual marketplace have signed up for a 2025 health plan through the federally facilitated Health Insurance Marketplace, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced yesterday. Nearly 4.4 million returning consumers have selected 2025 plans. The open enrollment period began Nov. 1 and continues through Jan. 15.”
    • The deadline for January 1, 2025, enrollments is December 15, 2024. Later enrollments will begin on February 1, 2025.
  • and
    • “The Food and Drug Administration yesterday released recommendations for streamlining the approval process for medical devices that use artificial intelligence. The guidance recommends information to include in a predetermined change control plan as part of a marketing submission for a medical device using AI. The PCCP should include a description of the device’s planned modifications; methods to develop, validate and implement the modifications; and an assessment of the modification’s impacts. FDA will then review the PCCP within the submission to ensure the device’s safety and effectiveness without needing additional marketing submissions for each modification.” 

From the public health and medical research front,

  • The Washington Post reports,
    • “Scientists from the Scripps Research Institute are reporting that it would take just a single mutation in the version of bird flu that has swept through U.S. dairy herds to produce a virus adept at latching on to human cells, a much simpler step than previously imagined.
    • “To date, there have been no documented cases of one human passing avian influenza to another, the Scripps scientists wrote in their paper, which was published Thursday in the journal Science. The mutation they identified would allow the virus to attach to our cells by hitching itself to a protein on their surface, known as the receptor.
    • “William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who did not participate in the study, called the research “sobering,” adding, “I had not known it would take just one mutation in the virus for it to attach itself to the receptors on human cells.
    • “However, he stressed that the H5N1 virus has been active for 20 years and “has multiplied billions upon billions upon billions of times and the spontaneous mutation that the authors describe,” has not been found, despite intense surveillance.
    • “Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a professor of virology at the University of Wisconsin, who was not involved in the latest research but has studied bird flu extensively, said that statistically, the mutation probably already exists in H5N1-infected cows and humans, given that 1 in 10,000 infectious particles of the influenza virus is a mutant.
    • “James C. Paulson, one of the paper’s authors, and several other top scientists agreed that it is statistically likely the mutation has occurred in the H5N1 virus but stressed that it has yet to be detected, and other barriers remain before the virus could be transmitted from one person to another. Paulson is a professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine at Scripps.”
  • The National Institutes of Health Director, Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, writes in her blog,
    • “Your memories of life experiences are encoded in collections of neurons in the brain that were active at the time the event took place. Later, those same patterns of neural activity are replayed in your mind to help stabilize your memories of past events. But new research suggests those memories aren’t fixed. An NIH-supported study in male mice reveals how an older memory can be “refreshed” and altered by association with newer events.
    • “The findings, reported in Nature , show that a memory of a recent negative event can become linked to the memory of a neutral event that took place days earlier, changing the way it’s remembered. This provides important insight into what we know about how the brain updates and reorganizes memories based on new information. These findings could also have implications for our understanding of neurobiological processes that might occur in the brain in memory-related mental health conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), when people feel stress or fear even in situations that present no danger.” *. * *
    • “Although these findings were obtained in a mouse model, according to the researchers, the study results suggest that our brains may integrate memories to form a cohesive understanding of real-world experiences in ways that offer stability and flexibility. These insights suggest that memories of the past are constantly updated and refreshed by new experiences in ways that may help us function in a world marked by constant change.
    • “The findings also suggest that negative experiences can lead us to fear seemingly unrelated places or events in ways that are detrimental. This may help to explain why for people with PTSD, exposure therapy—in which people work to overcome fears through gradual exposures to them in a safe environment—can stop being effective. The hope is that findings like these might shed light on potential new ways to treat PTSD and related disorders.”
  • Per an NIH press release,
    • “Improvements in cancer prevention and screening have averted more deaths from five cancer types combined over the past 45 years than treatment advances, according to a modeling study led by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The study, published Dec. 5, 2024, in JAMA Oncology, looked at deaths from breast, cervical, colorectal, lung, and prostate cancer that were averted by the combination of prevention, screening, and treatment advances. The researchers focused on these five cancers because they are among the most common causes of cancer deaths and strategies exist for their prevention, early detection, and/or treatment. In recent years, these five cancers have made up nearly half of all new cancer diagnoses and deaths.
    • “Although many people may believe that treatment advances are the major driver of reductions in mortality from these five cancers combined, the surprise here is how much prevention and screening contribute to reductions in mortality,” said co-lead investigator Katrina A. B. Goddard, Ph.D., director of NCI’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences. “Eight out of 10 deaths from these five cancers that were averted over the past 45 years were due to advances in prevention and screening.”
    • “A single prevention intervention, smoking cessation, contributed the lion’s share of the deaths averted: 3.45 million from lung cancer alone. When considering each cancer site individually, prevention and screening accounted for most deaths averted for cervical, colorectal, lung, and prostate cancer, whereas treatment advances accounted for most deaths averted from breast cancer.
    • “To reduce cancer death rates, it’s critical that we combine effective strategies in prevention and screening with advances in treatment,” said W. Kimryn Rathmell, M.D., Ph.D., director of NCI. “This study will help us understand which strategies have been most effective in reducing cancer deaths so that we can continue building on this momentum and hopefully increase the use of these strategies across the United States.”
  • The AP adds,
    • “Many moms-to-be opt for blood tests during pregnancy to check for fetal disorders such as Down syndrome. In rare instances, these tests can reveal something unexpected — hints of a hidden cancer in the woman.
    • “In a study of 107 pregnant women whose test results were unusual, 52 were ultimately diagnosed with cancer. Most of them were treated and are now in remission, although seven with advanced cancers died.
    • “They looked like healthy, young women and they reported themselves as being healthy,” said Dr. Diana Bianchi, the senior author of the government study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
    • “Of the discovered cancers, lymphoma blood cancers were the most common, followed by colon and breast cancers.
    • “The blood test is called cell-free DNA sequencing. It looks for fetal problems in DNA fragments shed from the placenta into the mother’s bloodstream. It also can pick up DNA fragments shed by cancer cells.”
  • NBC News relates,
    • “Prescription fills for blockbuster weight loss medications in the U.S. more than doubled in 2024, even with limited insurance coverage and high out-of-pocket costs for the treatments.
    • “That’s according to new data from drug savings company GoodRx, which examined fill trends and spending patterns for weight loss drugs such as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound.
    • “It offers more evidence of the insatiable demand for a buzzy class of medications called GLP-1 and GIP agonists, which have hefty list prices of roughly $1,000 per month before insurance or savings cards.”
  • More on prevention from Physicians’ Weekly,
    • “People with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) face a high risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), but the timing of this elevated risk before diagnosis is not well understood.  
    • “Researchers conducted a retrospective study to examine CVD occurrence up to 30 years before and 5 years after a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes.  
    • ‘They included individuals diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in Denmark (2010 and 2015) n=127,092 and matched comparisons n=381,023. Conditional logistic regression was used to compute ORs for the prevalence of CVD in the 30 years before diagnosis, and Cox proportional hazards regression models to calculate HRs for 5-year CVD incidence after diagnosis.  
    • ‘The results showed that, in the 30 years before diagnosis, 14,179 (11.2%) individuals with type 2 diabetes and 17,871 (4.7%) comparisons experienced CVD. The odds of CVD were higher for individuals with type 2 diabetes, ranging from 2.18 (95% CI: 1.91-2.48) in the earliest period (25-30 years before diagnosis) to 2.96 (95% CI: 2.85-3.08) in the latest period (less than 5 years before diagnosis). After diagnosis, the 5-year CVD incidence was higher for individuals with type 2 diabetes (HR: 2.20; 95% CI: 2.12-2.27).  
    • “They concluded that individuals with type 2 diabetes experienced twice the number of CVD events compared to matched controls, starting up to 30 years before diagnosis, suggesting that early preventive strategies may be necessary.”  

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • The Wall Street Journal reports,
    • “Eli Lilly said it would invest $3 billion to expand a recently acquired manufacturing facility to meet growing demand for its diabetes and weight-loss medicines.
    • “The drugmaker said the Kenosha County, Wis., plant expansion would extend the reach of its injectable-product manufacturing and add 750 jobs. The facility already employs around 100 people.
    • “Overall, the expanded facility would focus on manufacturing injectable medicines, device assembly and packaging for medicines across multiple therapeutic areas, the Indianapolis company said.
    • “The decision comes months after Lilly resolved shortages for its weight-loss and diabetes drugs, Zepbound and Mounjaro. Lilly’s rival, Novo Nordisk, has been expanding its production capacity to resolve shortages.”
  • Per Fierce Healthcare,
    • “Amazon has added digital musculoskeletal care company Hinge Health to its health conditions program, a service it rolled out in January to help connect customers with virtual care benefits.
    • “Hinge Health is the first digital musclosketal platform to join Amazon Health Services’ offering that aims to help people discover and enroll in digital health programs available through their employer or health plan at no additional cost.
    • “It marks the fourth company to join Amazon Health Services’ digital health benefits program, following Omada Health, as its first launch partner, Talkspace and behavioral health company Rula Health.”
  • Per Fierce Pharma,
    • “AstraZeneca has picked off another label expansion for its cancer blockbuster Imfinzi (durvalumab) as the FDA has blessed the PD-L1 inhibitor for limited-stage small cell lung cancer (LS-SCLC) patients who have not had disease progression after concurrent chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
    • “With the nod, Imfinzi becomes the first immunotherapy for LS-SCLC, an aggressive form of the disorder with a survival rate between 15% and 30% after diagnosis. The subtype includes roughly 30% of all SCLC cases. It often recurs and progresses rapidly despite initial response to standard-of-care chemo and radiation treatment.
    • “The approval is backed by results from the ADRIATIC trial which showed that, compared to placebo, Imfinzi extended patients’ lives by 27% among those who had not progressed following chemoradiotherapy. The estimated median overall survival was 55.9 months for Imfinzi versus 33.4 months for placebo.”
  • BioPharma Dive points out,
    • “Inside every human cell are thousands of snippets of genetic code that serve as the directions for creating proteins. And over the past four years, a small biotechnology company has been trying to prove that, by looking closely enough at this assembly of instructions, it can find new ways to treat diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis.
    • “The company, Muna Therapeutics, now has a nod of confidence from one of the world’s largest drugmakers, as it announced on Thursday a collaboration with GSK that could ultimately be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
    • “Per deal terms, Muna will analyze brain tissue samples from a variety of sources, from healthy individuals to Alzheimer’s patients to centenarians with and without cognitive impairment. The company will then use different technologies to determine where protein instructions are (or aren’t) in those tissues, with the goal being to identify and validate new targets for Alzheimer’s drugs.”
  • RAND Healthcare shares its key findings on telehealth policy.