Just three days before the U.S. CDC’s reconstituted Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) is scheduled to discuss and possibly vote on the COVID-19, hepatitis B and MMRV vaccines, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy added five new members to the panel.
The American Medical Association has posted the latest update to the current procedural terminology code set, which deletes more than 80 existing codes and adds nearly 290 new codes. Among the new codes are several for AI-assisted device services and several tweaks to codes for peripheral artery diseases, presenting a new batch of opportunities for device makers to obtain Medicare coverage for their offerings.
It took a memo from the president for the U.S. FDA to begin reining in direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising with its feel-good messaging and hurried recitation of a few serious adverse events.
When it won U.S. FDA accelerated approval more than eight years ago, Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s Ocaliva (obeticholic acid) was viewed as a breakthrough, becoming the first new treatment in 20 years for rare, progressive liver disease primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) and, for several years, the only second-line treatment for PBC patients failing to respond to ursodeoxycholic acid. More recently, however, Ocaliva has faced regulatory and safety stumbles, with Intercept now voluntarily pulling the farnesoid X receptor activator from the U.S. market.
The debate around the U.S. 340B prescription drug discount program is once again heating up in court and in Congress. A day after the American Hospital Association called on the FTC and Department of Justice to investigate alleged antitrust issues with the rebate models a few drug companies have proposed, some members of Congress raised concerns Sept. 9 about how providers are abusing the program. Meanwhile, a U.S. appellate court heard arguments that same day on whether states can speak in the silence of the federal law that created the program more than 30 years ago.
Two months after starting the phase I/II Synrgy trial with its gene therapy, CAP-002, enrolling 12 pediatric patients with rare disease STXBP1 encephalopathy, Capsida Biotherapeutics paused the study following the death of the trial’s first patient.
Maze Therapeutics Inc. CEO Jason Coloma said the latest phase I results with MZE-782, a prospect for phenylketonuria (PKU) as well as chronic kidney disease (CKD), bolster the firm’s “conviction to move into phase II” next year in both indications.
Positive results for Revolution Medicines Inc.’s phase I studies of its lead candidate, the RAS-blocker daraxonrasib for treating pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, prompted the company to say it’s time for a phase III study in the aggressive cancer. Revolution said it plans to begin a global, randomized and registrational trial in first-line metastatic disease sometime in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Exact Sciences Corp. rolled out its multi-cancer early detection test nationwide to expand screening and identify malignancies when treatment has the greatest chance of being curative. Cancerguard can detect signals for cancers accounting for more than 80% of all cancer diagnoses in the U.S. each year.
Physician ownership of medical device manufacturers can be tricky stuff where the Anti-Kickback Statute is concerned, but the Office of Inspector General recently declared it had no problem with one such arrangement due to the physician’s ratio of ownership of the company.
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