“Do not take us backwards,” many doctors and other stakeholders implored the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices ahead of its meeting that starts Dec. 4 with a day-long discussion and votes on whether the current recommended birth dose of the hepatitis B virus vaccine should be delayed.
After raising more than twice as much as expected in its March IPO, Kestra Medical Technologies Inc. appears poised to repeat its success with an upsized secondary offering as well. The Kirkland, Wash.-based company initially planned to offer 5.5 million shares in its second pass at the market but increased the number of shares to 6 million two days later when it set the price at $23 per share. The projected gross proceeds of $138 million provide a nice addition to the $232 million raised nine months ago.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, released another letter to the American Medical Association regarding the activities of the AMA committee for CPT coding activities.
So much for stability at the U.S. FDA. Three weeks after accepting the position as director of the FDA’s CDER, Richard Pazdur has informed the agency of his intention to retire at the end of the year.
The next stop on the comeback tour for the U.S. FDA’s Rare Pediatric Disease Priority Review Voucher program is the Senate, after the House unanimously passed the Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act, H.R. 1262, Dec. 1.
The U.K. government has secured a deal guaranteeing there will be no tariffs on the £6.6 billion (US$8.7 billion) of pharmaceutical products exported annually to the U.S., as part of a package of measures under which the U.K. will pay more for patented drugs.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy continued his last-minute musical chairs ahead of the Dec. 4-5 meeting of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) when he named Kirk Milhoan as the new chair of the panel that advises the CDC on vaccine schedules.
Wall Street was sorting through two batches of news from Jasper Therapeutics Inc., which made public positive data from the phase Ib study called Etesian with KIT-targeting briquilimab in adults with allergic asthma, while making known the outcome of a probe into the phase Ib/II Beacon study with the same drug in chronic spontaneous urticaria.
Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists clearly help patients shed pounds, but many regain all - or more - of the weight once they discontinue the medications. Fractyl Health Inc. could offer an enduring solution with its Revita procedure. Six-month results from its open-label REVEAL-1 cohort of individuals with obesity who lost 15% or more of their total body weight on a GLP-1 therapy maintained that loss after discontinuing the drugs and undergoing the Revita procedure.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has posted the home health final rule for calendar year 2026 and has established a framework for competitive bidding for products such as continuous glucose monitors, a move that is struggling to find support among stakeholders.