The unrelenting pressure on medical practice in the U.S. has sparked some innovations, but a legislative innovation is now in the works that would fundamentally shift how at least some drugs are prescribed. The Healthy Technology Act of 2025 (H.R. 238) would allow AI and machine learning algorithms to write prescriptions for pharmaceuticals, although the lack of co-sponsors for H.R. 238 suggests that this bill is not ready for prime time just yet.
The politicization of the U.S. FTC continued March 18 with President Donald Trump firing the two remaining Democratic commissioners, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya. The action leaves what’s supposed to be a five-member bipartisan panel with just two members, both of whom are Republicans. The commission already was down one member, as former Chair Lina Khan’s term expired last year and Trump’s appointee, Mark Meador, is awaiting Senate confirmation with a vote expected yet this month.
The U.S. foreign aid cuts and freezes that are taking place under President Donald Trump are putting at risk the global public health gains that have been made against diseases such as malaria, HIV and tuberculosis over the past two decades, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a March 17 media briefing, as he called on other countries to step up and fill the gap.
China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) approved the country’s first injectable teprotumumab biosimilar from Innovent Biologics Inc. under the brand name of Sycume (teprotumumab N-01) to treat thyroid eye disease on March 14. The NMPA on March 15 accepted Simcere Pharmaceutical Group Ltd.’s NDA of deunoxavir marboxil (ADC-189) tablets, a product originally developed by Jiaxing Andicon Biotech Co. Ltd. to treat influenza A and B.
Breaking with a 30-year tradition, the U.S. FDA selected the strains for the next flu vaccine March 13 without convening its independent vaccine advisory committee. Instead, the agency brought together 15 scientific and public health experts from within the FDA, the CDC and the Department of Defense to make the recommendations for the next flu season. That group met the same day that the agency’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee had been scheduled to make the selection.
Cardiothoracic surgeon and television personality Mehmet Oz, President Donald Trump’s nominee for administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), faced the U.S. Senate’s finance committee on March 14, suggesting the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and the reduction of drug prices would be among his top priorities, if confirmed.
Latest findings on Healios K.K.’s stem cell therapy to treat acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), coined Multistem (invimestrocel; HLCM-051), found the regenerative medicine effective in reducing the number of patient days on ventilator treatment, as well as mortality benefits.
As expected, the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voted March 13 to send the nominations of Jay Bhattacharya as NIH director and Martin Makary as FDA commissioner to the Senate floor for confirmation. Bhattacharya received a narrow 12-11 party-line vote, but Makary picked up some Democratic support to secure a 14-9 vote.
Shortly before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee was to hold the first ever confirmation hearing for a U.S. CDC director March 13, it issued a statement saying the hearing was canceled due to the White House withdrawing its nomination of Dave Weldon, a physician and former congressman from Florida.
Looking to shave $65 million from its annual expenditures while streamlining the first stage of its two-level grant review process, the U.S. NIH is proposing to centralize the peer review of all applications for grants, cooperative agreements and R&D contracts within its Center for Scientific Review.
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