The FDA’s final rule for lab-developed tests (LDTs) is in litigation, and a district court decision may be shortly in the works.

The routine use of software to interpret the results of lab-developed tests (LDTs) leaves clinical labs in a complicated spot in 2025 thanks in no small part to an ongoing lawsuit over the U.S. FDA’s final rule for LDTs.

The U.S. FDA approved 12 drugs in January, falling below the 2024 monthly average of 19. Only three new molecular entities received approval, trailing the yearly average of just over four per month.

The prospect of U.S. tariffs on pharmaceuticals became more than just speculation this week, with President Donald Trump saying those tariffs likely would begin at 25% and climb over the year. His comments came in response to a question at a Feb. 18 news conference that followed the signing of two unrelated executive orders. Asked about the planned rate for tariffs on semiconductors and pharmaceuticals, Trump responded that it would be 25% and higher and it would “go very substantially higher over [the] course of a year.”

Citing recent executive orders that suggest additional cuts to the federal workforce may be in the offing, U.S. Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy urging him to end “indiscriminate cuts that will cause lasting harm to FDA’s public health mission” and to protect the agency’s statutory obligations.

The U.S. FDA hasn’t taken up criminal justice as a sideline, but it did just clear Sonio Suspect. Far from a social miscreant, Suspect improves detection of fetal anomalies by 22 points by automatically detecting multiple types of abnormal findings and allows for detection as early as 11 weeks of gestation.

Though it’s been used off-label for more than three decades to treat cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis, Mirum Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s chenodiol gained an official U.S. FDA nod Feb. 21 as the first drug approved specifically for treating the rare autosomal recessive lipid storage disease.

The U.S. FDA approved 12 drugs in January, falling below the 2024 monthly average of 19. Only three new molecular entities received approval, trailing the yearly average of just over four per month.

In response to the news of reported layoffs at the U.S. FDA over the weekend, Advanced Medical Association president and CEO Scott Whitaker said in press release that these “significant job cuts could have a very negative impact on patient care in this country.”