The Korea Biotechnology Industry Organization on Oct. 30 welcomed the bilateral trade deal between the U.S. and South Korea announced during U.S. President Donald Trump’s state visit alongside the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Gyeongju, South Korea.

The U.S. CMS has adopted an aggressive payment policy for skin substitutes in the Medicare physician fee schedule for 2026, although the payment rate is sufficiently higher than the agency had proposed to mollify some critics.

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) said in a new report that the U.S. Medicare program had overpaid a group of providers of durable medical equipment (DME) by nearly $23 million between 2018 and 2024, an amount that is a significant drop from prior years, but which OIG said calls for further reforms for the Medicare DME program.

The U.K. Medicines and Healthcare products Agency (MHRA) has committed to major reforms of how it regulates drugs for rare diseases, making it easier to run clinical trials and get approvals. The new rules will be published in full early in 2026 and come into effect later in the year, but following consultation with industry, academics and patients’ groups, the agency has released a position paper setting out its plans.

Uniqure NV is regrouping after a surprise switcheroo by the havoc-beset U.S. FDA regarding phase I/II studies with AMT-130 vs. external control in Huntington’s disease (HD) – news of which pushed down the Lexington, Mass.-based firm’s shares (NASDAQ:QURE) Nov. 3 by $33.40, a loss of 49%, at the closing price of $34.29.

The U.S. FDA once again has a leadership gap at the top of its drug center, which already has been ravaged this year by massive terminations, resignations and retirements of senior leaders. George Tidmarsh, a biopharma industry veteran who’s helmed CDER for a little more than three months, resigned effective immediately Nov. 2 after being placed on administrative leave two days earlier amid a Department of Health and Human Services probe.

John Crowley doesn’t worry about where his kids’ toys are made, but he told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that he does care where their medicines are made. His concerns, as a father and as president/CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, are becoming more urgent, he testified at an Oct. 29 HELP hearing on the future of biotech in the U.S.

The U.S. FDA has granted orphan drug designation to Dewpoint Therapeutics Inc.’s DPTX-3186, its first-in-class condensate modulator for the treatment of gastric cancer. The designation follows the recent opening of Dewpoint’s IND application for DPTX-3186 earlier in October, and is the first orphan designation ever granted to a condensate-modulating therapeutic.