Medicovestor Inc.’s Adobind MC-001 has been awarded orphan drug designation by the FDA for the treatment of pancreatic cancer. Adobind MC-001 is a chemoimmunotherapy antibody-drug conjugate that integrates proprietary enhancements to antibody structure, payload delivery and tumor engagement.

Two med-tech companies focused on pulmonary embolism overcame their own blockages to commercialization this week. Inquis Medical Inc.’s Aventus thrombectomy system received U.S. FDA clearance for use in pulmonary embolism, an expanded indication, while Penumbra Inc. completed enrollment in the STORM-PE clinical trial of its Lightning Flash device.

The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services finalized a coverage policy for at-home ventilation for patients with chronic respiratory failure. The amended policy also establishes a series of criteria for coverage of ventilation for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

It appears the U.S. FDA believes it’s never a bad time to release regulatory information about devices granted market access via the de novo program. The agency recently posted information on the vintage de novo granted in 2018 to Imagen Technologies Inc. for the company’s Osteo Detect algorithm.

The 17 members abruptly terminated June 9 from the U.S. CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) are not going gently into the night. Instead, they’re raging against what could be the dying of the light. The 17 raised their collective voices in a June 16 JAMA opinion piece to decry what’s at stake with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy’s efforts, in his words, to “reestablish public confidence in vaccine science” by cleansing ACIP of what he claimed were conflicts due to members’ financial ties to industry.

Following a complete response letter issued last October over CMC issues, CSL Behring LLC gained U.S. FDA approval June 16 of its humanized anti-factor XIIa monoclonal antibody, garadacimab (CSL-312), to prevent hereditary angioedema attacks.

MBX Biosciences Inc. has submitted an IND application to the FDA for MBX-4291, a long-acting glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1)/ glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) receptor co-agonist prodrug for the treatment of obesity.

Medicare Advantage plans have been controversial for several reasons, and the Advanced Medical Technology Association has now made the argument that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services should require these plans to replicate the terms of the Medicare new technology add-on program.