The American Medical Association has posted the latest update to the current procedural terminology code set, which deletes more than 80 existing codes and adds nearly 290 new codes. Among the new codes are several for AI-assisted device services and several tweaks to codes for peripheral artery diseases, presenting a new batch of opportunities for device makers to obtain Medicare coverage for their offerings.
Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals Inc. has filed a request for regulatory clearance in New Zealand to initiate a phase I/IIa trial of ARO-MAPT, the company’s investigational RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutic being developed as a potential treatment for tauopathies, including Alzheimer’s disease.
Health Canada posted a report on reduction of red tape, which includes a proposal for mutual recognition of other regulators’ inspections of device and drug manufacturing facilities.
It took a memo from the president for the U.S. FDA to begin reining in direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising with its feel-good messaging and hurried recitation of a few serious adverse events.
When it won U.S. FDA accelerated approval more than eight years ago, Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s Ocaliva (obeticholic acid) was viewed as a breakthrough, becoming the first new treatment in 20 years for rare, progressive liver disease primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) and, for several years, the only second-line treatment for PBC patients failing to respond to ursodeoxycholic acid. More recently, however, Ocaliva has faced regulatory and safety stumbles, with Intercept now voluntarily pulling the farnesoid X receptor activator from the U.S. market.
The debate around the U.S. 340B prescription drug discount program is once again heating up in court and in Congress. A day after the American Hospital Association called on the FTC and Department of Justice to investigate alleged antitrust issues with the rebate models a few drug companies have proposed, some members of Congress raised concerns Sept. 9 about how providers are abusing the program. Meanwhile, a U.S. appellate court heard arguments that same day on whether states can speak in the silence of the federal law that created the program more than 30 years ago.
Physician ownership of medical device manufacturers can be tricky stuff where the Anti-Kickback Statute is concerned, but the Office of Inspector General recently declared it had no problem with one such arrangement due to the physician’s ratio of ownership of the company.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a recent report that the Medicare national coverage determination process could use a few adjustments, but the report also pointed to significant resource problems associated with the process, a source of drag that only Congress can fix.
Speaking at a Sept. 9 media briefing on the newly released Make America Healthy Again Strategy, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy confirmed what could be the worst fears of many vaccine experts.
The U.S. FDA issued new guidance for the development of non-opioid analgesics for chronic pain indications, with specific details on trial design, patient populations and meaningful outcomes, including reducing the nation’s reliance on opioids.
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