More than 52,000 individuals, lawmakers, institutions and other organizations have submitted comments on the White House Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) proposal to revise its Guidance for Federal Financial Assistance, which serves as a government-wide framework for administering grants, cooperative agreements and other forms of assistance.
Renewing hopes of restoring the rare pediatric disease priority review voucher (RPD PRV) program that expired at the end of 2024, the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 47-0 Sept. 17 to advance the Give Kids a Chance Act of 2025 (H.R. 1262), one of six pieces of legislation slated to move to the full U.S. House for consideration.
When it comes to the U.S. biopharma market, pricing seems to be the driving focus of most congressional conversations – and government contracts. Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ore., hit pause on that conversation at a June 11 House subcommittee hearing on the drug supply chain, when he asked if the U.S. is sacrificing security for price.
Despite the June 9 gutting of the U.S. CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, the Department of Health and Human Services said the committee’s June 25-27 meeting will continue as scheduled. But a new panel has yet to be named, and typically ACIP members have a lot of behind-the-scenes work to do before a meeting.
As the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services begins implementing its reorganization and reduction-in-force plan by sending out termination notices this week to 10,000 more employees across its agencies, top Democrats in Congress are demanding details about the plan.
The U.S. Congress is turning its attention, once again, to bipartisan pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) reforms, after efforts to rein in PBM practices died with the 118th Congress. With an eye on finally getting them passed, the House Energy and Commerce Committee kicked off the process with a Feb. 26 hearing that was supposed to be focused on the reform legislation the committee approved last year and follow-on legislation to rein in harmful PBM practices.
In what seems a replay of concerns about technetium shortages from the 2010s, a bipartisan group of members of the U.S. House Energy & Commerce Committee has called for a study of the availability of medical isotopes for U.S. citizens.
With all the criticism the U.S. NIH has been getting of late, it’s not surprising that yet another reform proposal for the research agency is brewing in Congress. In unveiling a proposed framework to reform the NIH, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) recognized the critical role the agency plays in life-saving medical research and innovation.
The U.S. FDA’s pending final rule for regulation of lab-developed tests has proven unusually controversial even for the FDA, but Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) stated in a March 21 hearing that congressional inaction has left the agency in an uncomfortable spot.
A committee of the U.S. House of Representatives met to review the Medicare coverage procedure for innovative drugs and devices, an event that seemed to gin up support for legislation that would help to streamline those processes. The problem for drug and device makers, however, may be that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
continues to labor under a flat appropriations picture that is eroding daily thanks to inflation.
