Policy
Senator Bill Cassidy voted with fellow Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday morning to move forward the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for HHS secretary.
FEATURED STORIES
A recent study estimated that Wegovy’s label expansion beyond obesity could push Medicare spending to $145 billion annually, but analysts remain dubious of the estimate.
Eli Lilly this week announced plans to sell single-dose vials of its weight loss drug Zepbound directly to consumers. Novo Nordisk could adopt a similar strategy for Wegovy as its CEO is set to testify Sept. 24 before the Senate health committee.
Congress, the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office are all targeting Big Pharma’s practice of filing multiple, overlapping patents that stifle generic and biosimilar competition.
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Currently, Eli Lilly’s GLP-1 drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound (tirzepatide) are not on the FDA’s shortage list but compounded pharmacies are still making them. That’s unprecedented.
Career conservative and former congressman Dave Weldon will, if confirmed, act as director of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, where his anti-vaccine views will mesh with those of selected Department of Health and Human Services head Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
RFK Jr. as HHS head is perhaps President-elect Donald Trump’s most controversial Cabinet pick now that Matt Gaetz has withdrawn as nominee for Attorney General. With Dr. Oz tapped to lead CMS and maybe Marty Makary at the FDA, it’s going to be quite the show.
Makary is a pancreatic surgeon at Johns Hopkins who became known for battling medical mistakes and in recent years has been an outspoken critic of COVID-19 policies.
The selection of controversial TV personality Mehmet Oz to run the agency overseeing Medicare and Medicaid follows Trump’s pick of RFK Jr. to run its parent department, HHS.
While the full impact of the Supreme Court decision remains unknown, the new regulatory landscape could be a net positive for drug developers.
Trump’s HHS pick, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is an anti-vaccine campaigner who has previously said that he plans to gut the FDA on allegations of corruption and reduce the NIH’s headcount.
Suggestions that the U.S. should emulate other countries on drug price controls or patents obscure how our present policies have allowed drug development to flourish.
Analyst reactions to Donald Trump’s election victory were mixed Wednesday, with potential positives including an FTC that is likely to be more friendly to M&A, and negatives including concerns about what role Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. might play in healthcare.