A few weeks ago, the odds of the deeply divided U.S. Congress passing drug pricing reforms that would allow direct Medicare negotiation seemed pretty slim. But those odds improved significantly July 6 when Senate Democrats reached a compromise on their version of the pricing provisions included in the Build Back Better bill, H.R. 5376, passed by the House last November.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) affirmed its proposed order to force Intersect ENT Inc., of Menlo Park, Calif., to divest itself of Fiagon AG before Dublin-based Medtronic plc., can complete its acquisition of Intersect. The announcement comes as no surprise, but serves as a reminder that the FTC is standing by previous threats to tightly control the mergers and acquisitions market in the U.S., a policy stance that has been duplicated in the European Union.

While the U.S. Congress struggles to patch together statutory restraints on prescription drug prices, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), with the FDA’s help, is taking steps to cut back the patent thickets some drug companies are using to ward off the competition that would bring those prices down.

Patent subject matter eligibility under Section 101 of the Patent Act has proven controversial for patents in the U.S. thanks in no small part to Supreme Court jurisprudence in cases such as Alice v. CLS Bank and Mayo v. Prometheus. In the latest development, the court has declined to hear the American Axle case, leaving many observers despairing of any chance of restoring a decent patent system for personalized medicine, companion diagnostics and even the use of artificial intelligence in drug development.

Physician-owned distributorships (PODs) were the subject of concern by medical device makers and members of Congress as long as a decade ago, and recent events would seem to justify some of those fears. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced July 1 that two owners of a POD have agreed to pay $1 million to settle claims that they paid kickbacks to other doctors to use medical devices supplied by the POD, the very kind of violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute that undergirded some of the earlier concerns about these business arrangements.

Patent subject matter eligibility under Section 101 of the Patent Act has proven controversial for patents in the U.S. thanks in no small part to Supreme Court jurisprudence in cases such as Alice v. CLS Bank and Mayo v. Prometheus. In the latest development, the Court has declined to hear the American Axle case, which some see as presenting an exceptionally low bar for subject matter eligibility, leaving many observers despairing of any chance of restoring a decent patent system for makers of in vitro diagnostics and other items that are among the mainstays of the medical device industry.

The U.S. FDA is hailing two revised draft guidances it released July 5 as “critical steps” toward implementing the electronic drug tracing requirements of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act.

A U.S. federal jury breathed new life into so-called pay-for-delay settlements when it found that a 2010 agreement between Endo International plc and Impax Laboratories LLC was procompetitive as it allowed Impax to launch its generic version of Opana ER, an opioid pain drug, before key patents expired.