The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) had covered transcarotid artery revascularization for patients at high risk of poor outcomes during carotid artery endarterectomy to correct for stenosis, but the agency recently expanded that patient population to those at standard surgical risk. The news was lauded by the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) as a solid development for patients, given that this procedure’s complication rates are in many instances lower than seen in conventional endarterectomy.
Medical device supply chain considerations became especially salient during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the U.S. FDA is interested in ensuring that supply chains do not hamper patient access going forward. However, Clayton Hall of the Medical Device Manufacturers Association (MDMA) said on a recent FDA webinar that device makers are sometimes at the mercy of their suppliers.
The U.S. FTC isn’t waiting to complete its investigation into potentially anticompetitive practices of pharmacy benefit managers to crack down on some of those schemes.
Instead of “Mother, may I” for COVID-19 vaccines for children 6 months through 5 years of age, the U.S. CDC is saying the correct response is “I should.” That was the recommendation June 18 from the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky wasted no time in endorsing the recommendation, which came just a day after the FDA authorized the vaccines from Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc.-Biontech SE for babies, toddlers and preschoolers.
Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp. launched T-Detect Lyme, a T-cell-based clinical test to detect immune response activated by Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterial species of spirochete that causes Lyme disease. The CLIA-validated laboratory-developed test (LDT) is meant to help diagnose early Lyme disease in adults showing signs and symptoms of the tick-borne illness.
The U.S. FDA is among the regulators that are taking account of the views of patients in medical device development and regulation, but artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are terra incognita for many, if not most patients. Rebekah Angove, vice president for patient experience and program evaluation at the Patient Insight Institute, told BioWorld that while some patients clearly want to know more about AI and ML, it is also clear that more than a certain amount of detail is more of a distraction than a help for most patients.
The U.S. FDA’s Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee took up the complicated matter of Acadia Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s sNDA for Nuplazid (pimavanserin) to treat hallucinations and delusions associated with Alzheimer’s disease psychosis (ADP).
Just days after U.S. FDA advisors unanimously backed use of both the Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc.-Biontech SE COVID-19 vaccines in children 6 months and older, the FDA has expanded emergency use authorizations for the products. Availability could follow as soon as June 21, after a meeting of the CDC’s ongoing Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, wraps up June 18.
What was billed as a U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing June 16 to get an update from top government health officials on the nation’s response to COVID-19 was, in reality, a concerted effort to get Republicans in the U.S. Senate to open the checkbook so the Biden administration could fill in the amount for more COVID-19 spending, Ranking Member Richard Burr (R-N.C.) charged as he concluded the hearing.
In keeping with the 21st Century Cures Act, the U.S. FDA issued a draft guidance describing a standards recognition program for regenerative medicine therapies at the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research that’s intended to facilitate the development of the therapies and reduce the regulatory burden.
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