“Nothing to see here” seems to be the general reaction to the four executive orders President Donald Trump signed Friday in an effort to reduce U.S. prescription drug prices. Two of the orders – one on importing drugs from Canada and the other on kicking the safe harbor out from under the rebates pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) get from drug companies – instruct Health and Human Services (HHS) to continue, or resume, rulemaking on those measures.

The question of screening for the COVID-19 pandemic continues to absorb the interest of both the U.S. FDA and test developers, and Tim Stenzel, director of the FDA’s Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiological Health (OIR), said in a July 22 webinar that the FDA is “very interested” in a fingerstick test at the point of care for screening purposes, adding that the agency sees any such applications as a priority.

Edwards Lifesciences Corp. reported better-than-expected results when it released its second quarter earnings late July 23, with revenue down 15% to $924 million, from $1.1 billion in the same period of 2019. The results beat Wall Street consensus of $797.5 million, and reflected an uptick in surgical procedures that had been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Irvine, Calif.-based company sustained a net loss of $121.9 million, or $0.20 per share, based on generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), a sharp drop from $242.3 million, or $0.38 per share, in the same quarter last year. However, adjusted earnings looked brighter at $0.34 per share.

Cancer treatment has been transformed, at its root, by a transformational change in how it is classified. Those successes have not escaped the notice of researchers in other areas of biomedicine, and diseases including heart failure, asthma and polycystic ovarian syndrome are being looked at with an eye to subdividing them in ways that brings diagnostics into the molecular era.

The support for permanent changes to Medicare coverage of telehealth has risen drastically in the months since the COVID-19 pandemic began, but Krista Drobac of Sirona Strategies said on a July 23 webinar that stakeholders will have to help make the case that telehealth is cost effective. That cost effectiveness argument may be absolutely crucial if any of the related legislative proposals are to stand up to budget scoring in a time of skyrocketing U.S. budget deficits, she said.

The U.S. government has charged two citizens of China with cybercrime in connection with purported hacking of research into vaccines for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but more than one speaker on a July 22 webinar said scientists involved in basic life science research at universities fail to appreciate the need for cybersecurity, a problem they may take with them to the private sector.

Robotic-assisted surgery-focused Intuitive Surgical Inc. revealed its second-quarter results late July 21, with worldwide Da Vinci procedures falling about 19% vs. the same period of 2019. Driven by this decline, second quarter 2020 instruments and accessories (I&A) revenue fell by 20% to $461 million, vs. $579 million in the second quarter of 2019.

The U.S. government will pay $1.95 billion to Pfizer Inc. and Biontech SE for the first 100 million doses of their jointly developed mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine once Pfizer manufactures it and receives the FDA’s approval or emergency use authorization. The two companies agreed, as part of Operation Warp Speed, to begin delivering 300 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine in 2021.

The alleged activities of two Chinese hackers outlined in a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday offer “concrete examples of two concerning trends,” U.S. Assistant Attorney General John Demers said, as U.S.-China relations further soured with the news of the charges.