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On May 15, 2018, the Federal Circuit in In re BigCommerce issued an order in response to writs of mandamus seeking dismissal and transfer.  Nos. 2018-120, 2018-122, 2018 WL 2207265 (Fed. Cir. May 15, 2018).  The panel ruled that for purposes of the patent venue statute (28 U.S.C. View Full Post
UWMC hit for a third consecutive year A patient has contracted Legionnaires’ disease while undergoing treatment for cancer at the University of Washington Medical Center (UWMC), the third consecutive year that the deadly respiratory illness has hit the hospital. The news comes less than a year after the death of a woman in her 20s who contracted Legionnaires’ while a patient at the hospital. View Full Post
On Thursday, May 17, the House Energy and Commerce Committee (E&C) cleared 32 additional opioid-related measures during its second markup on the issue. In total, E&C has now advanced 57 bills to combat the opioid overdose crisis. While most measures were easily approved on a bipartisan basis, committee members disagreed over a number of bills related to expanding buprenorphine prescribing authorities, lifting a decades old ban on Medicaid payments for mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) residential treatment facilities with more than 16 beds, and permitting physicians to more easily access and share medical records related to patients’ SUD therapies. View Full Post
As previously reported, the Trump Administration has released its “Blueprint to Lower Drug Prices and Reduce Out-of-Pocket Costs.”  Many of the recommendations in the Blueprint were previously made in President Trump’s fiscal year 2019 budget proposal, while numerous others are framed as open-ended questions rather than policies.  View Full Post
The Report to Congressional Committees of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (“GAO Report”), required under the 21st Century Cures Act, came out about a month earlier than required, but this early bird failed to catch what continues to be a wriggling worm – what can a covered entity charge for these copies? View Full Post
On Friday, May 11, 2018, President Trump vowed to fix “the injustice of high drug prices” by announcing the “Blueprint to Lower Drug Prices” (the Blueprint) to address the following challenges: Excessively high drug prices Seniors and government programs overpaying for drugs High out-of-pocket costs for consumers Lack of transparency in drug pricing Free-riding by foreign nations as to US investment in innovation This piece provides analysis of the Blueprint and its proposed reforms.  View Full Post