Policy & Compliance
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February 20, 2025
Drug Buyers Get OK On $275M Sandoz Antitrust Settlement
Swiss drugmaker Sandoz and its subsidiaries will pay consumers, insurers and other "end payer plaintiffs" $275 million to settle class action claims that it conspired with other companies to fix the price of certain generic drugs, under a deal that got preliminary approval from a Pennsylvania federal court Wednesday.
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February 19, 2025
Contractors' Group Asks DC Judge To Halt Gutting Of USAID
A group representing U.S. citizen personal services contractors working for the U.S. Agency for International Development is the latest to ask a federal judge to step in and block the Trump administration's push to gut the agency and its operations.
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February 19, 2025
Judge Probes Vagueness In Suit Over Trump's Anti-DEI Orders
A Baltimore federal judge on Wednesday pressed a U.S. Department of Justice attorney to spell out what would constitute so-called illegal DEI under Trump administration executive orders that aim to root out diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the public and private sectors.
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February 19, 2025
Michigan Expert Defends State's Abortion Counseling Law
Michigan kicked off its defense of a waiting period and mandatory counseling requirements for abortions Wednesday with a physician's testimony that abortion seekers should receive information about parenting and adoption before undergoing the procedure.
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February 19, 2025
Judge Won't Halt PBM Case Over Attack On FTC Independence
A Missouri federal judge refused to temporarily block the Federal Trade Commission's in-house case accusing pharmacy benefits managers of artificially inflating insulin prices through unfair rebate schemes, rejecting the PBMs' claims that the Trump administration's attempt to eliminate safeguards protecting FTC members from at-will presidential removal favors their attempt to stop the case.
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February 19, 2025
LA Gardasil Trial Against Merck Bagged After 3 Weeks
A Los Angeles state court trial over the alleged dangers of Merck & Co. Inc.'s human papillomavirus vaccine Gardasil was abruptly called off after three weeks of testimony, with a new panel of jurors slated to hear the case next fall instead.
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February 19, 2025
Local 11 Must Pay Health Fund's Atty Fees In Sanctions Fight
An Illinois federal judge on Tuesday granted attorneys' fees in connection with work to file a sanctions motion against a union local in a federal benefits lawsuit against their multiemployer union health fund but reduced the total grant to about half of what was requested.
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February 19, 2025
Feds Urge Justices To Undo 5th Circ. Preventive Care Ruling
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and other federal agencies urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a Fifth Circuit decision that members of a task force setting preventive services coverage requirements under the Affordable Care Act were unconstitutionally appointed, arguing the HHS secretary retained sufficient oversight.
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February 18, 2025
1st Circ. Backs Strict View Of Kickback Law In Blow To FCA
In an eagerly awaited ruling, the First Circuit on Tuesday said a major avenue for False Claims Act enforcement requires proof that kickbacks directly changed treatment decisions, a holding that creates a lopsided circuit split as well as significant challenges for the U.S. Department of Justice and the plaintiffs bar.
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February 18, 2025
Health Net Pays $11.25M To Settle Cybersecurity FCA Claims
Health Net and its parent Centene Corp. have reached an $11.25 million False Claims Act settlement to resolve allegations that the health plan administrator falsely certified compliance with cybersecurity requirements under a U.S. Department of Defense contract.
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February 18, 2025
Michigan's Top Doc Calls Informed Consent Law 'Cruel'
Michigan's chief medical executive testified that making abortion seekers review parenting information before terminating a pregnancy is manipulative and even harmful during a trial over the viability of several Michigan laws regulating abortion care.
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February 18, 2025
Trump's Sweeping Healthcare Cuts Sow Confusion, Concern
In recent days, the Trump administration has started to fire thousands of federal health employees, kicking off what is expected to be the first of a series of terminations set to shape the future of healthcare in the U.S.
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February 18, 2025
Utah Trans Care Law Stirs Legal Doubt On Informed Consent
Language in a new Utah law that allows minors receiving gender-affirming care to later revoke informed consent and retroactively sue clinicians could undermine treatment for patients and spill over into other forms of healthcare, researchers say.
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February 18, 2025
Trump Issues Order Calling For Expanded IVF Access
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday giving his administration 90 days to develop policy recommendations designed to protect access to in vitro fertilization and sharply reduce out-of-pocket costs for IVF treatment.
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February 18, 2025
Trump Trans Order Is Unconstitutional 'End-Run,' Judge Says
A Washington federal judge has further explained her temporary block on President Donald Trump's executive order targeting funding for gender-affirming care for young people, saying the edict threatens a broad swath of congressionally approved research spending and "amounts to an end-run around the separation of powers."
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February 18, 2025
Feds Strike $29M Deal To Settle FCA Overpayment Claims
Healthcare system SVCMC Inc. will pay $29 million to resolve allegations it held onto erroneous overpayments for medical services provided to retired military members and their families, the U.S. Department of Justice has said.
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February 18, 2025
340B Rebate Clash Triggers 5 Suits By Drugmakers
The federal agency overseeing the 340B drug pricing program faces five distinct legal challenges by drugmakers that say the agency illegally blocked their plans to offer rebates rather than upfront discounts to participating hospitals.
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February 18, 2025
State AGs Can't Yet Block Musk From Accessing Agency Data
A Washington, D.C., federal judge on Tuesday denied a motion from 14 state attorneys general for an emergency order to stop Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency from accessing data systems at seven federal agencies or enacting mass firings of those agencies' employees.
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February 18, 2025
White House Says City Can't Show Harm From Anti-DEI Orders
The Trump administration urged a Maryland federal court Tuesday not to block its executive orders curtailing diversity, equity and inclusion programs, saying the city of Baltimore and other challengers hadn't shown any of their funding has been affected by the orders.
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February 18, 2025
FCA Claims Surge As Whistleblowers Eye Pandemic Spending
The historic influx of federal spending on pandemic relief and infrastructure projects helped fuel a record-breaking wave of whistleblower lawsuits launched under the False Claims Act last year, attorneys say, creating a surge in litigation unlikely to recede anytime soon.
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February 18, 2025
In Rare Move, Trump Backs Biden War On Medicare Brokers
Though the Trump administration has changed direction on a range of legal positions taken by the Justice Department under Biden, it appears to be staying the course on Biden's efforts to stop health insurance companies from paying agents to guide seniors to certain Medicare Advantage plans.
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February 18, 2025
Georgia Justices Revive Defamation Suit Against Atty
An orthopedic surgeon in Georgia will get another chance to prove he was defamed by a defense attorney, after the Supreme Court of Georgia found a state appellate court mistakenly used the well-known "actual malice" standard to toss the case instead of the relevant state law standard.
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February 18, 2025
Boston Children's Hospital Settles Retirement Plan Fee Suit
Boston Children's Hospital has settled a suit with a proposed class of participants in its $1.1 billion retirement plan who alleged the hospital allowed excessive fees.
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February 14, 2025
FTC's Ferguson, PBMs Agree: Nix Leader Removal Safeguards
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson offered his own support for enabling the president to readily fire independent agency commissioners at the FTC and beyond, a day after pharmacy benefit managers cited the new U.S. Department of Justice policy in their own battle with the FTC.
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February 14, 2025
Trump Admin To Cut Thousands Of Federal Health Employees
The Trump administration has started to cut thousands of federal healthcare employees, following through on its promises to shrink government and enact mass changes to agencies that oversee the health of millions of Americans.
Expert Analysis
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3 Healthcare FCA Deals Provide Self-Disclosure Takeaways
Several civil False Claims Act settlements of alleged healthcare fraud violations over the past year demonstrate that healthcare providers may benefit substantially from voluntarily disclosing potential misconduct to both the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, say Brian Albritton and Raquel Ramirez Jefferson at Phelps Dunbar.
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Takeaways From High Court's Tribal Health Admin Cost Ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court's recent determination that the government must reimburse two Native American tribes for administrative healthcare costs will help tribes maintain equal footing with the Indian Health Service when administering programs, and continues a pattern of how the current court aligns on tribal concerns, say attorneys at Lewis Roca.
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FTC Focus: Private Equity Investments In Healthcare
As the Federal Trade Commission is tightening its scrutiny of private equity investment in healthcare, the agency is finding novel grounds to challenge key focus areas, including rollup acquisitions, the flip-and-strip approach and minority investments in rival providers, say attorneys at Proskauer.
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High Court's Expert Ruling May Help Health Fraud Defendants
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Diaz v. U.S. appears to give the government a powerful new tool in calling its own agents as expert witnesses, but it could also benefit defense counsel in criminal healthcare fraud and other white collar criminal cases that arise in complex legal or regulatory environments, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.
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Unpacking HHS' Opinion On Cell Therapy Refund Programs
A recent advisory opinion from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, determining that a biopharma company's refund program for its cell therapy will not be penalized, indicates an encouraging willingness to engage, but the regulator's assumptions about the program's limited term warrant a closer look, says Mary Kohler at Kohler Health.
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DOJ Innovasis Settlement Offers Lessons On Self-Disclosure
The recent $12 million settlement with Innovasis and two of its executives demonstrates the U.S. Department of Justice's continued prioritization of Anti-Kickback Statute enforcement amid the growing circuit split over causation, and illustrates important nuances surrounding self-disclosure, say Denise Barnes and Scott Gallisdorfer at Bass Berry.
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How Orange Book Antitrust Scrutiny Is Intensifying
Pharmaceutical patent holders should be reviewing Orange Book listing practices, as the Federal Trade Commission takes a more aggressive antitrust approach with actions such as the Teva listing probe, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration calls attention to potentially improper listings, say attorneys at McDermott.
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After Chevron: Slowing Down AI In Medical Research
The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision overturning the Chevron doctrine may inhibit agencies' regulatory efforts, potentially slowing down the approval and implementation of artificial intelligence-driven methodologies in medical research, as well as regulators' responses to public health emergencies, say Ragini Acharya and Matthew Deutsch at Husch Blackwell.
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FDA's Multifaceted Role On Display In MDMA Therapy Scrutiny
Ongoing deliberations at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regarding MDMA-assisted therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder serves as a window into the intricate balance of scientific innovation and patient safety oversight, and offers crucial insights into regulatory nuances, say Kimberly Chew at Husch Blackwell and Kevin Lanzo at Pharmaka Clinical Consulting.
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Analyzing FDA Draft Guidance On Clinical Trial Diversity
In light of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's draft guidance on clinical trial diversity action plans, there are several important considerations for sponsors and clinical researchers to keep in mind to prevent delay in a drug or device application, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.
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In The CFPB Playbook: Making Good On Bold Promises
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision upholding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding structure in the second quarter cleared the way for the bureau to resume a number of high-priority initiatives, and it appears poised to charge ahead in working toward its aggressive preelection agenda, say Andrew Arculin and Paula Vigo Marqués at Blank Rome.
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Critical Questions Remain After High Court's Abortion Rulings
The U.S. Supreme Court's decisions in two major abortion-related cases this term largely preserve the status quo for now, but leave federal preemption, the Comstock Act and in vitro fertilization in limbo, say attorneys at Jenner & Block.
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Navigating FDA Supply Rule Leeway For Small Dispensers
As the November compliance deadline for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's new pharmaceutical distribution supply chain rules draws closer, small dispensers should understand the narrow flexibilities that are available, and the questions to consider before taking advantage of them, say attorneys at Faegre Drinker.