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Delivered daily by 10 a.m., Pulse examines the latest news in health care politics and policy. | | | | |  | | By Daniel Payne and Krista Mahr | With Megan Wilson
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A major biopharmaceutical industry group's leader stepped down in part because of clashes with the board. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 'NO-WIN SITUATION’:' CLASHES WITH BOARD PART OF BIO CEO DEPARTURE — Michelle McMurry-Heath, hired to lead the Biotechnology Innovation Organization and serve as a change agent at the 30-year-old trade association, stepped down earlier this month — in part because of repeated clashes with a small group of influential executives on the board who thought she wasn’t going far enough on social and political issues, Megan reports . The turmoil at the industry group, which boasts more than 1,000 members in the biopharmaceutical and agriculture sectors, comes as Democrats are set to implement one of the most sweeping drug reform packages in the past decade and underscores the challenge of leading a large board with disparate policy goals and views about its mission. Megan talked with more than a dozen people — including current and former BIO staff, lobbyists and a health care executive — about the internal dynamics of the organization and the circumstances around McMurry-Heath’s unexpected resignation. They told her that while her abrupt departure surprised many, it was fueled by a complex mix of behind-the-scenes factors, including staffing and organizational changes — such as pandemic-driven layoffs that some acknowledge could have been handled better. But it was a few executives on BIO’s board who wanted the group to be more outspoken on issues, such as voting restrictions and abortion rights, and even Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that played a role in her departure, said six people with knowledge of the events. “This kind of all came to a head because you've got this group of CEOs — not all of them, but remember, these are the people that hired her — I really do believe that they wanted to turn BIO into a social change organization, in addition to being a trade association,” one of the six said. “She was in a no-win situation in that respect.” Ted Love, the vice chair of BIO’s board, called the description of a small number of CEOs having outsized influence — and McMurry-Heath’s departure coming as a result of disagreements with them — an apparent “misinformation campaign.” WELCOME TO FRIDAY PULSE. If you had trouble sleeping, you’ll be glad to learn of a new experiment that showed how a major piano chord could help reduce nightmares. Our sweet dream is for you to send tips and health news. Drop us a line at dpayne@politico.com and kmahr@politico.com . ON TODAY'S PULSE CHECK PODCAST, David Lim talks with Ruth Reader about the biggest takeaways from the MedTech conference in Boston this week. Plus, researcher Eric Bressman discusses a new study, which found that sending patients automated text messages after they’ve left the hospital can reduce their chances of readmission. Listen to today’s Pulse Check podcast .
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The ACT-Accelerator program now looks to handling Covid-19 in the post-pandemic world. | Diomande Ble Blonde/AP Photo | NEW THIS MORNING — The World Health Organization-backed program at the center of the pandemic response for the world’s poorest countries is shifting its focus to long-term, rather than emergency, priorities, POLITICO’s Carmen Paun reports. It’s another significant move among governments and international organizations to pivot to a post-pandemic world. "The pandemic may soon be over, but Covid-19 is here to stay,” a transition plan released Friday said. The program has been key in providing tests and vaccines, especially in places where the pandemic response was slowest. Around $24 billion, mostly from rich nations, has gone into the ACT-Accelerator program. While the program is shifting its focus, it isn’t going away. The group will maintain its structure to respond to any new variants and remain working to boost vaccination rates. In its new vaccination efforts, though, the program will focus on the highest-risk groups and meeting real-time country demand to reduce waste. More money will likely still be needed, about $386 million over the next six months — unless a new variant emerges that requires a larger response.
| | | | TUNE IN TO THE PULSE CHECK PODCAST: Keep your finger on the pulse of the biggest stories in health care by listening to our daily Pulse Check podcast. POLITICO’s must-listen briefing decodes healthcare policy and politics, and delivers reality checks from health professionals on the front lines. SUBSCRIBE NOW AND START LISTENING . | | | | | | | | TB’S PANDEMIC REBOUND — Tuberculosis deaths rose through the pandemic, believed to be linked to the public health focus shifting to Covid-19, POLITICO’s Grace Scullion reports. The increase in disease and death is a reversal in the decades-long trend in declining TB infection and mortality. The WHO report, released Thursday, estimated more than 10 million people contracted TB in 2021, with 1.6 million dying from the disease, up nearly 7 percentage points from 2020. Meanwhile, spending for TB services has decreased about $600 million since 2019, the report found. USAID’s new plan: As the WHO’s report was released, USAID announced a strategy to respond to the disease through 2030. The ambitious plan includes trying to reduce deaths from the disease by more than 50 percent by the end of the decade, as well as working to treat 90 percent of people diagnosed with TB. INDUSTRY WANTS IN ON EUROPE’S HEALTH DATA SPACE — Private companies are looking to become a significant part of the European Union’s Health Data Space, an information exchange meant to protect data and spur new research, POLITICO’s Ashleigh Furlong reports . Industry’s pitch to be a part of the space comes with requests for promises of intellectual property protections. But it also comes with concerns from regulators that data privacy and protection could be sacrificed if the space is not well-controlled.
| | | IF CONGRESS DOESN’T, THE FDA MIGHT — Top FDA officials are becoming more pointed in their warnings that if Congress fails to take action this year on an overhaul of regulation of diagnostics and laboratory-developed tests, the agency might pursue rulemaking instead. FDA Commissioner Robert Califf and Center for Devices and Radiological Health Director Jeff Shuren told top medtech executives in Boston this week that all options are on the table if what is known as the Verifying Accurate Leading-edge IVCT Development Act does not move forward. The VALID Act — included in an FDA user fee reauthorization package that the Senate HELP Committee advanced on a 13-9 vote in June — was left off a “skinny” user fee bill the Senate passed in a continuing resolution in September . That funding bill contained no amendments sought by the FDA and others, but there is hope the diagnostics regulation overhaul could be included in a year-end omnibus bill.
| | | IOWA JUDGE TO HEAR ABORTION CASE — A Polk County District Court judge is expected to hear arguments today over whether to lift the injunction on a state law prohibiting most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. State lawmakers passed the so-called “heartbeat bill” in 2018. Even though the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in 2019 there was a fundamental right to abortion under the due process and equal protection clauses of the state Constitution, and the heartbeat law was put on hold as a result of that ruling. Earlier this year, the state Supreme Court reversed part of that ruling, saying that while the state Constitution confers some protections for abortion, it is not a fundamental right. In response, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds filed a motion in August, asking the court to lift the injunction.
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The Biden administration said Thursday it's working to ensure equitable distribution of updated Covid-19 boosters. | Ted Jackson/AP Photo | TRYING TO AVOID A BOOSTER GAP — Biden officials said on Thursday that they are working to ensure that Covid-19 bivalent boosters are distributed equitably and have been making outreach to the communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. The effort is a plank of the federal government’s new Covid campaign. Inequitable access to vaccines and treatment persist across the government’s public health responses, even though the gaps were brought to light during the early days of Covid-19. A report released on Thursday in the CDC’s MMWR found that among nearly 700,000 Covid-19 patients who sought medical care from January to July 2022, Black and Hispanic patients were significantly less likely to get treated with the antiviral Paxlovid, with the largest gaps occurring among the elderly. Black 57- to 79-year-olds were 44 percent less likely to get Paxlovid, an important post-diagnosis treatment, than their white counterparts. Separate research published by the agency on Thursday found that since 2009, influenza vaccine coverage has been consistently lower among Hispanic, American Indian and Alaska Native, Black and other multiple-race communities than among White and non-Hispanic Asian adults. And in the ongoing monkeypox outbreak, out of the 931,155 doses of the Jynneos vaccine distributed as of Oct. 10, 51.4 percent were White, 12.6 percent were Black, and 22.5 were Hispanic, according to CDC data .
| | | Susan M. Huang has been named Chief Medical Officer at America’s Physician Group. Previously, she was the deputy chief medical officer for Aledade, a business that works with independent physicians’ offices with value-based care payment models. The lobbying and consulting firm Mercury announced Thursday that it had expanded its “multistate grassroots practice,” to be led by Robert Jones, formerly senior vice president of U.S. government relations and public affairs at Pfizer, and John Moffett, formerly of SPEAK Strategic, a South Carolina public affairs and communications firm.
| | | The New York Times’ Jan Hoffman writes about the tough choices OB-GYN residency programs face after the fall of Roe v. Wade. STAT’s Karen Pennar writes about the increasing pressure for the health industry to address pollution. Céline Gounder writes in the Atlantic about some of the problems with the current Covid booster strategy.
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