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Presented by PhRMA: Delivered daily by 10 a.m., Pulse examines the latest news in health care politics and policy. | | | | | |  | | By Adam Cancryn and Sarah Owermohle | Presented by |  | | | With Alice Miranda Ollstein and Susannah Luthi Editor’s Note: Morning PULSE is a free version of POLITICO Pro Health Care's morning newsletter, which is delivered to our s each morning at 6 a.m. The POLITICO Pro platform combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day’s biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro. | | | — The Biden administration's support for waiving coronavirus vaccine patents shocked progressives and drugmakers, both of whom had been lobbying on the issue for weeks. — State and federal officials are worried the low vaccine uptake in parts of the country could make it easier for more virulent coronavirus variants to emerge. — Moderna is focused on the variant threat, too, and a Covid booster shot now going through trials could be the answer. WELCOME TO THURSDAY PULSE — where our thoughts are with the family and friends of Pia Christensen, a champion of health journalism who "was at the heart" of the Association of Health Care Journalists for the last decade-and-a-half. Her memorial page can be found here. | | | | A message from PhRMA: Americans don’t need another barrier to their medicines. We have to lower what patients pay for their medicines. We also have to make sure they are getting the medicines they need. H.R.3 forces a choice between one or the other, but there’s a way to do both. Get the facts at phrma.org/betterway. | | | | | | WAIVE THOSE PATENT PROTECTIONS GOODBYE — U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced Wednesday that the White House backs the waiver of patent and other intellectual property protections for coronavirus vaccines, in a surprise move that lays the groundwork for expanding production of the shots worldwide, POLITICO’s Doug Palmer reports. The U.S. will still need to negotiate the terms of the waiver at the World Trade Organization, and it could take months to reach an agreement. But supporters of rolling back the patent protections hailed the U.S.’ stance as a precedent-setting blow to the pharmaceutical industry’s hold on Covid vaccines and a sign the White House is committed to leading the global vaccination effort. “Today’s announcement is proof that as a nation, we care more about saving lives and helping poorer nations than we do about corporate greed and profits,” nine House Democrats who had earlier lobbied Biden officials for the waiver said in a statement. Indeed, the move puts Biden sharply at odds with the drug industry, which warned that patent waivers could discourage companies from developing drugs to fight future pandemics. PhRMA called it “an unprecedented step that will undermine our global response” — one that an industry source told PULSE was made more infuriating by the fact the administration didn’t give vaccine-makers a heads up about its decision. “The men and women at these companies have been working night and day against the pandemic, and no one in this administration had the decency to tell them they were about to get screwed,” the source said. Some prominent health officials, including Trump-era FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb and Luciana Borio, who was briefly considered to be Biden’s FDA chief, also voiced opposition. Even Biden’s chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, warned there would be little immediate impact in a POLITICO interview Wednesday, though he still approved suspending the patents. Still, the waiver support makes good on one of Biden’s campaign pledges. And perhaps more significantly, it tracks with the administration’s insistence that nothing is off the table when it comes to what Fauci termed the U.S.’s “moral obligation” to end the pandemic worldwide. THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE — State and federal officials fear low vaccination rates throughout the South and parts of the mountainous West will prolong the pandemic and increase the risk of a new strain developing that can sicken vaccinated people, POLITICO’s Dan Goldberg and Alice Miranda Ollstein report. It’s a dark undercurrent amid an otherwise optimistic time in the U.S., as governors loosen restrictions, end public health emergencies and allow a return to normalcy. While the Biden administration is confident enough in its overall progress to set a 70 percent vaccination goal by July 4, several states are still struggling to get even one-third of their populations vaccinated. That means the virus could persist for months across significant portions of the U.S., allowing it the opportunity to continually mutate. Several variants have already emerged, though the vaccines have luckily proven effective against all of them so far. More immediately, these lagging vaccination rates are widening the public health disparities that already exist within the U.S. Alabama and Mississippi, for example, rank near the bottom in vaccine uptake — and also consistently rank near the bottom in the overall health of their citizens. | | | | SUBSCRIBE TO "THE RECAST" TODAY: Power is shifting in Washington and in communities across the country. More people are demanding a seat at the table, insisting that politics is personal and not all policy is equitable. The Recast is a twice-weekly newsletter that explores the changing power dynamics in Washington and breaks down how race and identity are recasting politics and policy in America. Get fresh insights, scoops and dispatches on this crucial intersection from across the country and hear critical new voices that challenge business as usual. Don't miss out, SUBSCRIBE . Thank you to our sponsor, Intel. | | | | | | | | MODERNA’s VACCINE BOOSTERS SHOW PROMISE — A booster shot designed to target key variants has preliminarily proven successful in protecting previously vaccinated people against more infectious problematic strains of the virus, Sarah reports. The company announced Wednesday that an early study found the variant-targeting formula was more effective than the original vaccine against new strains, but both raised antibody levels and appeared just as safe as its initial version of the Moderna shot. That’s an encouraging signal, as scientists race to counter emerging variants. Moderna’s modified vaccine was specifically designed to protect against the B.1.351 variant first found in South Africa. CLOSING THE COVID THERAPY GAP — The U.S. is hitting record milestones to vaccinate millions of Americans, but has made comparatively little progress on treatments aimed at curbing the worst cases of Covid once symptomatic infection has occurred. That’s set to change, Fauci said Wednesday. “We're really putting in a considerable amount of resources in the same approach that we took to the direct acting, antiviral, targeted development of drugs that we did with HIV,” he said. “There is no reason why we can't do the same exact thing for SARS-CoV-2.” — Why it matters: Herd immunity is an elusive concept, especially with a mutable virus. “If we wind up getting a low level of infection in the community and it never really disappears, we're going to want to treat people as soon as they get a symptom to prevent them from being hospitalized,” said Fauci. But there are vanishingly few Covid-19 therapies on the market, and none to treat mild illness before someone needs clinical care. One widely available steroid only works against inflammation seen in serious cases, and Gilead’s remdesivir is a multi-day infusion, making it impractical outside of hospital settings. — Appili Therapeutics is slated to share interim results for a late-stage trial of a potential early Covid treatment in roughly a week. The company hasn’t brought a product to market before, but is relying on the antiviral’s flu benefits. Early trials in other countries haven’t proven conclusive. “We’re not breaking new ground here,” Appili CEO Armand Balboni told PULSE, noting the drug’s long and generic history. But most research has focused on patients who are already ill, when antivirals are typically used to prevent the disease from progresssing. DEMOCRATS TRY TO FEND OFF E-LABELING RESTRICTIONS — Twenty House members are urging appropriators not to prevent the FDA from allowing drug prescribing information to be sent to providers and pharmacists digitally, rather than in paper form. The bipartisan group, led by Reps. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), argued greater digital labeling would reduce the environmental toll of paper prescription inserts, and be readily adopted by providers already familiar with the use of electronic health records. | | | |   | | | | | | TODAY: HOUSE PANEL EXAMINES BLACK MATERNAL MORTALITY — A House Oversight Committee hearing this morning will focus on policies to address disproportionately high rates of maternal mortality among Black Americans, Alice writes. Four Black lawmakers — Democratic Reps. Lauren Underwood of Illinois, Cori Bush of Missouri, Alma Adams of North Carolina and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts — will testify alongside medical experts and patient advocates on an issue that committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) will call “a legacy of systemic racism and the mistreatment of Black people,” per prepared remarks. | | | | DON'T MISS OUT ON OUR NEW PLAYBOOK DEEP DIVE PODCAST: Washington is full of whispers, colorful characters and little-known back stories that even D.C. insiders might not know. Playbook Deep Dive is a new, weekly podcast that pulls back the curtain on the stories behind the power. From Congress and the White House to bar stools and backrooms, POLITICO's top reporters and Playbook authors bring you the most compelling and confounding stories that explain what’s really going on in Washington. SUBSCRIBE NOW. | | | | | | | | POLL: HALF OF AMERICANS FEAR RISING HEALTH COSTS — Some 53 percent of Americans say health care costs are rising to the point they’ll become unaffordable, according to a new Gallup poll conducted for the advocacy group West Health. A similar proportion — 52 percent — think the same about prescription drugs, POLITICO’s Susannah Luthi reports. Democrats are now weighing pushing on with a drug pricing overhaul, yet they have largely ignored rising prices in hospitals and throughout the rest of the nation’s nearly $4 trillion health system. Even so, the polling suggests eventually addressing those areas could prove popular — roughly three-quarters of respondents backed policies like price caps for hospitals in places where health systems don’t have competition, a percentage in line with the support for negotiating drug prices. | | | Tobacco giant Phillip Morris names a new CEO. Jacek Olczak officially took over as head of the company on Wednesday, following three years as chief operating officer. | | | | A message from PhRMA: Americans don’t need yet another barrier to their medicines. Especially now. Now is the time for us to rethink how we get the medicines we need. But there are right ways and wrong ways. While it may sound good on paper, H.R.3 would threaten patients’ access to treatments, put nearly a million American jobs at risk and jeopardize current and future medical innovation – all while failing to address the broader challenges facing America’s health care system.
We have to lower what patients pay for their medicines. We also have to make sure patients are getting the medicines they need. There’s a way to do both, but H.R.3 isn’t it. Get the facts at phrma.org/betterway. | | | | | | A massive data breach of psychotherapy clinic Vastaamo exposed patients’ personal information — and the private notes their therapists had taken about them, Wired’s William Ralston writes. The Atlanta Braves will offer in-stadium vaccinations during a pair of games this weekend, and also give away free tickets to those who get the shot, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Tim Tucker reports. German drug maker CureVac could soon become the latest to successfully develop a Covid vaccine, The New York Times’ Carl Zimmer reports.
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