Members of the National Security Advisory Board for Biosecurity emphasized the importance of finding alternative methods to answer the same research questions without taking on the risks inherent in some kinds of experimentation involving pandemic-potential pathogens (PPPs) at the board’s meeting Wednesday (Sept. 21).

Physician-led hospitals are pushing Congress to remove restrictions that hamper their expansion after a report they commissioned found hospitals that are owned or invested in by referring physicians performed better and offered more cost savings for Medicare than hospitals in general.

The House GOP laid out its “Commitment to America” agenda ahead of the November midterms and included saving and strengthening Medicare as one of its tenets -- while no details are included on what that might look like, some experts following the issue say the GOP could look to shore up Medicare Advantage rather than return to a push for premium support that has failed in the past.

FDA has tapped Ohio State University to evaluate the agency’s response to the opioid crisis, and recommend actions the agency can take based on existing and potentially new authorities, FDA chief Robert Califf announced earlier this week, coming three weeks after Califf unveiled the agency’s overdose prevention framework.

Diagnostic tests are essential to combating antimicrobial resistance (AMR), but developers face myriad challenges getting their tests through FDA, and the ones that do make it to market have to grapple with reimbursement issues, a panel of former FDA officials, academics and industry experts said during a Duke-Margolis webinar last week.