Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
FDA Stays Order Banning Juul, For Now
The Food and Drug Administration issued an administrative stay Tuesday on the order it issued last month for vaping company Juul to pull its electronic cigarettes from the market. The agency said on Twitter that the stay temporarily suspends the marketing denial order while it conducts further review, but does not rescind it. (7/6)
In updates on the opioid crisis —
A trial in a lawsuit accusing three major U.S. drug distributors of causing a health crisis throughout West Virginia was postponed Tuesday, a day after the companies prevailed in another case in the state. Attorneys who represented Cabell County and the city of Huntington on the losing end of a verdict announced in federal court Monday were granted a continuance of a trial a day later in Kanawha County Circuit Court. The trial involves more than 100 other cities and counties statewide against the same defendants: AmerisourceBergen Drug Co., Cardinal Health Inc. and McKesson Corp. (Raby, 7/5)
In other scientific developments —
"There's nothing that's put a dent in it," said Dr. Eric Tran, a research scientist at the Earle A. Chiles Research Institute, the research arm of Providence Cancer Institute in Portland, Oregon. "We need a big breakthrough for sure," added Dr. Robert Vonderheide, who directs the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. But for the first time in his career, Vonderheide is convinced one will come soon. (Weintraub, 7/6)
Released in late May, the waterproof $950 band is the product of Gucci’s first collaboration with wearable tech maker Oura, which introduced its first generation of the ring in 2015. The Gucci ring uses the same platform and technology as Oura’s $299 third-generation version, released last year, but comes with a perk—a lifetime membership to Oura’s health-tracking app that usually costs $5.99 a month. (Abrams, 7/5)
What happens when you CRISPR people? Few questions generated more contentious discussion in biotech in the mid-2010s, as researchers and executives debated the relative merits of preclinical studies that pointed both to the new gene-editing tool’s potential to cure numerous diseases and its potential to cause unintended genetic damage. (Mast, 7/6)
An intra-state bidding war has broken out for the chance to house the headquarters of a multibillion-dollar new science agency aimed at curing major diseases — before the agency's structure has even been finalized by Congress. (Hurt, 7/6)
