Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Judge Pushes Start Of Luigi Mangione’s Federal Trial To January
Luigi Mangione’s federal trial in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson will now begin in January instead of the fall, a judge said Monday at a hearing that started late because Mangione got stuck in a courthouse elevator. U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett said she was postponing the federal trial so Mangione’s lawyers can focus on his state murder trial, which is scheduled to begin on Sept. 8. Jury selection in the federal case will begin on Jan. 5, instead of Oct. 13, followed by opening statements and testimony on Jan. 25, instead of Nov. 4, Garnett said at a hearing in Manhattan. (Sisak, Neumeister and Peltz, 6/29)
More healthcare industry developments —
Carbon Health Technologies is the first company to be penalized under a beefed up California law prohibiting corporate practice of medicine. The San Francisco-based primary care and telehealth provider must reorganize the management structure of 54 clinics in California, which the state asserted are improperly controlled by a management services organization instead of physicians, state Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) announced Friday. (McAuliff, 6/29)
St. Louis jury has awarded a doctor who accused SSM Health system of sex discrimination and retaliation more than $6.8 million in wages and punitive damages. Dr. Deborah La Scola's 2024 complaint accused SSM of better compensating her male colleagues through emergency department on-call earnings and higher pay. (Bauman, 6/29)
Covista and Advocate Health are forming a partnership to funnel nursing graduates directly into Advocate’s hospitals through scholarships, clinical training and loan repayment assistance, with recruiting set to begin next month. The collaboration between the nation’s largest nurse educator and one of the Chicago-area’s largest providers is the latest in a series of moves to address a widening nursing shortage that has strained hospitals across the country. (6/29)
A law meant to end surprise medical billing has led to large paydays for some surgical assistants, who can earn far more than the doctors they help. (Sanger-Katz and Kliff, 6/29)
Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½Ò•îl Health News: He Dreamed Of Becoming A Physician Assistant. New Loan Rules May Thwart Him
Benjamin Pinckney, 46, has dreamed of becoming a physician assistant since just after his 20th birthday. He had been targeted by a drive-by shooter in Jacksonville, Florida, and hospitalized with two gunshot wounds. During his weeklong hospitalization, he said, a physician assistant changed the course of his life by visiting his hospital bed each day and warning him that Black men with gunshot wounds often end up paralyzed — or worse. (Sausser, 6/30)
Christopher O’Connor, CEO of Yale New Haven Health, is stepping down immediately, the system said Monday. Pamela Sutton-Wallace, president of Yale New Haven, will serve as interim CEO while the board conducts a search for O’Connor’s successor, the system said in a news release. O’Connor will serve as a special advisor to the board’s chair until a successor is named. (DeSilva, 6/29)
In pharmaceutical updates —
A clinical trial used to approve Amgen Inc.’s pill Tavneos was retracted Monday from the New England Journal of Medicine, putting the drug’s continued sales at risk. Two of the study’s authors requested the retraction, the journal said Monday. The journal cited a US Food and Drug Administration investigation that found the results of nine patients were changed after the study’s database was finalized and some researchers were unblinded, meaning they were told which patients got the experimental drug and which did not. (Swetlitz and Langreth, 6/29)
An insulin inhaler proved safe for treating children as young as 4 years old, improving satisfaction and reducing weight gain compared with those taking injected insulin, researchers from Johns Hopkins Hospital told The Baltimore Sun. (Hille, 6/29)
The FDA approved veligrotug (Lumvoa) for the treatment of thyroid eye disease (TED), regardless of disease activity or duration, Viridian Therapeutics announced on Friday. Veligrotug is the first treatment with labeling for the active and chronic forms of the disease, with trials showing a statistically significant effect on both diplopia response and complete resolution in both, according to the drugmaker. (Monaco, 6/29)
The FDA expanded the indications for risankizumab (Skyrizi) in plaque psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis to include treatment of children 6 years and older, AbbVie announced. (Ingram, 6/29)