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Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) sued the U.S. government on Tuesday, becoming the latest drugmaker seeking to block a program that gives the Medicare government health insurance plan the power to negotiate lower drug prices. The pharmaceutical industry says the drug price negotiation program under President Joe Biden's signature Inflation Reduction Act law will curtail profits and compel drugmakers to curb development of groundbreaking new treatments. (7/18)

“The IRA breaks the agreement at the heart of the patent and regulatory laws: when companies invest and succeed at developing innovative new treatments, they are awarded time-limited and constitutionally protected rights in their innovation,” J&J said in its release. (Choi, 7/18)

Biden administration officials asked executives from major drug and retail chains to counter stiff opposition from the pharmaceutical industry and help promote a law intended to lower drug costs. (Griffin, 7/18)

After acute health problems that kept her away from Washington for months earlier this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein is now engaged in a legal effort to gain more control of the finances from her late husband’s trust. The 90-year-old senator filed a petition asking a court to make her daughter, Katherine Feinstein, a successor trustee of Richard Blum’s trust, arguing that the people serving as trustees “have refused to make distributions to reimburse Senator Feinstein’s medical expenses.” (Oreskes, 7/18)

The Biden administration is taking steps to impose a 10-year ban on funding for the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Chinese research laboratory at the center of a heated debate over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a memo made public by a House subcommittee on Tuesday evening and an official familiar with the issue. (Gay Stolberg, 7/18)

The Biden administration formally halted the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s access to US funding, citing unanswered safety and security questions for the facility at the center of the Covid lab leak theory. The Department of Health and Human Services notified the institute about the suspension on Monday and told the lab it’s seeking to cut it off permanently, according to a memo obtained by Bloomberg News. An HHS review that started in September raised concern that the facility based in Wuhan, where Covid first emerged, is violating biosafety protocols and isn’t complying with US regulations. (Griffin, 7/18)

Citing whistleblower testimony, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is holding up the nominee to the No. 2 position at the VA, he said Tuesday on the Senate floor. Grassley has said that Tanya Bradsher, the VA’s chief of staff, failed to properly oversee a correspondence system that Grassley believes mishandled veterans’ personal health information. (Leonard, 7/18)

Senate health committee Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) added three drug shortage measures to a pandemic-preparedness bill that his committee will consider Thursday. Only one of them, however, would grant the Food and Drug Administration new authorities to tackle the issue. Congress is under pressure to stem drug shortages amid reports of doctors rationing chemotherapies and other essential medicines. (Wilkerson, 7/18)

Senators will likely attach a measure to crack down on opioid trafficking and a provision that would require banking regulators to report on their use of artificial intelligence to the National Defense Authorization Act, according to a near-final manager’s agreement viewed Tuesday. (Mueller, 7/18)

Medicaid is an essential source of maternal and postpartum care for low-income Americans, covering 42% of births in the U.S. People who give birth receive maternity care until at least two months after delivery, or longer depending on state or local policies. But many immigrants don’t have access to this coverage, making them more vulnerable to maternal health problems, as highlighted by a new study of nearly 73,000 postpartum people across 19 states and New York City between 2012 and 2019. (Merelli, 7/18)

Border Patrol does not have protocols for assessing medical needs of children with preexisting conditions, according to an independent report made public Tuesday on the death of an 8-year-old girl from Panama who was in federal custody. The girl’s death was “a preventable tragedy that resulted from” failures in “medical and custodial systems for children” within U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency that includes the Border Patrol, the report found. (Cruz and Gonzalez, 7/19)

Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.) discussed the U.S.’s rapidly aging population and its potential strain on Medicare during a Tuesday morning event. Sánchez referred to the growing population of Americans more than 65 years old as a “gray tsunami” during The Hill’s More than Memory Loss: Caring for those with Alzheimer’s event, sponsored by Otsuka. Bob Cusack, The Hill’s editor in chief, moderated the event. (Kelly, 7/18)

Victims of opioid addiction are objecting to the U.S. government’s request to send Purdue Pharma’s pending bankruptcy plan for review before the Supreme Court, which would delay long-awaited disbursements under a $6 billion settlement for addiction victims and state governments. (Saeedy, 7/18)

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