| | | |   | Good morning and happy Thursday, D.C. Diagnosis readers. Before we get to the news of the day, I’ve got some incredible STAT news — Sarah Owermohle is joining STAT and will soon be my new D.C. Diagnosis co-author! She’s likely a familiar name to many of you, as she’s been a formidable competitor of ours over at Politico for the last four years. We’re over the moon she’s joining the team here. Be sure to follow her on Twitter if you don’t already (if not, what are you doing?) and keep an eye out for her in your inbox soon. In the meantime, send your tips to rachel.cohrs@statnews.com while I hold down the fort. | | | Here’s who donated to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s campaign last quarter Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) will determine the fate of Democrats’ drug pricing plan (and the rest of President Biden’s domestic agenda), which the Senate could take up as soon as this week. So it’s worth noting the pharmaceutical industry has recently funneled a sizable chunk of campaign contributions her way.
Sinema was a key figure in brokering the drug pricing plan in the first place. There’s no indication she has any qualms about Democrats’ plans for now, but it’s unclear whether the substantial changes that could be required by the Senate parliamentarian could change her calculus.
Drug makers’ PACs contributed a collective $22,000 to Sinema last quarter, according to new federal filings. The donations came from Alkermes, Alexion, Gilead, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Horizon Therapeutics, Lundbeck, Genentech, Eli Lilly, Amgen, and PhRMA.
Another intriguing $2,800 donation came from Jeff Ricchetti. He has many clients in diverse industries including Amazon and General Motors, but he’s also registered to lobby for several drug makers and PhRMA, according to lobbying disclosures. STAT readers may remember that back in the fall, Sinema clinched the drug pricing deal on a phone call with his brother, top White House aide Steve Ricchetti.
Interestingly, pro-industry figures weren’t the only notable donors. John and Laura Arnold, a billionaire couple who have dedicated time and treasure to advancing drug pricing reform in innovative ways, gave Sinema $11,600 last quarter. | Drug pricing bill still stuck in parliamentary purgatory  Even though the text of Democrats’ latest drug pricing plan was released almost a month ago, there’s still another Byrd Bath meeting coming up for the committee with authority over Democrats' drug pricing plan, two Senate aides told STAT.
That means more waiting, and creates the possibility there will be significant, last-minute changes to the drug pricing legislation right before Democrats are supposed to vote on it.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) confirmed in a news conference Tuesday that Democrats are trying to insert $35 monthly out-of-pocket caps for insulin in both Medicare and the commercial market. It’s dicey whether the commercial market cap would survive a challenge from Republicans. | STAT E-Book: How technology shapes patient experiences Our latest e-book underscores the vast range of technologies that are shaping how patients find and receive health care, from smartphone apps to deliver therapy and bedside bots to channel medication requests to new tools to collect real-world data and wearable watches to detect heart health. These stories illustrate the exciting advances being made on these technologies and highlight the challenges to their broader adoption. Download now. | The Biden administration’s unused weapon against monkeypox As vaccine supply for monkeypox dwindles and demand spikes, there’s another medicine the federal government could potentially use to fight the outbreak that’s still in limbo.
The FDA has approved two different antivirals for smallpox, but the federal government only has stock of one of them for use for monkeypox. The other one, a drug called Tembexa, was approved in June 2021, but BARDA is still in negotiations to buy up to 1.7 million doses of the medicine. The CDC is developing an expanded access investigational new drug protocol for Tembexa as a treatment for monkeypox.
The antiviral’s manufacturer, Chimerix, has already manufactured some doses of Tembexa. The company will be positioned to begin delivering doses to the Strategic National Stockpile as soon as the contract is signed, a Chimerix spokesperson said. Then, once the contract is signed, a deal would likely close to sell the drug to Emergent BioSolutions. | A new job for Rachel Levine HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine is going to be the Biden administration’s new long Covid coordinator, the agency announced Wednesday.
The announcement and release of two reports on the agency’s vision for long Covid research are part of a plan the administration announced in April, following scathing criticism from patients about the slow pace of research.
Another tidbit from the research plan: Clinical trials for therapeutics are expected to begin by the end of this year. | A win and a loss for hospitals this week Medicare released its much-anticipated final inpatient payment rule this week, and STAT’s dynamic duo of business reporters, Bob Herman and Tara Bannow, have the stories on a big win and a smaller loss for the hospital indutsry.
The win: Hospitals won a significant pay boost. Medicare had originally planned on giving hospitals a 3.2% increase, but ultimately upped it to 4.3% after a lobbying campaign from the sector. It’s the biggest increase in 25 years.
The loss: Medicare will continue to disclose hospital safety data next year, reversing a plan to keep some information under wraps. Medicare officials had said the safety data would be skewed by the Covid-19 pandemic, but pushback from safety advocates convinced the government to publish it anyway. | What we're reading - Eli Lilly’s Covid-19 antibody treatment to be sold commercially, The Wall Street Journal
- The trust-builder: a cancer center director’s try-it-all strategy for breaking the barriers between research and Black patients, STAT
- How Kansas became a bellwether for abortion rights, The Washington Post
- U.S. appeals court panel decides AbbVie’s ‘patent thickets’ for Humira don’t thwart competition, STAT
- Citing a mental health crisis among young people, California lawmakers target social media, Kaiser Health News
| Thanks for reading! More next week,  | | | |
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