STAT

Join STAT for a LinkedIn Live conversation on November 12 at 1 pm ET, featuring chief Washington correspondent Rachel Cohrs Zhang, biotech startups and venture capital reporter Allison DeAngelis, and general assignment reporter Nicholas St. Fleur. The topic: How Trump's presidency could transform #healthcare and #biotech.

There is a message in President-elect Trump’s reveal of who he intends to nominate for key health care positions in his administration. Read Matthew Herper's Take: https://trib.al/XcWJMOe

STAT reporters have scrambled in the last 24 hours with several stories on Trump's Friday night reveals about CDC, FDA, and more. Check out our home page and coverage from our authoritative team.

On Friday night, President-elect Trump picked JHU's Marty Makary M.D., M.P.H. to run the FDA. Rachel Cohrs Zhang dug into Makary's past criticisms of the FDA for this fascinating look at how he might approach the job, if confirmed. https://lnkd.in/ge_tn732 In STAT

A conservative federal judge in Texas has ruled in favor of UnitedHealth Group, saying the federal government unlawfully factored in a “disputed” phone call to lower UnitedHealth’s #MedicareAdvantage ratings. The decision marks another win for the Medicare Advantage industry, which has aggressively fought CMS in court after the agency made it more difficult to gain higher star ratings. https://trib.al/Saozh9o

The number of health systems looking into contracting with an AI scribe company is growing. But analysts anticipate that the bubble will eventually burst. The crowded space reminds Commure CEO Tanay Tandon of the electric scooter space from five or six years ago. “There were like 18 electric scooter companies and VCs were just pouring money into them and all of them died with the exception of two, which was Uber and Lyft." The cracks are already showing: https://trib.al/tO7kiEc #AI #GenerativeAI #artificialintelligence #healthtech #medicalscribe

Whooping cough cases are high again: https://trib.al/j1zolyp CDC numbers show that cases of #WhoopingCough haven't been this high at this time of year since 2014. ⁠ This year, the CDC has recorded around 25,000 cases of pertussis. That’s well below numbers from the worst years before the pandemic, but several times higher compared to the height of the pandemic. Cases fell to their lowest at around 2,100 in 2021.⁠

Kura Oncology, Inc. has signed a global partnership with Japanese drugmaker Kyowa Kirin, Inc.- U.S. to develop and sell an experimental #leukemia treatment. The Kura-Kyowa tie-up was announced just days after competitor Syndax Pharmaceuticals won U.S. approval for a similar drug. Kyowa is paying $330 million to Kura in exchange for licensing rights to the drug, called ziftomenib. https://trib.al/e6FAoFa

The FDA rejected an application from Astellas Pharma seeking to change the prescribing label for its eye drug Izervay to allow less frequent injections and include data showing the effect of the drug over two years. The setback is a win for Apellis Pharmaceuticals, which sells a competing eye drug called Syfovre. https://trib.al/bTzlHqd

Opinion: The term “vegetative state” writes off patients as “not even minimally conscious” when medicine is not in a position to make that diagnosis. "The fact that you think a patient may be wholly unconscious is never a sufficient reason to withhold pain relief," writes Jonathan Birch. https://trib.al/veA3152