Regulatory/Legislative News

Today, HHS officials announced that they are seeking public input on two broad strategies that would, for the first time, allow “safe and affordable” prescription drugs to be imported from Canada.

The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority has cleared Roche’s pending acquisition of Spark Therapeutics, ruling the deal would not negatively affect competition, according to a press release.

Heavy workloads, medical errors and sleep deprivation are recognized factors that can affect the mental health of training physicians. Recently, however, researchers discovered that political events could sour the mood of young doctors and have “professional consequences.”

Several bills have been introduced recently to reduce the high cost of prescription drugs.

In an 18 to 5 vote earlier today, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee sent the nomination of Stephen M. Hahn, MD, as the next FDA commissioner to the full Senate.

QR-1123, a first-in-class investigational antisense oligonucleotide for the treatment of vision loss associated with autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa, received an orphan drug designation from the FDA, ProQR announced in a press release.

Welcome to another edition of CEDARS/ASPENS Debates. CEDARS/ASPENS is a joint society of cornea, cataract and refractive surgery specialists, here to discuss some of the latest hot topics in ophthalmology.

The Trump administration is expected to announce that Stephen M. Hahn, MD, chief medical executive and professor of radiation oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, is the next FDA commissioner, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal.

Healio.com/OSN is the online home of Ocular Surgery News. In addition to housing the online version of OSN, Healio/OSN creates daily news, meeting news coverage, executive summaries of journal articles, perspectives, videos, blogs and podcasts. With the increasing importance of Healio as the online presence of Ocular Surgery News and the continuous growth that is taking place online, we decided it was a good time to boost the Healio/OSN editorial board presence in the ophthalmic community.

President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order that directs HHS to take action to provide more insurance plan options under Medicare Advantage and to remove regulations that are burdensome to health care providers.