Welcome to FDA in Flux – A Mintz newsletter tracking rapid changes in policy and agency actions that impact medical, life sciences, and consumer product investment decisions and development strategies....more
Nineteen states plus the District of Columbia filed a federal Complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island on May 5, 2025 alleging that the Trump Administration’s recent activities to downsize and...more
Over the past few weeks, we have been closely following the Trump administration’s restructuring of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the major reduction in the department’s workforce (RIF), and its broader...more
5/6/2025
/ Budget Cuts ,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Drug Pricing ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
Healthcare ,
Healthcare Reform ,
National Institute of Health (NIH) ,
OMB ,
Trump Administration
As spring arrived in the mid-Atlantic region, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. followed through with a previously announced Reduction in Force (RIF) that reduced the department’s...more
4/15/2025
/ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
Healthcare Reform ,
Involuntary Reduction in Force ,
Layoffs ,
Medicaid ,
Medical Devices ,
Medicare ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Regulatory Reform
In September 2022, former President Biden convened the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, during which the White House introduced its National Strategy on Nutrition and Health (National Strategy). The...more
2/24/2025
/ Compliance ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Draft Guidance ,
Executive Orders ,
Final Rules ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
Food Labeling ,
Food Manufacturers ,
Labeling ,
Proposed Rules ,
Public Health ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Rulemaking Process
An important new initiative focused on women’s health research – defined as “the study of health across a woman’s lifespan in order to preserve wellness and to prevent, diagnose, and treat disease” – was recently kicked off...more
It came as a surprise to nobody in health care circles when, on Friday, September 29, 2023, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) publicly announced that its much-anticipated proposed rule on laboratory developed tests, or...more
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a guidance on development and emergency use authorization of diagnostic and serological tests for the monkeypox virus following the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human...more
It’s finally here – the Drug Pricing Plan that President Biden ordered the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to produce by the end of August (the “Plan”) was released publicly by the Administration on September 9,...more
9/13/2021
/ Biden Administration ,
Biosimilars Action Plan (BAP) ,
BPCIA ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Drug Pricing ,
Executive Orders ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
Medicaid Drug Rebate Program ,
Medicare Part B ,
Medicare Part D ,
MedPAC ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Prescription Drugs
In our most recent year-end blog post on devices and diagnostic products at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), we summarized the tumultuous events of 2020 with respect to laboratory developed tests (LDTs) and clinical...more
Although we’ve now entered June of 2021 and President Biden has yet to nominate someone to serve as the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, current Acting Commissioner Janet Woodcock and her Senate-confirmed boss, Department of...more
Back in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, we published a post outlining the different kinds of diagnostic tests that were being marketed and the different roles of the two main federal regulators that oversee the...more
11/6/2020
/ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
CLIA ,
Clinical Laboratory Testing ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Diagnostic Tests ,
Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Laboratory Developed Tests ,
Life Sciences ,
Over The Counter Drugs (OTC) ,
Virus Testing
As previously covered on this blog, in mid-2019 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) jointly published the Safe Importation Action Plan, which outlined the Trump...more
9/28/2020
/ Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) ,
Final Rules ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
Imports ,
Infectious Diseases ,
Medical Supplies ,
New Regulations ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Prescription Drugs ,
Secretary of HHS ,
Supply Chain
A panel of federal appellate judges has sided with drugmakers by upholding a lower court ruling from 2019 that struck down a regulation proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In a closely watched case,...more
As we write this update on the actions of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), more state and local governments (along with private businesses and employers) are taking sweeping actions to protect the public from the...more
Within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), many agencies have responsibility for responding to public health emergencies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as its name implies, is at...more
3/5/2020
/ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ,
Clinical Laboratories ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Emergency Management Plans ,
Healthcare Reform ,
Infectious Diseases ,
Laboratory Developed Tests ,
Medical Research ,
National Institute of Health (NIH) ,
Public Health ,
Research and Development
At the end of July 2019, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) jointly published the Safe Importation Action Plan, which outlined the Trump Administration’s two-part...more
12/30/2019
/ Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Drug Pricing ,
FDA Commissioner ,
Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
Imports ,
NPRM ,
Popular ,
Prescription Drugs ,
Public Comment ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Rulemaking Process ,
Secretary of HHS ,
Supply Chain ,
Trump Administration
Looks like the Drug Pricing Disclosure Rule may not have seen its last day in court. On August 21, 2019, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) filed a notice of appeal against a federal judge’s decision to...more
Several parties from the pharmaceutical industry have teamed up with an advertising association to file a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to prevent a new drug pricing disclosure rule from...more
7/2/2019
/ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Commercial Speech ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Drug Pricing ,
Drug Wholesaling ,
Final Rules ,
First Amendment ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Prescription Drugs ,
Transparency ,
Trump Administration
A lot has happened since we last addressed new biosimilar developments in January 2018. In the intervening months, there have been many significant developments related to FDA’s implementation of an efficient regulatory...more
Since our March 17th post about President Trump’s executive actions aiming to implement his deregulatory agenda, several important developments related to the so-called “2-for-1” Executive Order (E.O. 13,771) have occurred...more
9/12/2017
/ Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Deregulation ,
Federal Agency Taskforce ,
FOIA ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
OMB ,
Public Comment ,
Public Health ,
Regulatory Burden ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Request For Information ,
Trump Administration ,
Two For One Rule
As we’ve previously discussed on Health Law and Policy Matters, agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) pushed through several final rules towards the end of the Obama Administration. However, since...more
FDA lacks the appropriate data to effectively conduct postmarket surveillance and safety tracking activities, according to two reports released earlier this month. First, Senator Patty Murray’s Health, Education, Labor, and...more
Over the past year, significant regulatory changes began to take shape that will have lasting effects on the laboratory industry for years to come. After publishing draft guidance regarding the regulation of laboratory...more
12/31/2015
/ Aetna ,
Anti-Kickback Statute ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
CIGNA ,
CLIA ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
False Claims Act (FCA) ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
Laboratory Developed Tests ,
OIG ,
PAMA ,
Stark Law