The federal Bureau of Prisons must continue to allow hormone therapy for transgender inmates, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
The big picture: The decision temporarily bars the bureau from enforcing President Trump's executive order that prohibits gender-affirming care for transgender people in federal prisons.
The Trump administration on Tuesday rescinded guidance telling health providers who perform abortions in emergency cases that they're protected under federal law even if bans exist in their states.
Why it matters: The directive was issued by the Biden administration to give legal assurances to physicians and other providers facing questions about what qualifies as an emergency under a state ban.
Drug price middlemen are going to court to fight a first-in-the-nation effort to police their ownership of retail pharmacies as more state legislatures and Congress crank up scrutiny of their influence on the cost of medicines.
Why it matters: Large pharmacy benefit managers like CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and Optum Rx are increasingly being blamed for higher drug prices and the outsize role they play in the pharmaceutical supply chain.
Bill Gates will spend most of his wealth on improving health and education services in Africa over the next 20 years, the billionaire Microsoft co-founder pledged Monday.
The big picture: He announced last month plans to spend more than $200 billion through the Gates Foundation that he established with ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, 25 years ago. Once "virtually all" of the fortune of the former world's richest man is gone, he said the Seattle-based philanthropic organization would close on Dec. 31, 2045.
The Food and Drug Administration on Monday is launching an agencywide generative AI tool aimed at helping scientific reviewers, investigators and others streamline their work, according to details shared with Axios.
Why it matters: The model, dubbed "Elsa," is being rolled out weeks ahead of schedule and is designed to help with tasks such as summarizing adverse events to support drug safety profiles, and to generate code for databases.
Sanofi agreed to acquire Blueprint Medicines, a Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech focused on rare immunology diseases, for $9.1 billion in cash and up to $400 million in earnouts.
Why it matters: This is Sanofi's third big buy in 2025, following Dren Bo and Vigil Neuroscience, as it tries to build up a portfolio that's become too reliant on its Dupixent anti-inflammatory drug.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s tenure as the nation's top health official is becoming increasingly known for abrupt policy pronouncements based on limited or sketchy evidence that perplex health care providers, industries and patients.
Why it matters: While Kennedy has branded himself as a change agent bringing "radical transparency" to a bloated federal bureaucracy and promoting "gold standard" science, the results have at times been chaotic, even exposingrifts between President Trump's circle and Kennedy's own base.
The Department of Health and Human Services' watchdog identified more than $16 billion in overpayments, fraudulent billings and possible cost savings in health programs over a half year spanning the Biden and Trump administrations, including more than $3.5 billion to be returned to the government.
Why it matters: The semiannual summary, first shared publicly to Axios, comes as the Trump administration says it's prioritizing government efficiency and rooting out waste, fraud and abuse.
