May 26, 2017

The new FDA chief has a plan for taking on drug prices

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb says he's figured out a few things the FDA can do to help control rising drug prices, even though that issue isn't specifically part of the agency's mission. Business Insider has a good rundown of what he proposed at yesterday's House subcommittee hearing on FDA funding for next year:

  • Keep drug companies from gaming the system to win more time without competition.
  • Help get complex generic drugs to market more quickly.
  • Cut the backlog of generic drugs waiting for approval.

Why it matters: Republicans are counting on Gottlieb to help them achieve their goal: bring down drug prices through market competition, not through government intervention.

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Orion Rummler
15 mins ago - Politics & Policy

Obama: Trump is "jealous of COVID's media coverage"

Former President Barack Obama launched a blistering attack on President Trump while campaigning for Joe Biden in Orlando on Tuesday, criticizing Trump for complaining about the pandemic as cases soar and joking that he's "jealous of COVID's media coverage."

Driving the news: Trump has baselessly accused the news media of only focusing on covering the coronavirus pandemic — which has killed over 226,000 Americans so far and is surging across the country once again — as a way to deter people from voting on Election Day and distract from other issues.

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Shawna Chen
36 mins ago - Politics & Policy

Wisconsin Democrats: Don't return absentee ballots by mail

Signs for Joe Biden are seen outside a home in Coon Valle, Wisconsin, on Oct. 3. Photo by KEREM YUCEL via Getty

Wisconsin Democrats are urging voters to return absentee ballots to election clerks’ offices or drop boxes after a Supreme Court decision on Monday prevented the state from extending its deadline for counting absentee ballots, The New York Times reports.

Why it matters: 1,344,535 of the 1,706,771 Wisconsin voters who requested absentee ballots have returned them, according to the Times. The remaining 366,236 could prove critical in the battleground state, where President Trump won by a thin margin in 2016.

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Dan Primack, author of Pro Rata
Updated 2 hours ago - Economy & Business

Winter coronavirus threat spurs new surge of startup activity

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

U.S. coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are surging, with cold weather arriving before even the best-case scenario for a widely distributed vaccine. Now we're also beginning to see an increase in coronavirus-related startup funding, focused on both testing and pharma.

Driving the news: Gauss, a Silicon Valley computer vision startup focused on health care, tells Axios that it's raised $10 million to accelerate development and commercialization of an at-home rapid antigen test for COVID-19.

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