
Healthcare Deals This Week: Oura, AstraZeneca, BMS
It was a week of major deals in the healthcare sector space, with startups like Oura and Kardigan securing significant funding, Bristol Myers Squibb and Novo Nordisk announcing billion-dollar acquisitions and AstraZeneca striking a deal with the Trump administration.

CMS 'Upcoding' Audit Plan In Doubt After Texas Ruling
The nation's top Medicare official pledged to use a deluge of new audits to beat back "upcoding" overpayments for Medicare Advantage plans. A Texas federal judge blew a hole in the strategy recently by voiding a 2023 rule on data sample extrapolation.

H-1B Visa Fee Threatens To Deepen Doctor Shortages
A new $100,000 fee for healthcare worker visas is sowing confusion in the medical community and raising concerns that the price tag could block thousands of doctors from practicing in underserved and rural communities.
Deals & Corporate Governance More
Sterigenics Inc. notched two significant wins in sprawling litigation over its alleged emissions of carcinogenic ethylene oxide at an Atlanta-area plant, as a Georgia state court judge tossed residents' specif... (more story)
A Tennessee federal judge has granted a proposed class of Acadia Healthcare Co. investors a partial early win in their suit claiming the company misled them about the strength of its United Kingdom operations,... (more story)
A Texas appeals court seemed skeptical of Cigna Healthcare of Texas Inc.'s claim that once a patient gets hospitalized, any subsequent treatment should be classified as emergency care, asking Wednesday why Cig... (more story)
The Third Circuit on Tuesday turned down medical testing company CareDx's request to have a full panel mull whether to reinstate a $45 million jury award in a false advertisement case over genetic testing tech... (more story)
Recent decisions by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and the U.S. Government Accountability Office illustrate the importance of contemporaneous documentation in proposal evaluations, the standards for an agenc... (more story)
A Colorado company accused the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs of improperly greenlighting purchases of electrocardiogram leads from a large overseas business when American-made items are available from it... (more story)
Digital Health & Technology More
California's Invasion of Privacy Act "is a total mess" that routinely requires courts to make "borderline impossible" decisions about how to apply the law's language to new technologies, a San Francisco federa... (more story)
Sana Biotechnology Inc. has asked a Seattle federal court to dismiss an investor suit over claims that it offered misleading statements regarding early clinical trials of a gene therapy, asserting that the com... (more story)
President Donald Trump on Thursday unveiled two initiatives he said were designed to enhance the accessibility and affordability of in vitro fertilization.
A Texas appellate court on Thursday directed a trial court to withdraw an order requiring two Dallas hospitals to turn over documents concerning alleged gender affirming care, saying the lower court abused its... (more story)
A Florida federal judge has given initial approval to a $10 million settlement to resolve a proposed class action accusing Watson Clinic LLP of failing to adequately protect current and former patients' medica... (more story)
Providers and investors attracted to a growing medical spa industry might be surprised to discover that aesthetic treatments like Botox and fillers that don't require a doctor still come with a robust set of h... (more story)
Policy & Compliance More
Tylenol maker Kenvue on Friday told the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to reject a call to add warnings about the risk of using acetaminophen during pregnancy, saying that "expensive" scientific evidence sh... (more story)
Three New York-based COVID-19 testing companies sued the federal government in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims seeking more than $542 million in damages over the government's alleged refusal to reimburse them... (more story)
A coalition of attorneys general from 21 Democrat-led states chimed in on Monday in support of Planned Parenthood's case challenging the Trump administration's push to cut off Medicaid reimbursements to its ce... (more story)
The U.S. Supreme Court let stand Monday the repeat indictment of a health clinic manager for what the Second Circuit called a massive, yearslong scheme to submit false claims to Medicare and Medicaid, effectiv... (more story)
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to review a decision by the full Seventh Circuit holding that a Chicago hospital can't sue the state of Illinois to force the managed care organizations it contracts wi... (more story)
The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it won't review a decision backing a hospital's termination of a group of workers who refused to get COVID-19 vaccinations.