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U.S. President Donald Trump announced Friday that nine drugmakers have agreed to lower the cost of their prescription drugs in the U.S. Pharmaceutical companies Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Genentech, Gilead Sciences, GSK, Merck, Novartis and Sanofi will now rein in Medicaid drug prices to match what they charged in other developed countries. (Ho, 12/19)

The Trump administration proposed new payment cuts in Medicare for prescription drugs, even as pharmaceutical companies struck deals with the government in an effort to avoid just such measures. Friday evening, after an event with drugmakers at the White House, the administration said it plans to slash what Medicare pays for certain medicines administered in physicians’ offices and those dispensed at pharmacies. Medicare, the public insurance program for the elderly, is the biggest payer for pharmaceuticals in the country. (Cohrs Zhang, 12/19)

Regarding vaccines and other drugs —

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came within hours of publicly promoting Denmark’s childhood vaccine schedule as an option for American parents — before legal and political concerns got in the way. A senior HHS official told POLITICO that a press conference set for Friday was canceled at the last minute after the HHS Office of the General Counsel said it would invite a lawsuit the administration could lose. A second senior official at the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed the press conference, which HHS had publicly announced, was to be about the Danish schedule. (Röhn, 12/20)

Some leading vaccine manufacturers could be exposed to litigation they've been protected from for decades if the U.S. decides to adopt a new childhood vaccine schedule resembling Denmark's, as it appears likely to do in the new year. The threat of expensive lawsuits could ultimately drive vaccine makers from the U.S. market, upending access to shots like those protecting against the seasonal flu, hepatitis and meningitis. (Owens, 12/22)

Anti-abortion voices are growing increasingly impatient for the Trump administration to complete a review of the abortion pill mifepristone, potentially altering its approval. But changing abortion access at the federal level could imperil an already vulnerable GOP in the upcoming midterms. (Choi, 12/21)

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug. The order moves cannabis from a Schedule I drug, a category that includes heroin and LSD, to a Schedule III drug, a category including ketamine, Tylenol with codeine and steroids. The executive order does not, however, legalize marijuana under federal law. Cannabis is currently legal in 40 states for medical use and in 24 states for recreational use. (Kekatos, 12/19)

In other administration developments —

Days after a division chief at the Food and Drug Administration resigned amid accusations that he used his federal power to seek revenge on a former business associate, the scandal took on a new life. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, and his top deputies brought the matter to the White House as evidence that the F.D.A.’s leadership was in chaos. (Jewett, 12/19)

The Food and Drug Administration is in a precarious position as it heads toward 2026. The agency has been mired by high-profile departures, feuds between top leaders, accusations of politicization, and low morale. It has lost thousands of employees to layoffs and resignations and cannot seem to hold onto a director of the drug center, which has been led by five different people since January. (Lawrence, 12/22)

Luigi Mangione’s lawyers contend that Attorney General Pam Bondi’s decision to seek the death penalty against him in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was tainted by her prior work as a lobbyist at a firm that represented the insurer’s parent company. Bondi was a partner at Ballard Partners before leading the Justice Department’s charge to turn Mangione’s federal prosecution into a capital case, creating a “profound conflict of interest” that violated his due process rights, his lawyers wrote in a court filing late Friday. (Sisak, 12/20)

Kirk Moore, MD, had been on trial for 5 days, accused of falsifying COVID-19 vaccination cards and throwing away the government-supplied doses. The Utah plastic surgeon faced up to 35 years in prison if the jury found him guilty on charges that included conspiracy to defraud the United States. Testimony had paused for the weekend when Moore's lawyer called him early one Saturday this July with what felt to him like unbelievable news. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi had ordered Utah prosecutors to drop all charges, abruptly ending his two-and-a-half year court battle. (Schreifels, 12/20)

On May 23, 2023, Kelly Barta arrived at the National Institutes of Health to figure out what was wrong with her. In a sense, she already knew: She had diagnosed herself with topical steroid withdrawal in 2012, and had gone on to become the president and executive director of a TSW advocacy group. But many doctors weren’t convinced the disorder existed, and as far as Barta could tell, most researchers didn’t care enough to dig into it. The fact that the biggest funder of biomedical research in the world was even trying to decipher its biology felt like a breakthrough. (Boodman, 12/22)