Health

  • August 07, 2024

    Pennsylvania Legislation Passed In 2024: A Midyear Report

    Despite a divided legislature in Pennsylvania — the parties have been trading a narrow majority in the House of Representatives and Republicans compose most of the state Senate — lawmakers have managed to send dozens of bills to Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro's desk in the first half of 2024, including tighter controls on a veterinary drug showing up in heroin, changes to business registrations with the state, and adding arbitration to the tools for family courts.

  • August 06, 2024

    From Vets To Labor: The Policies VP Pick Walz Has Backed

    Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Kamala Harris' pick of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate pairs her with a state leader and former lawmaker who has advocated for veterans' rights and public education while also championing a more progressive agenda, from cannabis legalization to abortion care access to stronger union rights.

  • August 06, 2024

    Ohio Judge Upholds Law Limiting Gender Care, Sports Access

    An Ohio judge on Tuesday allowed the state to begin enforcing a law that restricts gender-affirming care for minors and bans transgender girls' participation in female sports, siding with the state and determining that the law is a legitimate attempt to protect children.

  • August 06, 2024

    Henrietta Lacks' Family Sues Novartis, Viatris Over HeLa Cells

    The family of the late Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose cells were harvested without her knowledge to create the first immortalized human cell line, sued Novartis and Viatris in Maryland federal court Monday, alleging the pharmaceutical giants have "reaped massive profits" using Lacks' stolen cells to create new drugs.

  • August 06, 2024

    Life Sciences Credit Firm Symbiotic Launches With $600M

    A new credit firm led by veterans in the healthcare industry announced its launch Tuesday, with more than $600 million in capital earmarked for loans to life sciences companies.

  • August 06, 2024

    Pennsylvania Hospital Gets Data Breach Suit Whittled

    A Pennsylvania federal judge has shaved two counts off of a data breach lawsuit against Prospect Medical Holdings Inc., rejecting the hospital operator's argument that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the suit but agreeing that not all of them stated valid claims.

  • August 06, 2024

    NC Hospital Gets New Shot At Emergency Dept. Plan Approval

    A state appellate panel on Tuesday unraveled a decision overturning approval for a freestanding emergency department in rural North Carolina, ruling that an administrative law judge misapplied precedent when deciding whether a state agency's failure to hold a public hearing prejudiced the decision-making process. 

  • August 06, 2024

    Dem Lawmakers Back FTC's Kroger-Albertsons Challenge

    A group of Democratic lawmakers is supporting the Federal Trade Commission in its suit to block Kroger's $25 billion acquisition of Albertsons, telling an Oregon federal judge in a friend-of-the-court brief that the agency's fears the deal would harm grocery workers and consumers are well-founded.

  • August 07, 2024

    Dinsmore Adds 5-Atty Litigation Group From Bricker Graydon

    Dinsmore & Shohl LLP announced Tuesday that a five-person litigation team led by a healthcare partner with over 30 years of experience joined the firm's Columbus, Ohio, office from Bricker Graydon LLP.

  • August 06, 2024

    Ga. Healthcare Co. Seeks Toss Of Ex-Manager's Bias Suit

    Georgia-based medical provider Premise Health has asked a federal judge to dismiss a former nurse's race and pregnancy bias suit, saying she was canned because of her "egregious" violations of COVID-19 safety protocols rather than her desire to pump breast milk on the job.

  • August 06, 2024

    Alabama Calls Its Gender Care Law A Rational Policy Choice

    Alabama lawmakers acted out of a desire to protect children — not discriminatory intent — when they passed legislation that restricted gender-affirming care for minors, easily clearing the legal standard required to uphold the law, the state has told a federal judge.

  • August 06, 2024

    UnitedHealth Unlawfully Denies Device Coverage, Suit Says

    A medical equipment maker accused UnitedHealth Group Inc. of creating a "soft denial system" to unlawfully deny payments for glucose monitoring devices, telling a Michigan federal court that thousands of claims worth more than $1 million have gone unpaid.

  • August 06, 2024

    Arnold & Porter Adds Abramson Cancer Center Chief Counsel

    Throughout her career and while working in progressive leadership roles for the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania, Mir Masud-Elias, Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP's newest counsel, has asked herself the same question: Is this role the best use of her time on Earth?

  • August 05, 2024

    Indivior Accused Of Overstating Prospects Of 3 Opioid Drugs

    Drugmaker Indivior PLC has been hit with a proposed investor class action in Virginia federal court over claims it overstated the financial prospects of its drugs used to treat opioid use disorders and the company's ability to forecast such financial projections.

  • August 05, 2024

    Mich. Says HHS Can't Get Back $195M Medicaid Payments

    The state of Michigan is asking a D.C. federal judge to bar the federal government from seeking repayment for $195 million in Medicaid payouts made to two state-operated hospitals that provided psychiatric services to state criminal defendant inmates, saying the government's payment withdrawal decision was made years too late and without proper notice.

  • August 05, 2024

    Mich. AG Defends Judge's Block Of Abortion Waiting Period

    A Michigan judge's suspension of several state abortion regulations should be upheld, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told appellate judges, saying the restrictions don't pass constitutional muster because they don't serve to protect women's health.

  • August 05, 2024

    BCBS Asks 9th Circ. To Undo Trans Patients' Win In Bias Suit

    Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois urged the Ninth Circuit to reverse summary judgment in favor of trans patients who argued its exclusions for gender-affirming treatments violated the Affordable Care Act's anti-discrimination mandate, arguing Friday it is a third-party administrator that didn't design the exclusion nor exercised any control over it.

  • August 05, 2024

    Insurer Must Face Pa. Trans Firefighter's Surgery Claim

    A Pennsylvania federal judge has refused to toss a suit from a transgender Philadelphia firefighter suing Independence Blue Cross for discrimination over the insurer's denial of coverage for facial feminization surgery, finding that claims under federal healthcare law could proceed, but not the Title VII claims.

  • August 05, 2024

    Ohio To Launch Legal Recreational Marijuana Sales

    Ohio is set to see its first legal recreational marijuana sales on Tuesday after the state's cannabis regulator announced that close to 100 locations were about to be qualified to sell products to customers 21 and over.

  • August 05, 2024

    Nursing Home Flubs Make Reports Fair Game, NJ Justices Say

    Two Garden State healthcare facilities failed to follow state regulations in after-incident reviews, making the normally privileged reports accessible to plaintiffs, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Monday.

  • August 05, 2024

    Hillrom's 'Intrusive' Funding Probe Needs To Stop, Rival Says

    Hospital bed maker Linet has urged an Illinois federal court to block Hill-Rom Holdings Inc.'s "increasingly intrusive" bid for litigation funding documents in its antitrust suit targeting allegedly anticompetitive supply agreements, arguing that the records are off limits because they're irrelevant and legally protected.  

  • August 05, 2024

    7th Circ. Backs Insurer's Win In Family's Autism Claims Fight

    The Seventh Circuit on Monday affirmed a win for a Wisconsin health insurer in a family's dispute over coverage for autism therapies, finding that the insurer's denials of speech therapy to treat autism for a minor child were valid under a policy exclusion for treatments that weren't evidence-based.

  • August 05, 2024

    Black Ice Assumption Can't Save Hospital Slip-And-Fall Suit

    A Pennsylvania appeals panel on Monday threw out a woman's suit against a Conemaugh hospital over her slip and fall in the parking lot, saying her own presumption that she must have slipped on black ice is not enough to show that the hospital knew or should have known about it.

  • August 05, 2024

    Fla. Man Gets 44 Months For $5M MilliporeSigma Export Scam

    A Florida federal judge sentenced a Taiwanese citizen who lives in the Sunshine State to three years and eight months in prison for his role in a $5 million scheme to defraud life sciences company MilliporeSigma and the U.S. government by illegally exporting MilliporeSigma products to China.

  • August 05, 2024

    Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

    Sunken treasure, rock band discord, a wrestling competition, and more news about Elon Musk — all in all, a colorful week in Delaware's Court of Chancery. The First State's famous court of equity also pushed forward on disputes involving a famous social media app, Delaware's largest hospital system, an artificial intelligence company and a budding commodity futures exchange.

Expert Analysis

  • A Look At Acquisition Trends For Radiopharmaceuticals

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    As radiopharmaceutical drugs are increasingly used for the diagnosis and treatment of certain diseases, interest from Big Pharma entities is following suit, despite some questions around the drugs' capacity to expand beyond their limited niche, says Adrian Toutoungi at Taylor Wessing.

  • Opinion

    States Should Loosen Law Firm Ownership Restrictions

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    Despite growing buzz, normalized nonlawyer ownership of law firms is a distant prospect, so the legal community should focus first on liberalizing state restrictions on attorney and firm purchases of practices, which would bolster succession planning and improve access to justice, says Michael Di Gennaro at The Law Practice Exchange.

  • Navigating FDA Supply Rule Leeway For Small Dispensers

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    As the November compliance deadline for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's new pharmaceutical distribution supply chain rules draws closer, small dispensers should understand the narrow flexibilities that are available, and the questions to consider before taking advantage of them, say attorneys at Faegre Drinker.

  • Series

    Solving Puzzles Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Tackling daily puzzles — like Wordle, KenKen and Connections — has bolstered my intellectual property litigation practice by helping me to exercise different mental skills, acknowledge minor but important details, and build and reinforce good habits, says Roy Wepner at Kaplan Breyer.

  • 1st Gender Care Ban Provides Context For High Court Case

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    The history of Arkansas' ban on gender-affirming medical care — the first such legislation in the U.S. — provides important insight into the far-reaching ramifications that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti next term will have on transgender healthcare, says Tyler Saenz at Baker Donelson.

  • Texas Ethics Opinion Flags Hazards Of Unauthorized Practice

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    The Texas Professional Ethics Committee's recently issued proposed opinion finding that in-house counsel providing legal services to the company's clients constitutes the unauthorized practice of law is a valuable clarification given that a UPL violation — a misdemeanor in most states — carries high stakes, say Hilary Gerzhoy and Julienne Pasichow at HWG.

  • 6 Lessons From DOJ's 1st Controlled Drug Case In Telehealth

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    Following the U.S. Department of Justice’s first-ever criminal prosecution over telehealth-prescribed controlled substances in U.S. v. Ruthia He, healthcare providers should be mindful of the risks associated with restricting the physician-patient relationship when crafting new business models, says Jonathan Porter at Husch Blackwell.

  • Series

    After Chevron: Scale Tips Favor Away From HHS Agencies

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    The loss of Chevron deference may indirectly aid parties in challenging the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' interpretations of regulations and could immediately influence several pending cases challenging HHS on technical questions and agency authority, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

  • Series

    After Chevron: FDA Regulations In The Crosshairs

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of the Chevron doctrine is likely to unleash an array of challenges against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, focusing on areas of potential overreach such as the FDA's authority under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • In Memoriam: The Modern Administrative State

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    On June 28, the modern administrative state, where courts deferred to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, died when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled its previous decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council — but it is survived by many cases decided under the Chevron framework, say Joseph Schaeffer and Jessica Deyoe at Babst Calland.

  • Series

    After Chevron: Expect Limited Changes In USPTO Rulemaking

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling overturning Chevron deference will have limited consequences for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office given the USPTO's unique statutory features, but it is still an important decision for matters of statutory interpretation, especially those involving provisions of the America Invents Act, say Andrei Iancu and Cooper Godfrey at Sullivan & Cromwell.

  • How High Court Approached Time Limit On Reg Challenges

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Corner Post v. Federal Reserve Board effectively gives new entities their own personal statute of limitations to challenge rules and regulations, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh's concurrence may portend the court's view that those entities do not need to be directly regulated, say attorneys at Snell & Wilmer.

  • How To Clean Up Your Generative AI-Produced Legal Drafts

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    As law firms increasingly rely on generative artificial intelligence tools to produce legal text, attorneys should be on guard for the overuse of cohesive devices in initial drafts, and consider a few editing pointers to clean up AI’s repetitive and choppy outputs, says Ivy Grey at WordRake.

  • Calif. Ruling Heightens Medical Product Maker Liability

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    The California Supreme Court's decision in Himes v. Somatics last month articulates a new causation standard for medical product manufacturer liability that may lead to stronger product disclosures nationwide and greater friction between manufacturers and physicians, say attorneys at Cooley.

  • Constitutional Protections For Cannabis Companies Are Hazy

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    Cannabis businesses are subject to federal enforcement and tax, but often without the benefit of constitutional protections — and the entanglement of state and federal law and conflicting judicial opinions are creating confusion in the space, says Amber Lengacher at Purple Circle.

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