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President Biden is calling for new payment and delivery models that will lower drug prices in a new executive order. The order released Friday calls on the Department of Health and Human Services to craft a report outlining the payment models that will test how to improve access to innovative drugs and lower costs for those in Medicare and Medicaid. While the order doesn’t grant any new authorities to HHS, it underscores the administration’s next steps in lowering drug prices. (10/14)

President Biden and Rep. Katie Porter sought to focus voters’ attention on Democrats’ work to lower the cost of prescription drugs during an event in Orange County on Friday afternoon. With inflation likely to be Democrats’ biggest liability in next month’s midterm elections, Biden and Porter (D-Irvine) eagerly emphasized what their party had already done to try to reduce consumer costs. (Stokols, 10/14)

KHN: After Congress Fails To Add Dental Coverage, Medicare Weighs Limited Benefit Expansion

Proposed changes in Medicare rules could soon pave the way for a significant expansion in Medicare-covered dental services, while falling short of the comprehensive benefits that many Democratic lawmakers have advocated. That’s because, under current law, Medicare can pay for limited dental care only if it is medically necessary to safely treat another covered medical condition. In July, officials proposed adding conditions that qualify and sought public comment. Any changes could be announced in November and take effect as soon as January. (Jaffe, 10/17)

The FDA will make its case this week to do something it hasn’t in over a decade — order a drug it expedited to the market to be pulled. A panel of independent expert advisers on obstetric and reproductive drugs will meet starting Monday to decide whether to recommend that Makena, an injection marketed as lowering the risk of preterm birth, remain available for at least some patients. (Gardner, 10/16)

The next big Alzheimer’s disease study readout is almost here. Roche is nearing the completion of a pair of clinical trials involving its experimental treatment called gantenerumab. The Swiss pharma giant will announce results from the studies within the next six weeks. (Feuerstein and Garde, 10/17)

A group of Republican senators is demanding to know what steps the U.S. National Institutes of Health will take to ensure that results of clinical trials funded by the agency — both those conducted by its own scientists and outside researchers — are reported to a federal database. (Silverman, 10/14)

A musician had a brain tumor removed in Italy this week in a nine-hour surgery that he spent not only awake and fully conscious, but playing his saxophone. The 35-year-old male patient had the procedure at Rome's Paideia International Hospital on Monday and was discharged early Thursday morning. (Matranga, 10/14)

Friedman and HCA’s MountainView Hospital have joined a Food and Drug Administration clinical trial to confirm the safety and feasibility of using the da Vinci SP (single port) robotic system in a variety of colorectal surgeries. The trial is enrolling adult patients who are candidates for minimally invasive surgery for colon cancer, polyps and other conditions. (Hynes, 10/15)