Policy & Compliance
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August 28, 2025
AstraZeneca Challenges Colo. Law Over Drug Pricing Rules
Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca told a Colorado federal judge Wednesday that a recently passed state law aiming to extend a federal drug discount program to certain pharmacies is preempted by the same law that created the program.
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August 28, 2025
J&J Unit Can't Shake $442M Loss In Catheter Antitrust Suit
A California federal judge has refused to upend the $442 million trial loss of Johnson & Johnson's Biosense Webster health tech unit to Innovative Health, finding the jury was presented with sufficient evidence to fault Biosense for conditioning product support for its cardiac mapping systems on the purchase of cardiac catheters.
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August 28, 2025
Bid For DQ From FCA Suit Over AI Use 'Drastic,' Relator Says
The unexpected disclosure that an expert witness misused artificial intelligence should not be enough to essentially doom a False Claims Act fraudulent billing suit, the case's relator told a Salt Lake City federal judge, arguing a sanctions bid brought by the anesthesiologist defendants is "grossly disproportional" to the error he already sought to rectify.
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August 28, 2025
Bradley Arant Taps Parker Hudson Healthcare Atty In Atlanta
Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP announced Thursday that it continued its Atlanta growth with the addition of a new healthcare practice group partner from Parker Hudson Rainer & Dobbs LLP.
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August 28, 2025
SC Ends Sandoz, Novartis Price-Fixing Claims For $2.4M
A Connecticut federal judge on Thursday approved South Carolina's request to dismiss its generic drug price-fixing claims from three multistate lawsuits against Sandoz Inc., Sandoz AG, Novartis AG and Fougera Pharmaceuticals Inc., four months after the parties filed a notice of settlement.
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August 28, 2025
Fed. Circ. Won't Upend Toss Of Flu Vaccine Injury Claim
The Federal Circuit won't revive a man's vaccine injury claim after it was rejected by a special master at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, finding the decision that his injuries were caused by a separate infection was not arbitrary or capricious.
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August 27, 2025
HHS Says CDC Head Has Been Fired. She Says Otherwise.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Susan Monarez said Wednesday that she's not resigning and also that she cannot be terminated except by the president himself, issuing a statement after CDC parent agency U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said she was "no longer director."
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August 27, 2025
DOJ Throws Lifeline To J&J At 3rd Circ. After $1.6B FCA Loss
A district judge made multiple errors in an opinion and jury instructions underpinning a staggering False Claims Act verdict tied to Johnson & Johnson's drug marketing practices, and a fresh look is needed "under a correct view of the law," the U.S. Department of Justice told the Third Circuit on Wednesday.
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August 27, 2025
7th Circ. Denies Alcoa's Bid To Stay Health Benefits Injunction
An aluminum manufacturer must comply with an injunction ordering it to reinstate union-represented retirees' healthcare benefits while it argues in court that it was allowed to transition them to health reimbursement accounts in 2021, the Seventh Circuit held, rejecting the company's request for the court to pause the injunction.
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August 27, 2025
CVS To Pay $12M To Settle Mass. Medicaid Overbilling Claims
CVS Pharmacy Inc. will pay more than $12 million to settle allegations that it charged Massachusetts' Medicaid program higher prices than it offered to the public for the same drugs, the state attorney general announced Wednesday.
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August 27, 2025
6th Circ. Says Hospital Waived Arbitration In Pronoun Dispute
The Sixth Circuit reversed an order Wednesday allowing a University of Michigan hospital to arbitrate an ex-worker's suit claiming she was fired out of religious bias for refusing to use preferred pronouns for certain LGBTQ patients, ruling the institution waited too long to invoke an arbitration pact.
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August 27, 2025
Scholars Tell High Court To Back Conversion Therapy Ban
A group of health law experts told the U.S. Supreme Court that Colorado's conversion therapy ban doesn't violate healthcare providers' First Amendment rights, arguing that the law is consistent with states' and the federal government's ability to regulate healthcare.
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August 27, 2025
Boehringer Wins Another Zantac Cancer Trial In Ill.
An Illinois state court jury sided with Boehringer Ingelheim on Wednesday in a man's lawsuit claiming over-the-counter Zantac use contributed to his colorectal cancer development, adding another tally on the German drugmaker's list of victories over similar accusations.
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August 26, 2025
Split 9th Circ. Upholds Oregon Pharmaceutical Reporting Law
A split Ninth Circuit panel on Tuesday vacated a lower court's order blocking an Oregon law requiring drug manufacturers to report information related to certain prescription drugs to the state, ruling that the law is indeed constitutional under both the First and Fifth amendments.
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August 26, 2025
DC Circ. Backs HHS In Low-Income Patient Payment Dispute
The D.C. Circuit has delivered a blow to a group of hospitals in a recent decision finding they had challenged a key component of their Medicare reimbursements too early, despite hospital associations' warnings that such a ruling could slow healthcare providers' ability to seek review and "ultimately harm" patients.
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August 26, 2025
Mich. AG Lambasts UMich For Halting Trans Youth Care
Michigan's attorney general publicly warned the University of Michigan Tuesday that her office was "considering all of our options" after the university's hospital system said it would cease providing gender-affirming care to minors under pressure from the Trump administration.
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August 26, 2025
Maine Medicaid Cuts, Medicare Radiation Ruling And More
A Maine federal court turned down a family planning organization's request to temporarily block a congressional mandate withdrawing Medicaid funds to abortion providers. In South Carolina, Planned Parenthood filed a new complaint challenging a state policy kicking the provider out of the state's Medicaid program for providing abortions.
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August 26, 2025
Doctors Press 5th Circ. To Reverse Surprise Billing Ruling
Three physician trade associations urged the full Fifth Circuit to reverse a panel's ruling on how qualifying payments are calculated under the No Surprises Act, writing that the current decision harms underserved communities by narrowing provider networks.
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August 26, 2025
Cigna Strikes ERISA Ghost Network Suit Settlement Deal
Cigna Health and Life Insurance Co. has agreed to settle a proposed class action alleging the health plan administrator violated federal benefits law by advertising providers as in-network who were out-of-network to participants in employer-sponsored health benefit plans that Cigna administered, according to filings in Illinois federal court.
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August 26, 2025
Frier Levitt Adds FDA Regulation Specialist Duo
New Jersey-based national healthcare law boutique Frier Levitt added a partner and senior counsel pair from a life science law boutique this week to expand its expertise in Food and Drug Administration regulation and compliance and the cannabis and hemp industries.
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August 26, 2025
TikTok Takes State's Addictive App Case To NC Top Court
TikTok and its Chinese parent company are taking the state of North Carolina's lawsuit accusing it of intentionally designing the app to addict young users to the state's highest court after a Business Court judge rejected their early exit bid.
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August 26, 2025
Foley Hoag Adds Healthcare Co-Leader From Manatt
Foley Hoag LLP has hired the former president and CEO of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization as the new co-chair of its healthcare department.
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August 25, 2025
DOJ Wants $10.5M From Convicted Nursing Exec For Fraud
U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors asked a Nevada federal judge Friday for a $10.5 million preliminary forfeiture order against a nurse staffing executive convicted of wage-fixing, an amount that matches what he was paid for his staffing company after deceiving the buyer into thinking there was no criminal antitrust investigation.
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August 25, 2025
Greenberg Traurig Adds Healthcare Atty From Baker Donelson
Greenberg Traurig LLP has brought on a shareholder from Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz PC at its Tallahassee office, adding an experienced attorney to its healthcare and U.S. Food and Drug Administration practice, the firm announced Monday.
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August 25, 2025
Generic-Drugs Group Asks 9th Circ. To Nix Pay-For-Delay Law
A trade group for generic drugmakers urged the Ninth Circuit to fully scrap a California law banning brand pharmaceutical companies from paying to delay generics competition, in a brief targeting both the law's in-state features upheld by a district court and the extraterritorial reach the state wants revived.
Expert Analysis
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How DOJ's New Data Security Rules Leave HIPAA In The Dust
The U.S. Department of Justice's recently effective data security requirements carry profound implications for how healthcare providers collect, store, share and use data — and approach vendor oversight — that go far beyond the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, say attorneys at Nelson Mullins.
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Texas Med Spas Must Prepare For 2 New State Laws
Two new laws in Texas — regulating elective intravenous therapy and reforming healthcare noncompetes — mark a pivotal shift in the regulatory framework for medical spas in the state, which must proactively adapt their operations and contractual practices, says Brad Cook at Munsch Hardt.
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DOJ-HHS Collab Crystallizes Focus On Health Enforcement
The recently announced partnership between the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to combat False Claims Act violations, following a multiyear trend of high-dollar DOJ recoveries, signals a long-term enforcement horizon with major implications for healthcare entities and whistleblowers, say attorneys at RJO.
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How The Healthline Privacy Settlement Redefines Ad Tech Use
The Healthline settlement is the first time California has drawn a clear line in the sand around how website tracking must function in practice, so if your site uses tracking technologies, especially around sensitive content like health or finance, regulators are inspecting your website's back end, not just its banner, say attorneys at Baker Donelson.
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How Sweeping Budget Bill Shakes Up Health Industry
With the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act marking one of the most significant overhauls of federal health policy since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, providers, managed care organizations and life sciences companies must now shift focus from policy review to implementation planning, say advisers at Holland & Knight.
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New DOJ Penalty Policy Could Spell Trouble For Cos.
In light of the U.S. Department of Justice’s recently published guidance making victim relief a core condition of coordinated resolution crediting, companies facing parallel investigations must carefully calibrate their negotiation strategies to minimize the risk of duplicative penalties, say attorneys at Debevoise.
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A Look At Key 5th Circ. White Collar Rulings So Far This Year
In the first half of 2025, the Fifth Circuit has decided numerous cases of particular import to white collar practitioners, which collectively underscore the critical importance of meticulous recordbuilding, procedural compliance and strategic litigation choices at every stage of a case, says Joe Magliolo at Jackson Walker.
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What US Medicine Onshoring Means For Indian Life Sciences
Despite the Trump administration's latest moves to onshore essential medicine manufacturing, India will likely remain an indispensable component of the U.S. drug supply chain, but Indian manufacturers should prepare for stricter compliance checks, says Jashaswi Ghosh at Holon Law Partners.
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FCA Working Group Reboot Signals EHR Compliance Risk
The revival of the False Claims Act working group is an aggressive expansion of enforcement efforts by the Justice Department and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services targeted toward technology-enabled fraud involving electronic health records and other data, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.
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FDA's Hasty Policymaking Approach Faces APA Challenges
Though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has abandoned its usual notice-and-comment process for implementing new regulatory initiatives, two recent district court decisions make clear that these programs are still susceptible to Administrative Procedure Act challenges, says Rachel Turow at Skadden.
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The Metamorphosis Of The Major Questions Doctrine
The so-called major questions doctrine arose as a counterweight to Chevron deference over the past few decades, but invocations of the doctrine have persisted in the year since Chevron was overturned, suggesting it still has a role to play in reining in agency overreach, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.
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A Rapidly Evolving Landscape For Noncompetes In Healthcare
A wave of new state laws regulating noncompete agreements in the healthcare sector, varying in scope, approach and enforceability, are shaped by several factors unique to the industry and are likely to distort the market, say attorneys at Seyfarth.
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Arguing The 8th Amendment For Reduction In FCA Penalties
While False Claims Act decisions lack consistency in how high the judgment-to-damages ratio in such cases can be before it becomes unconstitutional, defense counsel should cite the Eighth Amendment's excessive fines clause in pre-trial settlement negotiations, and seek penalty decreases in post-judgment motions and on appeal, says Scott Grubman at Chilivis Grubman.