Month: September 2023

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, right, shakes hands with Judge Thomas Rose of the U.S. District Court Southern District of Ohio after taking his oath of office, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, in Cedarville, Ohio.

John Minchillo | AP

A federal judge on Friday withdrew from a case that could block Medicare from negotiating over drug prices, just hours after a watchdog group revealed his ownership of stock in two pharmaceutical companies that would be directly impacted by the new program.

Judge Thomas M. Rose of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio withdrew from the case on the same day that the Revolving Door Project, a nonprofit, sent him a letter raising questions about his ownership of stock in Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca.

“Given the ethics concerns that your apparent conflict of financial interests in the pharmaceutical industry raise, we call on you to recuse yourself,” wrote the group.

J&J’s blood thinner Xarelto and AstraZeneca’s Type 2 diabetes drug Farxiga are among the 10 drugs that will be subject to price negotiations this year, according to a list unveiled Tuesday by the Biden administration.

Rose, who was appointed by Republican president George W. Bush, owns between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of J&J stock, and shares in AstraZeneca worth up to $15,000, according to his 2022 financial disclosure form. He also owns Moderna stock worth between $15,000 and $50,000, the filing shows.

Until he withdrew on Friday, Rose was the presiding judge in a lawsuit brought in June by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services (CMS). The suit asked the court to rule that for Medicare to negotiate drug prices would be unconstitutional.

The pharmaceutical industry has unleashed a torrent of lawsuits this summer in an effort to strip Medicare of its new powers. Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, Boehringer Ingelheim, AstraZeneca and the drugmaker lobby PhRMA have all filed complaints in different districts courts.

Legal experts say the drugmakers are scattering their complaints across the country to increase the odds that the litigation will ultimately end up before the Supreme Court.

Merck CEO Robert Davis confirmed on an earnings call earlier this month that the company plans to take its lawsuit all the way to the high court.

“As we look forward, we’re going to take this to the fullest, which means we’ll take it through District Court and, if need be, into Circuit Court and ultimately to the Supreme Court,” Davis said. “So, really that’s the strategy.”

The Chamber had asked Rose to block the program by Oct. 1, the deadline set for drugmakers to sign agreements to participate in the negotiations.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is “medically clear” to continue working, the attending physician for the U.S. Congress said one day after the Kentucky Republican froze during a press conference for the second time this summer.

“Occasional lightheadedness is not uncommon in concussion recovery and can also be expected as a result of dehydration,” Dr. Brian Monahan said in a letter shared Thursday from McConnell’s office.

The doctor was referencing a concussion that McConnell, 81, had suffered in March after a fall at a political fundraiser.

Monahan said he has “consulted with Leader McConnell and conferred with his neurology team,” and gave him the all-clear after “evaluating yesterday’s incident.”

That incident came at the start of a Wednesday afternoon press conference in Covington, Kentucky, when McConnell abruptly stopped speaking and stared straight ahead for about 30 seconds.

He appeared to fail to respond when an aide approached him to ask if he had heard a reporter’s question. McConnell had been asked for his thoughts about running for reelection.

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The episode echoed a similar health scare in July, when McConnell suddenly froze and was briefly unable to speak at a news conference in Washington, D.C.

But Monahan said in Thursday’s letter that he has “informed Leader McConnell that he is medically clear to continue with his schedule as planned.”

The physician’s assessment was backed up later Thursday by President Joe Biden, who said McConnell sounded like “his old self” when he called him on the phone.

“It’s not at all unusual to have the response that sometimes happens to Mitch, when you’ve had a severe concussion,” Biden said during a surprise visit to FEMA headquarters.

“It is part of the recovery. And so I’m confident he’s going to be back to his old self,” Biden said.

The Democratic president had wished McConnell well after his fall in March, and the senator said the president had called him up following his verbal freeze in July. “I told him I got sandbagged,” McConnell said he told the president at that time.

An aide to McConnell had previously described the lapse in Covington as the result of the senator feeling “momentarily lightheaded.”

McConnell participated in a discussion with Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., later Wednesday evening, his office confirmed to CNBC.

McConnell’s health is a growing cause for concern among some of his Senate colleagues, according to Politico, which reported that some GOP members are weighing whether to force a special conference meeting about the Republican leader’s recent incidents.