Endpoints News
DC judge rejects Merck’s IRA case more than three years after it was filed Read in browser
Endpoints News
Thank you for reading, dupa dupackia!
basic
UPGRADE
Wednesday
19 August, 2026
GLOBAL PHARMA AND BIOTECH SUMMIT - Rewriting the rules of growth, access and innovation - Register now
Drugs worth $180bn in annual revenue are heading off patent, and the industry holds an estimated $1.3tn to fill the gap. Hear how leaders from Novartis, Novo Nordisk and GSK are positioning for what comes next. Sign up today and save with early bird pricing.
top stories
1. RFK Jr. takes another step toward dismantling vaccine recommendations
2. Exclusive: Two GOP lawmakers call on FDA to increase scrutiny of Chinese trial data following deaths
3. DC judge rejects Merck’s IRA case more than three years after it was filed
4. Who’s Heidi? Trump's new FDA pick has been critical of vaccine requirements, abortion pills
5. Amgen, medical centers diverge on potential conflicts in FDA pilot to speed early drug trials
6. Exclusive: PhRMA considers a grab-bag of Republican policy wonks, former lawmakers for CEO post
7. FDA approves Revolution Medicines' pancreatic cancer drug, ushering in new era of KRAS therapy
8. FDA approves Jazz's Ziihera in frontline gastric cancer
Zachary Brennan
.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is back in the spotlight for his role in the June settlement of a lawsuit linked to Merck's Gardasil vaccine. Democrat Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden, Angela Alsobrooks and Richard Blumenthal on Monday sent a letter to Kennedy over a social media post from earlier this month where he seemed to contradict an earlier ethics agreement he made saying he would pass to his son his stake in a lawsuit related to Gardasil. Merck in June reached a $50 million settlement agreement in the lawsuit. While RFK had initially agreed before taking his position that he would relinquish his stake in the settlement to his son, the senators want to know why he now says he relinquished any interest in potential Gardasil fees back to the Wisner Baum law firm, rather than to his son. RFK Jr.'s son Connor works in Wisner Baum's Los Angeles office.
.
Zachary Brennan
Senior Editor, Endpoints News
@ZacharyBrennan
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Images)
1
by Zachary Brennan

HHS Sec­re­tary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants the gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er soft­en­ing its rec­om­men­da­tions for cer­tain vac­cines.

The re­quest for in­for­ma­tion is­sued Fri­day, which Kennedy...

Read the full story
Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI) (Lenin Nolly/Sipa USA/Sipa via AP Images)
2
by Max Bayer

Two Re­pub­li­can law­mak­ers are ask­ing the FDA to re­ject clin­i­cal da­ta from Chi­na un­less a tri­al site has been re­cent­ly au­dit­ed by the agency, and...

Read the full story
3
by Nicole DeFeudis

Af­ter lengthy con­sid­er­a­tion, a DC fed­er­al judge on Mon­day re­ject­ed Mer­ck’s chal­lenge to Medicare drug price ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Judge Colleen Kol­lar-Kotel­ly of the US Dis­trict Court...

Read the full story
4
by Max Bayer

The FDA's next chap­ter is of­fi­cial­ly un­der­way.

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump an­nounced Hei­di Over­ton as his pick for FDA com­mis­sion­er in a so­cial me­dia post Wednes­day...

Read the full story
5
by Zachary Brennan

To bet­ter com­bat Chi­na and Aus­trali­a's dom­i­nance in ex­pe­dit­ing ear­ly-phase tri­als, the FDA and stake­hold­ers are iron­ing out the de­tails of a pi­lot pro­gram to...

Read the full story
6
by Max Bayer

More than four months in­to PhRMA’s search for a new CEO, the lob­by­ing group has con­sid­ered Re­pub­li­can can­di­dates with ex­pe­ri­ence span­ning decades on Capi­tol Hill...

Read the full story
7