Blog | 2/28/2025

Trump Administration Healthcare News: February 28, 2025

Health Advances weekly healthcare tracker focused on top level government administration news.

NOTE: All words/analysis are those from the source noted, opinions are those of the original authors and not reflective of Health Advances in general nor any individual. All sources are non-confidential and in the public domain (but some may be behind paywalls).

This issue reflects news as of 11 AM on February 27, 2025. The details and broad themes may have changed!

KEY HEALTH NEWS (Global & US & EOs)

Trump administration to cut 92% of USAID foreign aid contracts

  • The Trump administration is axing 92% in foreign assistance-related grants to save nearly $60 billion as part of a budget cuts drive across all federal agencies, the State Department confirmed on Wednesday night.
  • The big picture: It plans to terminate nearly 10,000 contracts and grants given out by the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), per a Wednesday court filing from administration attorneys.
  • It's the administration's latest effort to cap U.S. spending abroad, after a federal judge this month ordered the administration to resume $1.9 billion in foreign aid payments it had frozen.
  • The impacts of the freeze on aid have been felt by organizations across the globe, as have the firings at USAID, despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio announcing waivers for "life-saving humanitarian assistance programs."

KEY FEDERAL GOVERNMENT NEWS

EO: Making America Healthy Again By Empowering Patients With Clear, Accurate, and Actionable Healthcare Pricing Information

Trump implements DOGE cost efficiency initiative to cull fed grants and contracts, non-essential travel and federal property

  • At the Department of Health and Human Services, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will review all federal grants and contracts, write new guidance for federal contracting, and require employees to provide “brief, written justifications” for each contract and grant that disburses payments. The written justifications will be posted publicly, unless prohibited by law.
  • Before entering new contracts, Kennedy must issue guidance on signing new contracts or modifying existing contracts. Kennedy will conduct a comprehensive review of the agency’s contracting policies, procedures and personnel within 30 days, during which “new contracting officer warrants” cannot be issued or approved. He can make exceptions on a case-by-case basis.
  • https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/regulatory/trump-implements-doge-cost-efficiency-initiative-cull-fed-grants-and-contracts-non

HHS may conduct 'rolling review' of health web pages for Trump EO compliance, judge rules

  • A federal judge is allowing a temporary restraining order related to the abrupt removal of health information web pages to expire, though those resources will for now remain as they are as the Trump administration begins a rolling review of their content.
  • Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge John Bates ordered the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to roll back and restore several web pages and online public health resources that had been pulled down in January to comply with President Donald Trump's executive order on gender and sex policy. Among these were the Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance System, HIV data and recruiting underrepresented populations in clinical studies, along with others identified by plaintiff Doctors for America (DFA).
  • https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/regulatory/physician-group-sues-reverse-agencies-health-webpage-data-blackout

FDA Delays Effective Date for Final Healthy Rule

  • On February 25, 2025, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) delayed the effective date for its final “Healthy” rule from February 25, 2025 to April 28, 2025.
  • The delayed effective date is in line with President Trump’s “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review” memorandum, which orders agencies to consider postponing rules’ effective dates for 60 days (i.e. until April 28, 2025), for the purpose of reviewing any questions of fact, law, and policy the rules may arise.
  • The February 25, 2028 compliance date remains unchanged.
  • The rule permits healthy claims for foods containing both 1) a certain quantity of food group equivalents (such as fruits, vegetables, whole grain, dairy, and protein foods) and 2) no more than specified amounts of added sugars, sodium, and saturated fat, referred to as nutrients to limit.
  • https://www.hoganlovells.com/en/publications/fda-delays-effective-date-for-final-healthy-rule

KEY BIOPHARMA NEWS

FDA cancels meeting to select flu strains for next season's shots

  • A Food and Drug Administration vaccine advisory committee meeting scheduled for March to select the strains to be included in next season’s flu shot has been canceled, a panel member said Wednesday.
  • Federal health officials notified members of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee of the cancellation in an email Wednesday afternoon, said committee member Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
  • The email, Offit said, offered no explanation for the scrapped meeting.
  • A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the FDA, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
  • https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/fda-cancels-meeting-select-flu-strains-seasons-shots-rcna193931

PhRMA leaders prepare to meet with Trump as new chair Albert Bourla espouses optimism

  • As the second Trump administration settles in, the U.S.' top pharmaceutical trade group is drafting its ambitions for the next four years ahead of a planned meeting with the president on Thursday.
  • The sit-down between President Donald Trump and leaders from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) will provide the trade group’s head, Stephen Ubl, and CEOs from several of the world’s top drugmakers with a potential avenue to sway the commander in chief’s views on policies affecting the industry, Bloomberg reported, citing people close to the matter.
  • In particular, the industry wants to garner support for adjustments to certain drug pricing provisions baked into 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the news service said.
  • https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/phrma-prepares-meet-trump-new-chair-albert-bourla-espouses-optimism

Trump admin defends IRA drug price negotiation program in Novartis lawsuit

  • The Trump administration, perhaps surprisingly, chose to defend the legality of the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA’s) drug price negotiation program enacted under President Joe Biden.
  • In a filing Feb. 19, the government agreed with the legal arguments used by the prior administration and by a lower court, dealing a blow to pharmaceutical drugmakers enraged by the program.
  • The Trump administration claimed the “district court correctly concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to review plaintiff’s Eighth Amendment claim,” as well as “correctly rejected” takings and compelled speech claims.
  • The defendants claim the program is consistent with the First Amendment.
  • The feds are urging the court to affirm the lower court’s rulings. Participating drug companies must sign agreements by Feb. 28 as part of the next step in the process.
  • https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payers/trump-admin-defends-ira-drug-price-negotiation-program-novartis-lawsuit

A new era of Made in America drug manufacturing

  • "Last week, President Trump threatened tariffs on pharmaceuticals if manufacturers don't relocate operations to the U.S. On Wednesday, the CEO of Eli Lilly stood with Trump's commerce secretary in Washington, D.C., to announce a $27 billion plan to build four manufacturing ""mega-sites"" in the U.S.
  • Why it matters: The commitment illustrates the dance much of Big Pharma is engaged in as it tries to make inroads with a new administration bent on reshoring business activity and reducing dependence on China.
  • The big picture: Reshoring pharmaceutical manufacturing would be a shift for the industry, which still sources most drug ingredients from overseas and has seen its global supply chains buckle from disease outbreaks and natural disasters. Now, political winds from Washington could force a reckoning.
  • https://www.axios.com/2025/02/27/eli-lilly-drug-manufacturing-trump-america

KEY HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (HIT) NEWS

Advocates lean on Trump's telehealth legacy to extend expiring flexibilities

  • Three hundred and fifty organizations signed a letter to congressional leadership Monday urging lawmakers to extend expiring Medicare telehealth flexibilities and to restore telehealth access lost by commercially insured patients in December.
  • The organizations told Congress that they prefer to make the telehealth flexibilities permanent. However, in a messaging shift, the groups said they “recognize this could be a multi-year process” and asked Congress to consider a "long-term" extension.
  • Lobbyists told Fierce Healthcare they are uncertain for how long Congress may extend Medicare telehealth flexibilities. The messaging breaks from last year’s pleas to Congress that centered on either permanency or a two-year extension, based on bills in the House.
  • https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/regulatory/350-advocates-send-telehealth-letter-congress

KEY MEDTECH NEWS

FDA brings back some fired device office staff

  • Many people who were fired from the Food and Drug Administration’s medical device center last week had their termination letters rescinded over the weekend, according to the industry group Advamed and three FDA employees who spoke on condition of anonymity.
  • An industry source with knowledge of the matter said “most, if not all of the CDRH people are being asked back.”
  • https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/fda-cdrh-device-staff-rehire-trump-cuts/740814/

KEY LEGAL CHALLENGES

USAID Dismantling - Lawsuit

Federal Funding Freeze – Restraining Order

Research Grant Cap - Lawsuit

CURRENT APPOINTEE STATUS

 https://ourpublicservice.org/performance-measures/political-appointee-tracker/

Updated February 27, at 11 AM EST.

KEY ACRONYMS

  • ACA = Affordable Care Act
  • CDRH = Center for Devices and Radiological Health
  • CMS = Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services
  • DOGE = Department of Government Efficiency
  • EO = Executive Order
  • FDA = Food and Drug Administration
  • HHS = Department of Health and Human Services
  • NIH = National Institutes of Health
  • OIRA = Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
  • OMB = Office of Management and Budget
  • UNRWA = United Nations Relief and Works Agency
  • USAID = U.S. Agency for International Development
  • WHO = World Health Organization

Share this: