- The Biden administration is launching a new initiative aimed at helping surgeons distinguish and remove cancer cells without damaging surrounding tissue to improve health outcomes for cancer patients. The initiative is the first cancer-focused program under the administration’s multi-billion-dollar Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) and just its second program overall. It’s paired with the administration’s “cancer moonshot,” which aims to cut the cancer death rate in half by 2047. (Articles here, here, and here)
- Congress approved a thorough revamp of the troubled U.S. organ transplant system Thursday, giving health officials the authority to break monopoly control of how kidneys, livers, lungs, and other organs are delivered to sick patients. For 37 years, one nonprofit organization, the United Network for Organ Sharing, has held the federal contract to run the system, relying on a 1984 law that blocked almost all competition. With a unanimous vote Thursday night, the Senate rewrote the law to let the federal Health Resources and Services Administration break that stranglehold and solicit bids from other for-profit and nonprofit groups. (Article here)
July 31, 2023
Life Sciences | Tea Leaves