A cheat sheet for the Senate HELP committee

Today, the Senate HELP committee will hold a hearing with four of the Trump administration officials driving the nation’s coronavirus response. It’ll be the first real opportunity senators have to grill these experts, including CDC Director Robert Redfield, vaccine expert Tony Fauci and FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, about the Trump administration’s tumultuous coronavirus response.

A note to senators: You only get five minutes to get your questions asked and answered. So, in the interest of getting some real information out of this hearing, the STAT team has compiled a list of the hard-hitting questions we think you should ask. You can check those out here. (Readers that don’t serve in the U.S. senate, you can read the list too.)

How the Covid-19 pandemic has transformed addiction medicine in America

The Covid-19 pandemic has negatively impacted nearly every aspect of daily life, but for those recovering from addiction, there’s a silver lining: In the past months Congress and the Trump administration have loosened many of the restrictions that could make it hard for some patients to access addiction treatment medicine.

The changes are sweeping. No longer, for example, do those receiving methadone have to trek each day to a clinic. Under new federal guidance, they’re able to fill a 28-day take home prescription. The expansion of telemedicine is having a serious impact too: Now doctors can prescribe addiction treatments by video chat, and even by phone.

“Since March, federal officials have arguably done more to reform addiction medicine in the U.S. than they had in the two decades prior,” my colleague Lev Facher writes in a new story for STAT. Now, Lev continues, the fight will be over whether those changes become permanent in the aftermath of Covid-19. Read more.

Two things I don’t want to hear together in a sentence: Remdesivir and lottery

Over the weekend the federal government announced it would turn to the states to dole out doses of Gilead’s Covid-19 treatment, remdesivir. That change was seen universally as a positive improvement over the chaos that ensued last week as doses of remdeisvir were distributed to hospitals around the country, seemingly at random — leaving hospitals themselves clamoring for information. But as my colleagues Eric Boodman and Casey Ross write, the struggles are not over for hospitals.

Faced with very wide treatment criteria, a limited number of available doses, and growing number of cases, hospitals are scrambling to figure out who should receive the drug.

As the chief of infectious disease at Mass General put it: “At some point, there’s going to be a lottery because there are going to be too many patients for the drug.”

Read Casey and Eric’s harrowing story here.

Moderna Therapeutics: Welcome to Washington!

Moderna Therapeutics, the company developing one of the leading coronavirus vaccine candidates, has been having a good few months. As my colleague Adam Feuerstein writes in a new column out today for STAT, the company’s stock has more than tripled in value since late February. But here in Washington, there are early signs that Moderna will face some of the activist ire that has dogged household names like Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly for years.

The first sign: Activists at the drug pricing reform group Patients for Affordable Drugs are out with a new blog post arguing that taxpayer investment in the vaccine candidate means the company should be required to set an affordable price.

“It took only 42 days after the virus’s genetic sequence was published for the company to create the vaccine. And they didn’t do it alone; according to Moderna, NIH scientists helped design the vaccine and manufacturing for the trial was financed by the non-profit organization Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI),” the group writes.

Read Adam’s column here.

More coronavirus coverage from STAT

STAT exclusive: Why the NIH decided to stop its major remdesivir trial.

Opinion: To put Covid-19 behind us, all Americans should be vaccinated against it.

What the porn industry can teach us about reopening amid Covid-19.

Photos: Inside one hospital’s response to Covid-19.

What I’ll be watching on Rick Bright’s big day

Rick Bright, the ousted BARDA director, will come before a House Energy & Commerce subcommittee Thursday, and there will undoubtedly be fireworks.

While most eyes will be on Bright, who is likely to give an impassioned retelling of his ousting, I’ll be watching Republicans on the committee, many of whom are going to attempt to both defend the Trump administration from what are sure to be constant attacks from Democrats, and also appear deferential to whistleblowers.

Rep. Michael Burgess, the top ranking Republican on the subcommittee, has already shown himself willing to be the first lawmaker to take a stroll on that tightrope. In recent days Burgess has insisted that “whistleblowers should be heard,” while also slamming the committee for “proceeding with a hearing without any input from the minority, and without providing any chance to work together in a bipartisan fashion.” Burgess has insisted that the committee’s time would be better spent taking up a slate of bills directed at revamping the strategic national stockpile. (Avid D.C. Diagnosis readers will remember we outlined these bills for you last week.)

Already there are signs that conflicts may erupt Thursday over the seemingly basic (though often controversial) ground rules of the hearing, including whether Bright will be sworn in under oath before being questioned. An E&C GOP spokesperson told STAT Monday that Republicans still haven’t gotten clarity on whether Bright will be sworn in, or on whether Republicans will be able to call their own witnesses.

“To say this process is unprecedented might be an understatement,” the spokesperson added.