It's called, "Facilitation of Public Private Dialogue to Increase Innovation and Investment in the Healthcare Sector." Comments are due in 30 days (about July 5).
The goal is "constructive, high level dialogue between HHS leadership and those focused on innovating and investing in the healthcare industry." However, the policymakers don't presume to know exactly what a workgroup should look like or exactly what its agenda should be. They want your advice. Should the workgroup start by assessing recent trends in health innovation and investment? Should it encourage private investment? How should its membership and meetings be structured? How can HHS develop a "durable and consistent approach" to public private partnerships and innovation to improve public health?
Find the document and comment homepage here.
See some trade press here and here.
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I wrote about something on-tangent a few days ago. For example, Federal preventive benefit regulations make it far easier to create a new Medicare screening benefit for colon cancer than for lung cancer, ovarian cancer, liver cancer, etc. Does that really make sense? It stimulates investment in one cancer and prejudices against investment in other cancers. My blog here.
Appearing just a few days after the HHS request for advice, FDA's Scott Gottlieb issued a major policy memorandum about the need for innovative commercialization pathways for antibiotics. See his speech here, and press coverage here. He focused on "new reimbursement" for antibiotics, such as hospital based licencing, a topic pretty far afield from his home base at the FDA.
