E-cigarettes have been touted as a way to help people stop using combustible cigarettes, but a new analysis in the Annals of Internal Medicine estimates 1.9 million American adults who vape have never smoked tobacco cigarettes.

The deal Regeneron and Sanofi cut with Express Scripts to lower the prices of their PCSK9 inhibitor in exchange for simpler preauthorization forms has opened the floodgates for another two dozen such deals for the cholesterol-lowering drug class, the New York Times reported.

With CMS set to release a new National Coverage Determination (NCD) for transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) next June, researchers at TCT 2018 weighed in on what the new procedural volume thresholds should look like.

Sanjiv Kaul, MD, director of the Knight Cardiovascular Institute at Oregon Health and Science University, announced he’ll be stepping down from his leadership role by the end of this year following the disassembly of the university’s heart transplant team a month ago. Kaul is expected to remain at OHSU, but will focus solely on research. 

The Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) has successfully slashed readmissions for heart failure, acute MI (AMI) and pneumonia without causing mortality increases, according to an analysis of Medicare data published in JAMA Network Open. But the author of an accompanying editorial isn’t convinced the results are so positive.

The American Heart Association and Joint Commission have merged their separate cardiac accreditation programs to offer a single joint certification starting Jan. 1, 2019, the organizations announced this week.

The prices of implantable medical devices to treat heart patients are up to six times higher in the United States than Germany, according to a study published Oct. 1 in Health Affairs.

GE Healthcare still plans to separate into an independent company after General Electric named a new chairman and CEO, according to a report by CNBC.