| Neuralink, a neurotechnology company founded by Elon Musk, is enlisting K Street help as it seeks to expand its presence. It’s the company’s first lobbying hire. It’s hired prominent health lobbying firm Jeffrey J. Kimbell & Associates to work on issues related to the “development and commercialization of brain-computer interfaces,” as well as policies affecting insurance coverage for medical devices. → The hire gives Neuralink a more formal presence in Washington at a moment when policymakers are grappling with how existing medical device and health care frameworks apply to a new generation of neurotechnology. It also comes as Neuralink expands human testing of its implantable technology. The company recently announced that its robot can perform key tasks during the surgical implantation of chips into people’s brains, a procedure that can be too delicate for a human to properly secure. → Wall Street expects the brain-computer interface sector to be worth $400 million. Neuralink did not respond to an inquiry about the anticipated advocacy work. The industry is facing a growing number of federal policy questions, including navigating the approval process at the Food and Drug Administration and broader debates over how emerging neurotechnology should be regulated. In December, Neuralink added David McMullen — who led the FDA office overseeing products including Neuralink — to serve as its head of medical affairs. Lori Reilly, a top executive at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, is leaving the lobbying group for drugmaker AbbVie. Reilly will join the company in September as a senior vice president of government affairs. She’s been with the organization for more than two decades, rising to chief operating officer. In recent years, she’s been the face of PhRMA at contentious congressional hearings and has often spoken for the group at policy conferences. Key context: The group is searching for a new chief executive after Steve Ubl announced he would be stepping down at the end of the year. PhRMA declined to comment on Reilly’s departure or the process to find a successor to Ubl. “Earlier this year, I made the decision that while I still love my work, I’m ready to try something new — to grow, stretch, and contribute in different ways,” Reilly wrote in a LinkedIn post. “Even after nearly 26 years, I continue to learn every day at PhRMA, which makes this transition all the more bittersweet.” “Leaving PhRMA is not easy, but I’m incredibly grateful for the experiences, the mission, and most of all, the people. I look forward to staying connected and to what lies ahead,” she wrote. → AbbVie is one of the only pharma giants that isn’t a member of PhRMA. The drugmaker spent nearly $5.6 million on lobbying the federal government last year, putting it in the top 30 health care lobbying spenders, according to my analysis of federal lobbying records. The company left PhRMA and the Biotechnology Innovation Organization in December 2022, which I scooped at my previous gig at Politico. Revolution Medicines released clinical trial results for its pancreatic cancer drug that’s been four decades in the making — and medical experts say the results are extremely promising, reports The Post’s Carolyn Y. Johnson. The experimental drug, a pill called daraxonrasib, is giving hope to oncologists who have traditionally had few treatment options for patients of the deadly disease. Carolyn reports they’ve called the results “unprecedented,” “compelling” and “spectacular.” By the numbers: In the trial, 500 people who had already been treated once for pancreatic cancer, only to see their disease progress, received either the experimental pill or traditional chemotherapy. Those taking the pill lived twice as long — for a median of 13.2 months, compared with 6.6 months for those on chemotherapy. Now, scientists at Revolution Medicines are focused on making those responses last longer, with the goal of giving patients more time. Read the full story: “‘Landmark’ pancreatic cancer drug keeps patients alive for twice as long.” → At the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting in Chicago, lead investigator Brian Wolpin presented the results — which showed a 60 percent reduction in the risk of death for patients who’d already attempted treatment — and reportedly received a standing ovation that lasted nearly a minute, something one STAT News reporter noted doesn’t usually happen mid-speech. The White House’s Office of Management and Budget is proposing to revamp the federal grant process to ensure that federal cash goes to priorities aligned with the Trump administration. The move has alarmed researchers, who worry that it could further infuse politics into the way grants are awarded. For instance, one of the proposals would require federal agency leaders to designate political appointees to conduct “pre-issuance review of all discretionary awards,” a departure from having career scientists or program officers review grants, according to Elizabeth Ginexi, a former National Institutes of Health senior program officer. There are also concerns about the proposal’s view on being able to override peer-reviewed studies, a reliance on undefined “gold standard science” and other conditions involved in grant approvals. “The U.S. government is the largest single source of research funding, and under these regulations only research that lines up with the politics of the party in power could get funded, whichever party that is,” said Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiology professor at Yale School of Public Health, in a statement sent by Defend Public Health, a group of public health researchers. → The Trump administration argues that the changes are intended to stop “wasteful spending that became prevalent during the previous administration” by tightening oversight measures at agencies across the government. Ginexi is urging researchers to send their own testimonials to OMB during the public comment period, which ends on July 13. | 
