The White House is close to nominating Monica Bertagnolli to run NIH, in today's bite-sized hospital and health industry news from the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Massachusetts.

• District of Columbia: The White House is close to nominating Monica Bertagnolli to run NIH, according to people familiar with the situation. Currently, Bertagnolli is serving as the director of the  National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH's largest research institute. She is the first woman to lead NCI, and since she took over the role in October, she has focused on making cancer studies less expensive and complicated. She also developed the new National Cancer Plan, which aims to reduce cancer death rates, as well as other goals from President Joe Biden's cancer "moonshot" efforts. If nominated and approved as NIH director, Bertagnolli would be the second woman to lead the agency after Bernadine Healy, who was appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1991 (Whyte, Wall Street Journal, 4/19; Cancryn, Politico, 4/19; McGinley/Diamond, Washington Post, 4/19)
• District of Columbia/Maryland: HHS  and  CMS on Thursday unveiled a public database that provides ownership details for more than 6,000 hospices and 11,000 home health agencies that receive Medicare reimbursement. The database includes information on mergers, acquisitions, consolidations, and changes in ownership since 2016. According to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, the new database is part of the Biden administration's efforts to promote competition and protect consumers. "It's plain and simple: Families deserve transparency when making decisions about hospice and home healthcare for their loved ones," Becerra said. "President Biden has called for unprecedented action to increase transparency – and we are making more data publicly available than ever before." The database will be updated quarterly, adding to the transparency the administration is promoting in the healthcare industry. So far, HHS has already released ownership data for over 7,000 Medicare-certified hospitals and 15,000 skilled nursing facilities. (Berryman, Modern Healthcare, 4/20)
• Massachusetts: Relay Therapeutics on Tuesday presented early-phase trial results on their new PI3K inhibitor drug, RLY-2608, at the annual American Association for Cancer Research meeting. This drug inhibits a protein called PI3K, which is involved in cell growth and division and is implicated in a wide variety of cancers, including 30% of breast cancers. Its primary competitor, Novartis' alpelisib, approved in 2019, slows the progression of metastatic breast cancer but often has severe side effects. "They're really difficult. Hyperglycemia and rash and diarrhea," said Cynthia Ma, a breast cancer researcher and physician at  Washington University in St. Louis. "So many patients go off treatment because of side effects." In comparison to alpelisib, RLY-2608 was found to be more tolerable and had fewer side effects. However, the early clinical response among patients was not particularly favorable, leading to concerns among the company's investors and a 36% stock drop after Relay's presentation. On the other hand, several cancer clinicians have had positive reactions to the data, saying reduced toxicity from these kinds of drugs could benefit patients. According to Relay, it plans to continue testing RLY-2608 in phase 2 trials, where researchers hope the drug will improve progression-free survival in patients. (Chen, STAT+ [subscription required], 4/19)