Netflix for Drugs?
By KIM BELLARD
A relative — obviously overestimating my healthcare expertise — asked my thoughts on The New York Times article Can a Federally Funded ‘Netflix Model’ Fix the Broken Market for Antibiotics? I had previously skimmed the article and was vaguely aware of the Pasteur Act that it discusses, but, honestly, my immediate reaction to the article was, gosh, that may not be a great analogy: do people realize what a tough year Netflix has had?
I have to admit that I tend to stay away from writing about Big Pharma and prescription drugs, mainly because, in a US healthcare system that seems to pride i...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 21, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: The Business of Health Care Congress Kim Bellard Netflix Pharma Pharmaceutical industry Source Type: blogs
HLTH 2022: Market State-of-Play with Stephanie Davis of SVB Securities
By JESSICA DAMASSA
“If last year was EUPHORIA…‘We made it! Digital health is relevant!’ This year, it’s a little more panic. More, ‘Are we okay???’” SVB Securities’ Senior Managing Director Stephanie Davis says that she’s been getting asked for a lot of advice this year, so we jump on the bandwagon. Should digital health and health tech be worried? What about exits? What areas of health innovation are still hot? Which are not? And, what the heck is “creative destruction” and why is it her favorite buzz phrase from HLTH 2022?
Stephanie answers all our questions, reassures us of the healthc...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 20, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Tech Jessica DaMassa WTF Health digital health Digital health funding Digital health investing digital health IPO Stephanie Davis SVB Securities Source Type: blogs
Bad Backs & Deductibles
It’s time again for me to use my bad back as a case study in why American health care has such crazy incentives.
About a month ago at the HLTH conference in Vegas, over the course of a few hours I developed debilitating leg pain. To quote from my earlier twitter thread on my time in Vegas, “After 3 days of excruciating pain, my wife insisted I went to the ER. The public policy person in me was horrified but we had already spent our deductible, so the cost was actually lower than paying cash for an MRI”
What actually happened was that after 3 days of dreadful pain & inability to wal...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 19, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Policy Matthew Holt Chronic Back Pain health deductible health plans (HDHP) Insurers Surgery Source Type: blogs
HLTH 2022: Health Tech Market Check-Up with Lux Capital ’s Deena Shakir
By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH
Deena Shakir, General Partner at Lux Capital, shares her take on the market state-of-play for healthcare innovation amid these “tumultuous” economic times. As an investor, Deena has been a passionate advocate for women and children’s health and her fund, Lux Capital, invests broadly in health tech – pre-seed to pre-IPO, from virtual-first care delivery businesses like women’s health clinic, Maven, (on whose Board Deena sits after Lux co-led their $110M Series D) to health tech infrastructure businesses like Commure and Tendo and those working in AI, ML, and robotics.
We get i...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 19, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Tech Jessica DaMassa WTF Health Commure Deena Shakir Lux Ventures Maven Tendo Source Type: blogs
HLTH 2022: Health Gorilla & Interoperability ’s New TEFCA-Fueled Future
Health Gorilla is in the business of health data interoperability and the double-backflip this startup is doing to both make clinical data an easily accessible commodity – while also making sure that access to that data adheres to the privacy rules established by the US government – takes a minute to understand, but is critically important for the future of many health tech businesses.
CEO Steve Yaskin takes on the tough job giving us a brief overview of TEFCA (the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement) which is meant to establish once-and-for-all a common ground for data interoperability. Then, we get in...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 16, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Tech Jessica DaMassa WTF Health Health Gorilla Interoperability Source Type: blogs
THCB Gang Episode 110, Thursday December 15
Joining Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) on #THCBGang on Thursday December 15 were patient safety expert and all around wit Michael Millenson (@mlmillenson); policy expert consultant/author Rosemarie Day (@Rosemarie_Day1); writer Kim Bellard (@kimbbellard), consumer expert Lygeia Riccardi (@Lygeia) radiologist Saurabh Jha (@RogueRad), and Olympic rower for 2 countries and all around dynamo Jennifer Goldsack, (@GoldsackJen). It was a full house and lots of fun, with a lot wrapped round the theme of protecting consumers (or not) online.
You can see the video below & if you’d rather listen than watch, the audio is preserved...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 15, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Abdul Ghafar Tags: THCB Gang Jennifer Goldsack Kim Bellard Lygeia Ricciardi Matthew Holt Michael Millenson rosemarie day Saurabh Jha Source Type: blogs
THCB Gang Episode 110, Thursday December 15, 1pm PT 4pm ET
Joining Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) on #THCBGang on Thursday December 15 patient safety expert and all around wit Michael Millenson (@mlmillenson); policy expert consultant/author Rosemarie Day (@Rosemarie_Day1); writer Kim Bellard (@kimbbellard), consumer expert Lygeia Riccardi (@Lygeia) radiologist Saurabh Jha (@RogueRad), and Olympic rower for 2 countries and all around dynamo Jennifer Goldsack, (@GoldsackJen). It’s a full house and it’ll be lots of fun.
You can see the video below & if you’d rather listen than watch, the audio is preserved as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes &&n...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 15, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Abdul Ghafar Tags: THCB Gang Jennifer Goldsack Kim Bellard Lygeia Ricciardi Matthew Holt Michael Millenson rosemarie day Saurabh Jha Source Type: blogs
HLTH 2022: Turquoise Health CEO Talks Future of Healthcare Price Transparency
By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH
Along with the implementation of CMS’s hospital price transparency rules in 2021 came a market opportunity for savvy health tech startups able to not only aggregate the massive amount of data coming in from providers and payers, but to actually make it usable for shopping healthcare services or large-scale market analysis for those without a computer engineering degree or background in healthcare economics. Turquoise Health is one of those startups, but what makes the Andreessen Horowitz-backed biz a stand-out from the pack is the extra SAS platform of services it’s building on top of ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 15, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Tech Jessica DaMassa WTF Health Chris Severn price transparency Turquoise Health Source Type: blogs
HLTH 2022: Komodo Health Says “Big Pharma Needs to Kick Its Consulting Addiction”
By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH
Komodo Health’s co-founder & President, Web Sun, has a big challenge for Big Pharma: Kick your “addiction” to the laborious, time-consuming, consultant-led process it takes to get the answers you need to your big data questions.
Komodo itself works with a lot of Big Pharma clients to use its full-stack approach to deliver insights on patient costs and outcomes at-scale – so, what’s up with the tough love??
The answer may have more to do with the news Web shares about how Komodo is starting to evolve its business model from working with Pharma on “applications” tha...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 14, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Tech Jessica DaMassa WTF Health Komodo Health Web Sun Source Type: blogs
HLTH 2022: Thirty Madison and The Expanding Definition of Women ’s Health – and Its Revenue Model!
By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH
The definition of women’s health keeps expanding beyond sexual and reproductive health (finally!) and among those leading the way toward more holistic health for women is virtual pharmacy startup, Thirty Madison, which acquired “Uber-for-birth control” biz, Nurx, at the beginning of this year.
Thirty Madison’s President Michelle Carnahan gives us an update on the integration of the two companies around women’s health, and talks about Thirty Madison’s brand-new mental health offering which will address “mild to moderate” mental health care needs including medication mana...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 13, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Tech Jessica DaMassa Michelle Carnahan thirty madison WTF Health Source Type: blogs
HLTH 2022: “Build-Mode” Glen Tullman Talks Transcarent Clients, Charts Comparison With Livongo
By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH
Lesson learned: Don’t bet against Glen Tullman. Transcarent’s CEO brings his legendary “paper schedule packet” to our interview to prove the point that he carries Livongo’s first growth chart around with him everyday as a reminder of the number of overnights it takes to build a “overnight success” of a business. As Glen puts it, “When you’re building these companies, everybody remembers where you ended…they don’t remember where you started.”
So, how in the world did we get to this public prove-you-wrong? Catch the conversation that led us there as we talk ab...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 13, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Tech Jessica DaMassa Glen Tullman Livongo transcarent Source Type: blogs
As Balwani and Holmes Head To Jail …Will Others in Health Tech Follow?
by MIKE MAGEE
This week’s headlines seemingly closed a chapter on the story of medical research criminality in America. Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, former president and COO of Theranos was sentenced to 13 years in prison for fraud. That’s 2 years more than his former business and romantic partner, Elizabeth Holmes.
White crime criminal defense attorney for all things science tech, Michael Weinstein, took the opportunity to trumpet out a confident message that crime doesn’t pay in Medicine with these words, “It clearly sends a signal to Silicon Valley that puffery and fraud and misrepresentation will be pr...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 9, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Medical Practice Ethics Henry K. Beecher Medical Ethics Mike Magee Theranos Source Type: blogs
THCB Gang Episode 109, Thursday December 8, 1pm PT 4pm ET
Joining Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) on #THCBGang on Thursday December 8 will be futurist Jeff Goldsmith; privacy expert Deven McGraw (@healthprivacy), and employer & care consultant Brian Klepper (@bklepper1). Deven has a bunch of insights from her new study on health data access!
You can see the video below & if you’d rather listen than watch, the audio is preserved as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes & Spotify channels. (Source: The Health Care Blog)
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 8, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: THCB Gang Brian Klepper Deven McGraw Jeff Goldsmith Matthew Holt Source Type: blogs
HLTH 2022: Calibrate Launches Enterprise Product to Bring GLP1 Weight Loss Drugs to Payers/Employers
by JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH
Telehealth weight loss clinic Calibrate is expanding its two-year old D2C biz and taking it into the workplace with the launch of ‘Calibrate for Enterprise,’ which makes its program of GLP-1 weight loss drugs and behavior change coaching now available to payers and self-insured employers as a packaged employee health benefit. CEO Isabelle Kenyon shares the news here and reveals that the enterprise offering actually launched in stealth-mode a little more than a month ago with three clients and already has signed up more members in one month than it had its entire first six months D2C. H...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 7, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Tech Jessica DaMassa Calibrate Isabelle Kenyon WTF Health Source Type: blogs
Give Kids a Healthy Itch
by KIM BELLARD
Someday I’ll probably write about Neuralink, but these days I don’t feel like giving Elon Musk any extra publicity. I also had the notion to take OpenAI’s newly announced ChatGPT down a rabbit hole about U.S. healthcare, just to see where it would go, but Mr. Musk has his fingerprints on that organization too. Then I saw something worth celebrating: Scratch has hit 100 million users worldwide.
What’s that? You’re not familiar with Scratch? Well, me neither, until last week. Now that I know a little about it, I kind of feel how I felt when I first discovered TikTok, found out about Roblo...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 7, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Tech Kim Bellard Scratch Source Type: blogs
