Matthew ’s health care tidbits: The drug model for DTx was wrong
Each time I send out the THCB Reader, our newsletter that summarizes the best of THCB (Sign up here!) I include a brief tidbits section. Then I had the brainwave to add them to the blog. They’re short and usually not too sweet! –Matthew Holt
If you were to look at pharmaceuticals in the US you might make three observations. 1) They are the most important way health conditions are helped, cured or eradicated. 2) The way they are delivered to patients (via pharmacies) is very badly integrated with the health care delivery system. 3) They are way too expensive.
OK, so those are my observations not yours but I think ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - March 24, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Tech Matthew Holt digital therapeutics dtx Pear Therapeutics Source Type: blogs
Protai Adds $12 Million to Seed Round – Bringing the Total to $20 Million – to Build an Oncology Drug Discovery Pipeline
Since its initial funding last year, Protai has launched collaborations with leading hospitals, opened a wet lab and expanded its advisory board with world-renowned oncology experts, including MD Anderson’s CSO, Prof. Giulio Draetta
Protai, a proteomics and AI-powered drug discovery startup revolutionizing the way new drugs are discovered, today announced that it has added $12 million to its seed round, bringing the total amount to $20M. The round includes existing investors Grove Ventures and Pitango HealthTech and was joined by Copenhagen-based Maj Invest Equity Fund. The additional funding will be used to build Protai...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - March 23, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Healthcare IT News Tags: AI/Machine Learning Health IT Company Healthcare IT Artificial Intelligence Bradley J. Monk Data Acquisition Dr. Jurgen Moll Dr. Sharon Shacham Drug Discovery Eran Seger Funda Meric-Bernstam Genomic Biomarkers Giulio Draetta Grov Source Type: blogs
Imagene Profiles Cancer Biomarkers in Real Time
Cancer therapies have proliferated over the past few decades, improving outcomes for many patients. But this variety requires accurate diagnostics and appropriate decision making to choose the optimal course of therapy. The current gold standard of identifying which cancer mutation is present is new generation sequencing (NGS), which provides a comprehensive genetic report, but can take up to six weeks to complete, requires a significant tumor sample size, and can only be done in an advanced laboratory at a high cost.
Imagene, a company headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, has developed AI-based image analysis software...
Source: Medgadget - March 22, 2023 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Diagnostics Exclusive Oncology Pathology biomarkers cancer biomarkers molecular profiling Source Type: blogs
Bursting the Bubble of Over-Inflated U.S. Insulin Prices Still Leaves Behind a Very Broken U.S. Prescription Drug " Market "
This report pulls back the curtain on the drivers of spiking prices. It ' s a perfect example of why we ought to continue pushing for bipartisan legislation and oversight to address this problem. " " This investigation makes clear that consumers are the only ones losing out in America ' s broken drug pricing system, since every part of the pharmaceutical supply chain benefits from higher list prices. Insulin manufacturers lit the fuse on skyrocketing prices by matching each other ’s price increases step for step rather than competing to lower them, while PBM ' s, acting as middlemen for insurers, fanned the flames t...
Source: Scott's Web Log - March 22, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 insulin prices PBM USC Source Type: blogs
The Insulin-PBM Rebate Kickback Scheme Appears to Coming to an End
Last year, on March 3, 2022, in what I believe was a fantastic accomplishment relatively early in Aaron Kowalski ' s tenure as CEO, the JDRF and Civica, Inc. (via the company ' s CivicaScript operating unit) jointly announced Civica ' s intention to commercialize biosimilars of the three bestselling insulin analogues at an affordable price of $30/vial or $55/box of five insulin pens. The Civica press release can be seen athttps://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220303005321/en/Civica-to-Manufacture-and-Distribute-Affordable-Insulin/ and a concurrent press release from JDRF can be seen athttps://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...
Source: Scott's Web Log - March 14, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: Eli Lilly and Company 2023 Civica CivicaRx CivicaScript drug prices FTC insulin insulin prices JDRF Novo Nordisk Novo Nordisk Pharma Source Type: blogs
The Insulin-PBM Rebate Kickback Scheme Appears to Be Coming to an End
Last year, on March 3, 2022, in what I believe was a fantastic accomplishment relatively early in Aaron Kowalski ' s tenure as CEO, the JDRF and Civica, Inc. (via the company ' s CivicaScript operating unit) jointly announced Civica ' s intention to commercialize biosimilars of the three bestselling insulin analogues at an affordable price of $30/vial or $55/box of five insulin pens. The Civica press release can be seen athttps://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220303005321/en/Civica-to-Manufacture-and-Distribute-Affordable-Insulin/ and a concurrent press release from JDRF can be seen athttps://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...
Source: Scott's Web Log - March 14, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: Eli Lilly and Company 2023 Civica CivicaRx CivicaScript drug prices FTC insulin insulin prices JDRF Novo Nordisk Novo Nordisk Pharma Source Type: blogs
Anti-covid, antiviral ensitrelvir
TL:DR – An antiviral drug called ensitrelvir could cut the time a person tests positive when they have COVID-19 by about a day. There is a controversial suggestion that it might also reduce the risk of developing long-covid.
An antiviral drug developed by Shionogi in partnership with Hokkaido University is an orally active 3C-like protease inhibitor, which can shorten the time between first testing positive after infection with SARS-CoV-2 and getting a negative test. Early signs are that it may well reduce the risk of developing long-covid, although that data is yet to be peer reviewed. There are some scientists sce...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - March 10, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: COVID-19 Pharma Source Type: blogs
Matthew ’s health care tidbits: Oh, the DEA makes me sigh….
Each time I send out the THCB Reader, our newsletter that summarizes the best of THCB (Sign up here!) I include a brief tidbits section. Then I had the brainwave to add them to the blog. They’re short and usually not too sweet! –Matthew Holt
I have always thought that the dual role of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was an anacronym that severely hampers America’s complex relationship with pharmaceuticals. Congress deems some medicines legal and regulates them via the FDA, and deems others illegal and tells the DEA and other law enforcement agencies to attempt to control their supply. Leaving aside the basic...
Source: The Health Care Blog - March 7, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Policy Matthew Holt Adderall Controlled Substances Act DEA FDA regulations online prescribing Source Type: blogs
Meet GINA, Global INitiative for Asthma
TL:DR – Thanks to GINA I have not needed to use salbutamol to treat my asthma for three years at the time of writing.
It’s three years since my asthma nurse introduced me to GINA, the Global INitiative for Asthma. It was a phone consultation because the then new virus SARS-CoV-2, which causes what became known as COVID-19, was beginning to spread. At the time, I was very worried that it would be a killer for me given my asthma. Eventually, medical science learned that people with asthma were not necessarily at any greater risk of morbidity and mortality.
Anyway, it was nice to meet GINA. GINA contradicts some ...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - February 27, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Asthma Health and Medicine Pharma Source Type: blogs
Let ’s Finish The Job
BY MIKE MAGEE
In President Biden’s State of the Union Address, the most oft repeated phrase was “Let’s Finish The Job!” This came as part of an appeal for partnership as well as an assertion that in his first two years as President much had been accomplished.
Several days later, as if on cue, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), joint chairs of the Senate Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, announced that two bipartisan pieces of legislation focused on reducing the price of drugs to consumers had passed the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Both bil...
Source: The Health Care Blog - February 16, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Policy Affordable Generics and Biosimilars Act Biden Mike Magee state of the union Source Type: blogs
5 Best Practices To Build A Future-Ready Digital Health Company
Transparent communication, clinically-validated technologies, and addressing real-life clinical needs might sound like no-brainer components to a digital health company since they are working in the healthcare sector. It is also a rapidly expanding one where investments were heavily channelled during the pandemic.
However, some estimate that 90% of digital health startups will go bust or be ‘acqui-hired’ within a few years of being founded. If digital health represents the future of medicine and healthcare, it is important to understand why this is the case.
We previously dissected the reasons why digital h...
Source: The Medical Futurist - February 16, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Pranavsingh Dhunnoo Tags: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Bioethics Digital Health Research E-Patients Future of Medicine Future of Pharma Personalized Medicine Portable Medical Diagnostics Science Fiction Telemedicine & Smartphones theranos study inves Source Type: blogs
Senators Bennet and Collins Have Their Hearts in the Right Place, But Their Eyes on the Wrong Target
Jeffrey A. SingerSenator Susan Collins (R ‑ME) wrote anop ‐ed for Seacoastonline this week expressing her concerns about skyrocketing drug overdose deaths. According to the most recentdata from the National Center for Health Statistics, 90 percent of opioid ‐related overdose deaths involve illicit fentanyl, and 15 percent involve diverted prescription pain pills. In her column, Senator Collins expressed pride in a proposal aimed at reducing overdoses that she co‐sponsored with Senator Michael Bennet (D‑CO). Unfortunately, while the legisla tion was well‐intended, it placed too much emphasis on educ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 9, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs
Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company ( " MCCPDC " ) PBC May Be Able to Say " Mission Accomplished " Even if Sales Stop Growing
On January 19, 2022, a startup called theMark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company ( " MCCPDC " )opened its doors to the American public as a new online pharmacy and generic manufacturing startup. Initially, MCCPDC was also planning to launch its own Pharmacy Benefit Manager, but it later scrapped those plans, instead announcing several PBM partnerships with some PBM startups which do not engage in " spread pricing " , including on generic, biosimilar and " authorized generic " drugs. The company bears the name of its famous principal investor, multibillionaire Mark Cuban, who is perhaps best known as both owner of the NBA te...
Source: Scott's Web Log - February 7, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: authorized generic 2023 Alex Oshmyansky authorized generics Biosimilar biosimilars Cost Plus costplus drug company drug prices drug pricing generic drugs mark cuban Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company Source Type: blogs
Weekly Roundup – January 28, 2023
Welcome to our Healthcare IT Today Weekly Roundup. Each week, we’ll be providing a look back at the articles we posted and why they’re important to the healthcare IT community. We hope this gives you a chance to catch up on anything you may have missed during the week.
Lessons Learned From a Health System’s Internal Data Breach. An Alabama health system recently fired an employee who accessed 2,500 patient records without authorization. Mike Semel said this is a telltale example of why health systems need to enforce HIPAA’s minimum necessary access rule, along with logging access and updating incident respo...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - January 28, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Brian Eastwood Tags: Healthcare IT Healthcare IT Today Weekly Roundup Source Type: blogs
Talent Group Announces Acquisition of Queen Consulting Group
Talent Group, a leading national IT staffing company, announced today the acquisition of Queen Consulting Group, a nationally recognized IT staffing and consulting company specializing in healthcare and pharma IT, Epic EMR implementations, financial services, and niche technical recruiting.
Queen Consulting Group was founded in 2015 by staffing industry veteran Carl Foster, who has more than 30 years of IT staffing and consulting experience. Foster joins Talent Group’s senior leadership team, along with Queen Vice Presidents, Jessica Doherty and Amy Migliore.
Matthew Ripaldi, Chief Executive Officer at Talent Group, ...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - January 26, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Healthcare IT News Tags: Health IT Company Healthcare IT Amy Migliore Carl Foster EdgeLink EHR Epic Health IT Acquisitions Health IT Talent Healthcare Consulting Healthcare M&A Jessica Doherty Matthew Ripaldi Michael Babb Osceola Capital Queen Quee Source Type: blogs
