- Image by Ahmad Nawawi via Flickr
Highlights of the important and the interesting in the world of health care:
Five candidates for the next biotech IPO: Boston-based Ironwood Pharmaceuticals filed Tuesday for a $173-million IPO. Founded in 1998, with $32 million in sales over the last year, Ironwood has developed a drug for chronic constipation. With six other biotech firms having already filed for IPOs and waiting for the right time to pull the trigger, the blog BNET rounded up predictions on the next firms most likely to file.
With the Rise of AI, What IP Disputes in Healthcare Are Likely to Emerge?
Munck Wilson Mandala Partner Greg Howison shared his perspective on some of the legal ramifications around AI, IP, connected devices and the data they generate, in response to emailed questions.
First on the list is San Francisco’s Portola Pharmaceuticals, which has developed an anti-bloodclotting drug and has deals with big drug makers that total more than $1 billion. Alas, for us Midwesterners, all five of BNet’s top candidates are from the coasts.
Checking the pulse of the polls: Most Americans expect any federal health-care overhaul that’s passed to have little effect on them personally, according to a poll from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Fifty-seven percent said reform efforts would have no impact on their own access to care, and 61 percent said their financial situation would stay about the same.
Given those numbers, it seems surprising that 79 percent said it’s important for President Obama to include health reform in addressing the nation’s finances. Taken together, the numbers seem to imply that Democratic leaders should be having an easier time convincing the public to back their plans, given that the much of the public sees health reform as necessary and at the same time doesn’t fear personal setbacks as a result of reform efforts. Too bad it doesn’t seem to be working out that way.
Another poll, this one from the Kaiser Family Foundation, suggests that much of the debate over a “public option” is overblown. Even among Democrats, having access to a public option ranked as the seventh-highest priority. The No. 1 concern for Democrats? “Making sure affordable health insurance plans are available.” That was also the No. 1 priority for Independents and No. 2 for Republicans, who were most concerned about not adding to the federal budget deficit.
A Personalized Approach to Medication Nonadherence
At the Abarca Forward conference earlier this year, George Van Antwerp, managing director at Deloitte, discussed how social determinants of health and a personalized member experience can improve medication adherence and health outcomes.
What’s good for Medtronic is good for America: Well, maybe not America, but, in this case Medtronic’s stronger than expected earnings are good news not only for the company itself (obviously), but also for its competitors, according to the Wall Street Journal. Like Medtronic, rivals Boston Scientific and St. Jude Medical sell pricey implantable cardioverter defibrillators, devices that deliver electric shocks to correct abnormal heart rhythms.
Last month, earnings reports from the two competitors suggested that demand for the devices could be softening, but Medtronic’s surprisingly strong earnings put that theory to rest. As a result of this new perceived strength in their markets, all three companies saw their stocks shoot upward yesterday.
Did U.S. taxpayers subsidize drug companies’ advertising? Though not definitive, that’s what a recently published study in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggests. Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb spent about $70 million per year to co-market anti-clotting drug Plavix, the study’s researchers said. As NPR reports:
The researchers suggest that companies passed much of those costs on to taxpayers by hiking the price they charge Medicaid programs for the drug. Twenty-seven Medicaid programs — which insure low-income people — spent an extra $200 million on the drug during the advertising campaign compared to what they were paying before the ads began rolling.
Yet even with this outlay of hundreds of millions of dollars, the ads didn’t increase the number of prescriptions physicians wrote for the drug, as Reuters reports. Ouch. Another PR success for Big Pharma! This incident would only seem to bolster the case for those who seek to ban consumer advertising of prescription drugs.
