Highlights of the important and interesting in the world of healthcare:
Health insurers pay big to fight reform. Health insurers last year gave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce $86.2 million to oppose the healthcare overhaul law, according to tax records and people familiar with the donation, Bloomberg Businessweek reports.
Roche cutbacks brush U.S. biotechs. The world’s biggest spender on pharmaceutical R&D, Switzerland-based Roche, is making a sweeping series of cutbacks whose effects are brushing leading biotech companies Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and Vancouver, British Columbia-based Tekmira Pharmaceuticals, Xconomy reports.
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.
Hospital workers uneasy. Hospital workers around the country continue to strike over contract negotiations and other issues, according to Becker’s Hospital Review.
But hospitals add jobs. Healthcare added 24,100 jobs in October, according to preliminary data the Dept. of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics released Nov. 5. That was the third-fastest-growing sector, behind professional and business services (46,000) and retail (27,900), according to American Medical News.
ProPublica gets something from drug companies. Several of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical companies plan to tighten screening of physicians who promote their drugs after ProPublica reported last month that more than 250 of them had been sanctioned for misconduct, according to the investigative news organization.
Confidence vote for Provenge. A panel of physicians and researchers who advise the federal Medicare agency expressed an intermediate amount of confidence that the Seattle biotech company Dendreon’s (NASDAQ: DNDN) immune-booster for prostate cancer Provenge extends lives, according to Xconomy Seattle.
