Current medical news and unique business news for anyone who cares about the healthcare industry.
Healthcare reform’s first anniversary. Healthcare reform turns 1 this week, and everyone has plans to “celebrate.” A dozen groups will hold 200 events in 35 states over the course of this week to rally support for President Obama’s healthcare reform laws. It starts with Monday demonstrations about protecting small business’s care and will end with events themed on protecting healthcare for young adults.
Plus, major players in the reform movement have their predictions for year 2 of healthcare reform, including a greater push on tort reform, a growth in accountable care organizations, and a chance by next March everyone will be waiting for the Supreme Court’s ruling on reform.
Interesting stat: “Polls show that about 1 in 8 Americans believe they have been personally helped already, well before the main push to cover the uninsured scheduled for 2014.”
Berwick showdown? Republican opposition had made Donald Berwick’s chances of being named administrator of Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services virtually impossible. But a “virtual Who’s Who of the patient-safety and healthcare-quality movements” have signed a petition to force hearings and a vote anyway.
Health insurance M&A strategy. Afraid of what healthcare reform will do to their insurance businesses, insurance companies are buying new types of medical companies: businesses that bring medical treatments to different countries, medical financial planners, urgent-care providers and many others. Many of these companies connect with their businesses and have synergies with the core business.
NIH’s diabetes priorities. The NIH is going to focus on 10 specific areas around diabetes, including autoimmune mechanisms and type 1 diabetes and helping cut the effects of diabetes on segments of the population disproportionately affected by diabetes.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Genomics’ boom times. The Benlysta approval. The Plexxikon acquisition. In short: These are good days for genomics companies.
Driving the new drug development are some 30 genomics companies, mostly in California, Massachusetts and Britain. Sales for the industry were about $3 billion in 2010 and are likely to grow 10 percent annually for the next five years, Deutsche Bank estimates.
