Current medical news and unique business news for anyone who cares about healthcare.
Screenings — good or bad? What’s behind the recent suggestions that screenings for certain types of cancer (breast, prostate) may do more harm than good? The NYT says more information has become available, and the growing evidence against cancer screening is hard to ignore. In the sports world, M.R.I.’s are getting the same kind of attention because of their widespread use on pretty much any injured athlete. Some sports medicine orthopedists say the scans often lead to overdiagnosis and overtreatment.
A new use for Vytorin. The FDA is backing Merck’s blockbuster cholesterol drug Vytorin for a new indication — preventing heart attack, stroke and related problems in patients with kidney disease — after it demonstrated no harmful effects and a 16 percent reduction in heart-related problems for patients in a study. The FDA will vote Wednesday.
The Healthcare Payments Industry Has a Perception Problem
Healthcare payments are no longer about transactions. It’s about controlling the revenue cycle. And increasingly, that control is not sitting with ISOs.
Our startup problem. Although “small businesses” are often credited with providing job growth in the U.S., a little more digging reveals that it’s actually young companies — rather than small ones — that drive growth. And it turns out, America doesn’t stack up so well in that department compared to other wealthy countries.
CDC tracks stomach flu through NBA. A new report from the CDC outlines how an outbreak of stomach flu wiped out members of 13 NBA teams last year. It was caused by a norovirus, which resist common disinfectants and can be caught through contaminated droplets in the air.
Pharma finds emerging markets harder to handle. Sure, emerging markets hold promise for pharmaceutical companies, but conquering those markets is turning out to be more challenging than some expected.
NPS shares fall on trial news. Rare-disease drugmaker NPS Pharmaceutical’s shares plunged 33 percent yesterday after the company announced that three people in its clinical trial for its experimental short bowel disease treatment developed and two died.