Medical device surveillance, meet Geisinger’s new CEO and more bad news on measles (Morning Read)

The Morning Read provides a 24-hour wrap up of everything else healthcare’s innovators need to […]

The Morning Read provides a 24-hour wrap up of everything else healthcare’s innovators need to know about the business of medicine (and beyond). The author of The Read published it but all full-time MedCity News journalists contribute to its content.

TOP STORIES

The FDA has taken a big next step in establishing a medical device postmarket surveillance system: a $250 million plan that will roll out over seven years.

Get some background on Geisinger’s new CEO, Dr. David T. Feinberg. The former president of the UCLA Health System “made UCLA much more popular with its patients.”

Measles cases have surpassed 150.

A great story in the Financial Times as to why Eli Lilly will likely never be part of a big megamerger in pharma.

John Lechleiter, chief executive, insists the company is not for sale. “We have studied these large-scale combinations. Two companies that have a problem come together to make a company twice the size, with twice the problems. Cutting costs on the backs of tens of thousands of job losses is a recipe that hasn’t worked,” he says.

Such intransigence would be unimportant were it not for what Mr Lechleiter describes as “structural defences”. The company’s largest investor, with a 12 per cent stake, is Lilly Endowment, created in 1937 by three members of the eponymous family with a mission to help people in Indiana, its home state, “to build a better life”.

Even if a buyer were able to circumvent the endowment, the takeover laws in Indiana effectively prohibit hostile acquisitions. No unfriendly deals have taken place there since 1988.

LIFE SCIENCE

Merck & Co finalized a licensing deal with the Medicines Patent Pool for its HIV drug Isentress to be used for children.

Eli Lilly has shut down peglispro until “after 2016” because of liver-damage concerns. It could be curtains for the drug.

There’s a $400 million breakup fee in the Salix-Valeant deal.

Novartis’ multiple myeloma treatment got FDA approval.

Neuronetrix’s device that records electrical brainwaves in Alzheimer’s, concussion, schizophrenia and ADHD patients has received FDA approval.

The solution for high cancer-drug prices is … a petition?

Metactive has closed $2 million to develop devices to treat vascular and neurovascular diseases.

Rigel & Bristol-Myers Squibb have struck a commercialization deal around cancer immunotherapies. BMS also bought Flexus Biosciences for $1.3 billion.

VertiFlex’s spinal stenosis system got FDA OK.

PAYERS-PROVIDERS

The number of uninsured Americans hit a new low – 12.3 million fewer adults were uninsured in the last three months of 2014, when compared with the third quarter of 2013, when HealthCare.gov was launched.

Seattle Children’s and Mayo Clinic are taking a shot at cutting genetic testing lab fees.

They’re talking superbug Congressional hearings in California.

Get a look at the challenges awaiting new Partners HealthCare CEO David F. Torchiana, who takes over the health system next month.

Thanks, Obama. The health insurance industry’s rate cycle is now “a closely watched political event.”

Georgia is taking a shot at saving its rural hospitals but it could be too little too late.

As part of a relatively new trend, geriatric patients are getting their own style of emergency rooms equipped with things like screening tests for cognitive problems like dementia, non-slip flooring, and staff trained to be attuned to factors that affect care. Encino Hospital Medical Center is opening a specialized emergency room and inpatient unit next month.

Another separation of conjoined twins – this time at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.

Long-lasting reversible contraceptives are increasingly popular in women, according to a new study.

Mercy Hospital and Trauma Center receives re-accreditation as chest pain center.

TECH

Data fees are slowing down efforts to digitize health records, doctors say. “It’s like giving everyone cellphones and not putting up a cell tower.” The GOP may step in.

Nice read: “What happens when an FDA-cleared app gets ‘recalled’?”

Great outline of how researchers have paired microscopes with mobile phones to get quality images.

Medical identity theft is up 21 percent.

Suneel Gupta, the brother of CNN’s chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, has jumped into the mobile health app business with the launch of a personal nutrition coaching app called Rise. So far it’s only available for iOS network devices.

A LITTLE EXTRA

Eight physicians organizations are calling for new polices to reduce gun-related injuries and deaths. “Along with our colleagues in law and public health, those of us who represent the nation’s physicians realize that there are significant political and philosophical differences about firearm ownership and regulation in the United States,” says the American College of Physicians CEO, Dr. Steven E. Weinberger.

The Idaho House of Representatives was discussing a bill that would ban doctors from using telemedicine to prescribe abortion-inducing medication. State Rep. Vito Barbieri basically asked if doctors could use a capsule endoscopy to perform a tele-gynecological exam.

Dr. Julie Madsen was testifying in opposition to the bill when Barbieri asked the question. Madsen replied that would be impossible because swallowed pills do not end up in the vagina.

“Fascinating. That makes sense,” Barbieri said, amid the crowd’s laughter.

h/t io9

[Photo of Raigmore Hospital Inverness Scotland from Flickr user Dave Conner]

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