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
Sir Andrew Witty, GSK’s CEO, saw his pay drop a whopping 46 percent. “You could read it as a message from the board that he’s underperforming,” one analyst told Bloomberg.
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.
Dr. Francis Collins and Dr. Harold Varmus go deeper on the precision medicine initiative.
Ultimately, we will need to evaluate the most promising approaches in much larger numbers of people over longer periods. Toward this end, we envisage assembling over time a longitudinal “cohort” of 1 million or more Americans who have volunteered to participate in research.
AstraZeneca is creating an independent company to look at anti-infectives. Fierce makes it sound like the move is equivalent to abandoning children in the forest with nothing more than a canteen.
Veterans propose major changes in VA healthcare.
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.
This is a painfully awful list that tries to explain why patients are not consumers.
LIFE SCIENCE
Lyric Pharma raised $20 million for its gastrointestinal drug.
Avedra says an FDA advisory committee has recommended approval for its treatment of keratoconus or corneal ectasia.
A drug used to treat cancer by killing cancer stem cells has received orphan drug designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in the treatment of mesothelioma.
Biota Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is acquiring Anaconda Pharma with a $38 million deal.
Anaconda Pharma’s lead candidate is AP611074, a patented, direct-acting antiviral in development for the treatment of condyloma, or anogenital warts, as well as the orphan disease recurrent respiratory papillomatosis (RRP), both of which are caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) types 6 and 11.
Learn about the NIH’s new $41.5 million placenta project.
So an Italian neuroscientist wants to do head transplants as a way to prolong life for people with muscles, organs and immune systems that have degenerated or wasted away. Sounds like an ethical minefield.
PAYERS-PROVIDERS
Dr. Robert Wachter interviewed regular talker and thinker Dr. Atul Gawande who says a lot of his old stuff and a little bit of new stuff. I thought what Wachter said was more interesting.
The residents feel they’re caught up in this world where everything they need to know is on the computer screen. That’s creating angst in their day-to-day lives. You go up to the floor of the medical service in my hospital, and there are no doctors there. They come, they see the patients, and then they escape to this tribal room where all 15 residents hang out together, each doing his or her computer work. That means that many of the informal interactions that used to occur between docs and nurses, or docs and patients and their families, have withered away.
As of April, UnitedHealth Group Inc. will require doctors to obtain authorization from the insurer before performing most types of hysterectomies, according to a bulletin sent to physicians and hospitals.
EHR use in hospital emergency and outpatient departments is increasing, according to CDC.
Surescripts has published new tools to help prescribers learn more about the electronic prescribing of controlled substances.
Almost Family, a Kentucky-based company that provides home nursing and personal case has acquired WillCare Healthcare in a deal that’s estimated to be as much as $53 million. Almost Family CEO William Yarmuth said the deal would give it a foot hold in the New York market.
TECH
Algonquin Studios is raising a $2 million fund to support its inaugural VCamp digital health accelerator class starting in Spring 2016.
The Wall Street Journal’s Billion Dollar Startup Club profiled money-makers Proteus Digital and Moderna.
Watson is only the beginning. IBM said it will spend another $4 billion on cloud, analytics, mobile, social and security technologies (there’s got to be a healthcare piece in there somewhere.
A former ONC policy analyst has joined 23andMe as privacy officer and corporate counsel. In her previous role, Kate Black drafted, analyzed, and advised on federal health IT regulations, privacy and security requirements under the HITECH Act and HIPAA.
POLITICS
Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell continues to underscore the fact that there is no backup plan if the Supreme Court rules against Obamacare.
Electronic cigarette firms in Italy say a new levy that doubles the price of e-liquid refills unfairly helps tobacco giants like Philip Morris International and will hurt their industry.
Worries about how the Affordable Care Act may affect 2014 returns could drive more filers to spend hundreds of dollars to get professional help from accountants and preparation services.
A LITTLE EXTRA
Anyone who cares about venture capital, gender equality, the culture of investing and innovation and Silicon Valley should join the rest of the venture community following the Ellen Pao-Kleiner Perkins gender bias trial. Some of the best coverage is coming from Re/code.
[Photo from the Medtronic campus in Minnesota from Flickr user Charlie]
