TOP STORIES
Johns Hopkins has been sued for $1 billion for playing “a key role in a government study of syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases in Guatemala.”
Does Mark Cuban NOT understand healthcare? Charles Ornstein put together a nice twitter summary. A Forbes contributor tries to put it in context.
Cuban’s comments wouldn’t matter much if he was a run-of-the-mill investor, or even an average tech CEO.
But Cuban’s platform is so big — beyond his nearly 3 million Twitter followers, “Shark Tank” draws more than 8 million viewers too — and he announced that his debate with Ornstein perversely motivated him to further promote his bizarre, bloody agenda.
A Tennessee Senate committee voted to deny around 280,000 state residents access to health care, rejecting a plan to expand Medicaid that wouldn’t have cost the state anything. Sen. Todd Gardenhire (R), a wealth manager at Morgan Stanley who sits on the committee, kind of lost it when advocates for the expansion approached him about his own care. Clear utterance of the word “asshole” was caught on tape.
Here comes the HIMSS coverage: a little bit from Chilmark Research and the first (of many) HIMSS Survival Guides.
LIFE SCIENCE
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.
Pfizer has stopped selling vaccines in China.
Johnson & Johnson Innovation has popped $15 million in Vivo Capital Fund.
News has surfaced about NuVasive’s CEO Alex Lukianov’s official resignation because of some personnel discrepancies.
An independent investigation overseen by NuVasive’s board “revealed that Alex had not complied with certain of the Company’s expense reimbursement and personnel policies,” Jack Blair, the board’s lead independent director, said in a statement.
Just days after raising $22M, Gelesis has filed for IPO. If the the offering is completed, it would be the first company created by Boston-based PureTech to go public.
Meanwhile, Asante Solutions says: IPO? April Fools!
Here are the federal guidelines manufacturers of opioid-based painkillers can use to show that their products are resistant to misuse and abuse by patients.
Boston Scientific has bought Xlumena and its stenting systems for $62.5 million.
PAYERS-PROVIDERS
Former Cleveland Clinic CMIO Dr. David Levin has joined clinical decision support software business PeraHealth as “physician executive.” Its software is designed to enhance care team communication and help clinicians detect unexpected patient deterioration faster.
TECH
A London health system has developed a new sleep app for children (it’s free).
We’ve just subscribed to Fraggl Health’s e-newsletter of cool health stories (in beta)
The latest Sense4Baby FDA approval will allow mothers to perform non-stress tests in their homes.
IBM and Apple have released eight more apps, including some interesting ones in healthcare.
New York’s state legislature voted to allocate $45 million in funding for fiscal year 2015-2016 to support the state’s electronic health records system – known as the Statewide Health Information Network of New York.
POLITICS
Governors: I hate Obamacare, but sure I’ll take about $400 million from it.
North Carolina will be the next Indiana-like battleground over “religious freedom” legislation. Will GSK, UNC Health and others in RTP step up like Lilly and Roche did in the Hoosier State?
MIT’s Paul Gruber: I’ve been misquoted!!!!
A couple of Republican Senators are concerned about an Obama administration/healthcare.gov conflict of interest involving the CMS’s Andy Slavitt.
Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) wrote to Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Mathews Burwell in a letter released Wednesday, raising concerns about Andy Slavitt, the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Before being hired by CMS in June 2014, Slavitt was an executive at Optum, which owns QSSI, a contractor that works as “senior adviser” to CMS on the federal ObamaCare website.
During the special extended enrollment period, around 36,000 people have signed up for Obamacare plans through March 29.
Canada’s Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of assisted suicide, which makes it the biggest demonstration of this kind of legislation. PBS Newshour took a closer look at how doctors, patients and politicians are grappling with how to set rules and eligibility in the next year.
A LITTLE EXTRA
There had to be some April Fool’s day news. Among many who may have encountered the classic plastic wrap on the toilet trick and other favorites, Indianapolis Colts fans got duped, too with the plan for new all white uniforms.
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.
