TOP STORIES
Drug developer Abbott Laboratories is poised to make a $25 billion bid for medical device maker St Jude Medical, according to a Financial Times report. Abbott CEO Miles White has expressed interest in moving into the medical device space.
With sneezing and watery eyes becoming even more common during allergy season, what if we could have hypoallergenic parks in the future? Paloma Carinanos, a professor of Botany at the University of Granada in Spain wants to find ways of creating public spaces that only contain plants that provide a less allergy-sensitive response.
To start, Carinanos and her team began by classifying the trees in Granada’s ten largest green spaces. They grouped the trees into three categories. Then they recorded the type of pollination, the length of the pollination period, and the potential for causing allergies for each tree. The researchers used all of this information to calculate if the green space was negatively affecting air quality and causing allergies. — Science Daily
LIFE SCIENCES
MediBeacon, which has created a device that uses an optical skin sensor and proprietary opti-reactive glowing agent to provide real time monitoring of kidney function, said it received $22.4 million in investment financing through an agreement with HC2 Holdings subsidiary Pansend LLC. — Mass Device
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.
An experimental blood test could detect the return of early stage breast cancer months before it is revealed by CT or MRI scans and before it invades other organs, according to researchers from the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Centre at the Institute of Cancer Research in London. — Drugs.com
PAYERS-PROVIDERS
Medicare accountable care organizations generated $411 million in total savings in 2014, but few of the Pioneer and Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) ACOs qualified for bonuses in the second year of the program. — CMS
While some insurers around the country have proposed drastic rate hikes, Maine Community Health Options, the state’s consumer operated and oriented plan that serves Maine as well as New Hampshire residents, has been able to keep prices in check. There’s some strategy behind that.—Fierce Health Payer
TECH
mPulse Mobile raised $1.7 million in a round led by OCA Ventures with participation from Jumpstart Ventures and Merrick Ventures. The funding is going toward a secure messaging offering designed for healthcare organizations including payers, pharmacies, providers, public and private exchanges, as well as employee wellness. — MobiHealth News
POLITICS
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner is removing a provision for heroin treatment from the state’s Medicaid coverage, despite a heroin addiction crisis in the state. — NPR
Physicians could have a proposed ethical duty when it comes to deportation.
Mass deportation, as proposed by Donald Trump, and echoed to varying degrees by other politicians, would have a catastrophic effect on the health of the approximately 12 million undocumented residents of the United States. Physicians accordingly have an ethical responsibility to speak out, individually and collectively, for the health of these people, and against mass deportation. — American College of Physicians blog
A LITTLE BIT EXTRA
The corpse flower, Amorphophallus titanium, a plant known for smelling terribly like rotting flesh (very pleasant, I’m sure), typically blooms every five to 30 years. But the specimen housed at the University of Binghamton seems to be more active than most. It’s set to open again any day now after only two years.
For those who aren’t too busy to sit and stare at a YouTube indefinitely, safe from the smell, here’s the link to the live feed.
Here’s a video of it blooming in 2010.
Photo: Flickr user Andy Rothwell
