Top Story

Morning Read: Shire made a $30B offer to acquire biopharma company Baxalta, patient readmission costs have added up to $420M

Rare disease specialist Shire has made a $30B offer to acquire biopharma company Baxalta, and patient readmission costs have added up to $420M resulting in penalties against hospitals.

TOP STORIES

Dublin-based rare disease specialist Shire announced that it has made an all-stock, $30 billion offer to acquire Baxalta, a company that was created earlier this summer after pharma giant Baxter spun off its biopharma unit into the new entity. BioPharmaDIVE

The majority of the nation’s hospitals are being penalized by Medicare for having patients frequently return within a month of discharge. Now, they have lost a combined $420 million, government records show.
In the fourth year of federal readmission penalties, 2,592 hospitals will receive lower payments for every Medicare patient that stays in the hospital — readmitted or not — starting in October. The Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, created by the Affordable Care Act, was designed to make hospitals pay closer attention to what happens to their patients after they get discharged. Kaiser Health News

LIFE SCIENCES

Mindfulness therapy seems to help veterans cope with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a new study suggests.

Mindfulness encourages those suffering from PTSD not to avoid disturbing thoughts, feelings and experiences, but rather to accept them and put them in perspective. The approach may help those who aren’t doing well using existing treatments, said lead researcher Melissa Polusny, a staff psychologist from the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System.

Drugs.com

PAYERS-PROVIDERS

Premier, Inc., a healthcare improvement company, reached an agreement to acquire CECity, Inc., for $400 million. CECity is a privately held, SaaS-based healthcare solutions provider, specializing in performance management and improvement, pay-for-value reporting and professional education. — Premier Inc

TECH

Investment activity for cybersecurity startups has understandably ramped up in recent years, particularly with the rise of data breaches at healthcare facilities and health insurers, but corporate investors are increasingly major players in this area. In the past five years they have invested nearly $1.3 billion across 135 deals. Last year alone they participated in 44 deals. Intel Capital, Google Ventures, Juniper Networks and Qualcomm Ventures figure prominently. CB Insights

PhysIQ has received an FDA 510(k) clearance for its personalized physiology analytics system. The company is offering an early warning detection platform that analyzes a user’s physiological data, including heart rate, respiration rate, oximetry and blood pressure to create a personalized baseline for each user rather than comparing the data to what might be considered norms.

MobiHealthNews

POLITICS

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced plans to spend $110 million to help states track and respond to infectious diseases.The Hill

And they just keep on coming…

The Center for Medical Progress has released its fifth undercover video on Planned Parenthood and its alleged sale of fetal organs, this time they have focused on a Texas branch of the organization. Politico

A LITTLE BIT EXTRA

Technological growth with 3D printing has been contributing to huge advances in healthcare, but it’s also being used in other ways, for better or worse. Researchers have released a software application that will make copying those pesky “do not duplicate” keys a piece of cake. Wired

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