Martin Shkreli wasn’t the only news this week, right? 5 must-read stories from MedCity News this week

From Mayo Clinic's precision medicine conference this week to new updates in FDA patient engagement policy, here are the top fives stories of the week.

We had a rather unique MedHeads this week, in which Martin Shkreli – the Wall Street dudebro reviled for jacking up prices of toxoplasmosis drug Daraprim more than 5,000 percent – spoke unapologetically about these choices for Turing Pharmaceuticals. Watch him speak on MedHeads with our special panel of guests – John Carroll of Fierce Biotech, Luke Timmerman of Timmerman Report, and Chris Seper and myself from MedCity News.

Some highlights of the 40 minute longform interview?

 

That leads up to the top stories of the week, which inevitably was led by…

1. Hey, Martin Shkreli: Shut. The hell. Up.

Maybe we should thank Martin Shkreli. Healthcare has so few dude bros. He’s pushing hard to be medicine’s Dude Bro No. 1.

Because in an election year, when healthcare’s discourse is all about lowering costs andimproving efficiency, when there are very pricey drugs that can legitimately make a case for their price tag, and the biggest healthcare issues are repealing Obamacare and how crazy Dr. Ben Carson is, the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals has come off like, WTF – raise the prices, dude!

2. Mayo Clinic’s Farrugia on the future of precision medicine: Patients are ready to engage

When it comes to selling consumers on the value of genomics, targeted therapies and the like – it won’t actually be that hard. President Barack Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative, “a bold plan” according to Farrugia, has organically attracted sufficient attention to successfully enroll the one million necessary clinical trial participants.

“We don’t need to pitch it very hard,” Farrugia said. “We’ve never had an undersubscription of trials in this space. We don’t need to sell something here.”

3. What does development of the FDA’s new patient engagement committee actually mean for patients?

The Food and Drug Administration is putting together a patient engagement advisory committee, comprised of 9 voting patient representative members (yet to be chosen), who will concentrate on the patient perspective in a much more specific way than what’s previously been in practice.

4. Peter Thiel-backed Auris Surgical Robotics raises $150M

Stealth Bay Area startup Auris Surgical Robotics has just raised an astounding $150 million in equity, according to a regulatory filing. The company’s got an all-star list of investors – including Lux Capital, NaviMed Capital and the Peter Thiel-backed Mithril Capital Management.

The company’s remained quiet about its activities. But it did announce in 2013 that it’s developing a microsurgical robot for eye surgery, particularly cataract removal.

5. A closer look at TEXT ME clinical trial reveals 5 ways to improve clinical validation of apps

A study using text messages to improve management of cardiovascular disease published in JAMA this week offered yet another example of how apps can affect behavior change, in this case cardiovascular disease. But an editorial citing the study noted that the process for clinical validation could use some improvement and offered some recommendations.

 

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