TOP STORIES
Healthcare is here to stay at GE, even though some “have raised questions about how smoothly GE’s healthcare business fits with the rest of the company.”
Asked at an investor conference whether GE was open to split-offs, GE Healthcare Chief Executive Officer John Flannery said: “Bottom line is we have been black and white that all aspects of healthcare are part of our portfolio.”
Behavioral Health, Interoperability and eConsent: Meeting the Demands of CMS Final Rule Compliance
In a webinar on April 16 at 1pm ET, Aneesh Chopra will moderate a discussion with executives from DocuSign, Velatura, and behavioral health providers on eConsent, health information exchange and compliance with the CMS Final Rule on interoperability.
– Reuters
Obamacare got a break in last night’s GOP presidential debate. Also, most of the presidential candidates stood tall on the vaccines issue, while doing enough wiggling and dancing on the topic to remind us they are all politicians. – Modern Healthcare
LIFE SCIENCES
BMJ: GSK held back data that showed the antidepressant Seroxat was bad for children. – Reuters
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.
AstraZeneca has struck a deal with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to develop antibiotics. – Reuters
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration changed the endpoint for Aerie Pharmaceuticals’ glaucoma drug. The company nailed it. The stock is soaring. – FierceBiotech
Ativa Medical, which has developed a micro lab that provides faster results with less blood for samples, has closed a B round to drive it to an FDA approval. – Business Wire
Nurix has inked a $150 million oncology pact with Celgene. – FierceBiotech
PAYERS-PROVIDERS
Ex-Sutter Health executive Chris Willrich will run Bay Health, the joint venture between UCSF Medical Center and John Muir Health. – San Francisco Business Times
#TakeBackMedicine or #FirstWorldProblems?
After obtaining two Ivy League degrees, I turned down lucrative job offers in finance and consulting, choosing instead to take out $180,000 in loans, the national average for medical students in America. A decade of post-graduate education later, I now work 60 to 80 hours a week for $13 to $20 an hour. Yes, you read that correctly. Resident salaries are paid for by Medicare funding, so I make less as a doctor than I did waiting tables in high school.
– KevinMD
School nurses are more often stocking Narcan to deal with overdoses. – NPR
TECH
Congratulations to MobiHealthNews – and co-founders Brian Dolan and Joe Maillie in particular – for Mobi’s acquisition by HIMSS Media. – MobiHealthNews
Telemedicine platform SkyMD has raised an $800,000 angel round. – MobiHealthNews
Health benefits manager Lumity has raised $14 million. – MobiHealthNews
Is the tablet market saturated? Or was the model just a fad? – Wall Street Journal
POLITICS
More details from the Census Bureau’s look at Obamacare. – The New York Times
A LITTLE BIT EXTRA
For you heavy metal fans (and the otolaryngologists who treated them): Limited edition Metallica Beer is coming. – Radio.com
Photo: Getty Images
