TOP STORIES
Welcome to 2016, Theranos!
U.S. health inspectors have found serious deficiencies at Theranos Inc.’s laboratory in Northern California, according to people familiar with the matter.
The problems were found during an inspection by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the chief federal regulator of clinical labs, at the blood-testing company’s facility in Newark, Calif. Failing to fix the problems could put the Theranos lab at risk of suspension from the Medicare program.
The inspection results are expected to be publicly released soon, these people said. A spokesman for the agency said it “can’t confirm any survey conclusions or results at this time.”
The news also includes a lot of fascinating details on the terms of Walgreens’ pact with Theranos, including this gem: the deal “doesn’t obligate Theranos to share any financial information, even though Walgreens also has lent the startup at least $50 million in the form of debt convertible into equity.” – Wall Street Journal
LIFE SCIENCES
AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and Johnson & Johnson have joined with three British universities to create the $57 million Apollo Therapeutics Fund to help fund early-stage drug research. – Financial Times, University College of London
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.
The FDA has approved the combination of Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Opdivo with Yervoy for BRAF V600 wild-type and BRAF V600 mutation-positive unresectable or metastatic melanoma. – Business Wire
PAYERS-PROVIDERS
The carrots don’t work anyway, so…. more employers are simply ordering their employees to do wellness training (or else). – The New York Times
Awful news: Dr. Nabil El Sanadi, president and CEO of Broward Health, was found dead in his condominium from a self-inflicted gunshot wound Saturday. – Sun Sentinel
Keep an eye on Zika: It’s likely to spread to all countries in the Americas except for Canada and Chile, the World Health Organization said. – Reuters
TECH
Apple earnings tomorrow: They’re more important than their usual announcements (and healthcare should pay attention). – VentureBeat
None of these are actually the “Uber of Healthcare” because when I think of Uber I think of a transformative technology with an amoral leadership team. These are just the big trends we already know about. – Business Insider
A LITTLE BIT EXTRA
You’re going to want to keep an eye on this: Twitter executives who lead media and product – Katie Jacobs Stanton and Kevin Weil, respectively – plus three other key players are leaving the company. A top American Express executive is on a short-list to join the Twitter team.
Twitter closed at $17.84 on Friday, about a quarter of its record high of $69 seen in January 2014. – Re/Code, TechCrunch, Re/Code
