Highlights of the important and interesting in the world of healthcare:
Pfizer to buy King Pharma. Its $3.6 billion deal to buy King Pharmaceuticals will be Pfizer’s largest since it bought rival Wyeth for $68 billion in 2009. That acquisition included Wyeth’s vaccine plant in Sanford, North Carolina, where Pfizer plans to cut 400 workers over the next five years, according to the News & Observer.
Small hospitals improve finances in 2009 but… Operating and balance sheet metrics for small hospitals improved in fiscal 2009, however more not-for-profit hospitals fell from investment-grade into speculative-grade financial ratings in the past year, according to Standard & Poor’s reports in Becker’s Hospital Review.
Closing the Quality-Affordability Gap in Workplace Mental Health
In an interview, Kyan Health Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer Konstantin Struck discussed how Kyan gives mid-market and enterprise employers access to premium workforce mental healthcare, at a price point that is affordable.
Some prostate, breast cancer patients still screening. Significant numbers of incurable cancer patients still have routine cancer screenings, according to a Journal of the American Medical Association reported in the Wall Street Journal’s Health blog.
What’s up with medical device stocks? Medical device companies have plenty to worry about, given health care reform, product recalls and a challenging FDA approval process. Yet there are many reasons to be optimistic about the growing industry that has been relatively unaffected by a tough economy, writes investment firm executive Ben Marks in the Seeking Alpha blog.
InfraReDx lands $21M to launch vessel imaging device. InfraReDx Inc. in Burlington, Massachusetts, has landed $21 million to launch its LipiScan IVUS coronary imaging system, which uses “near-infrared” spectroscopy and intravascular ultrasound technology to give cardiologists images of coronary arteries and their plaques.
HIV microbicide being tested in Pittsburgh. Tenofovir gel, a vaginal microbicide that has shown promise for preventing HIV through vaginal sex, is being tested in a new trial looking at its safety and acceptability when used rectally, according to the study’s co-principal investigator at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.