Highlights of the important and interesting in the world of healthcare:
Pfizer unexpectedly switches CEOs. Jeff Kindler, a lawyer tapped as a fresh face to lead drug maker Pfizer out of its doldrums, is out, after just a little over four years as chairman and chief executive, reports NPR’s health blog. Kindler’s executive bio already has been erased from Pfizer’s website. Ian C. Read, 57, head of the company’s global biopharmaceuticals operations, is in. Here’s Pfizer’s release.
With the Rise of AI, What IP Disputes in Healthcare Are Likely to Emerge?
Munck Wilson Mandala Partner Greg Howison shared his perspective on some of the legal ramifications around AI, IP, connected devices and the data they generate, in response to emailed questions.
Biotech cowboys come clean. Here’s how — especially in today’s sluggish economy — people muster up the guts, raise the mountains of cash, and find the staying power to do something truly big and unprecedented — like create a regenerative medicine based on stem cells, according to Xconomy.
Thumbs up for hospitals, but… Americans trust their hospitals, according to a recent HarrisInteractive poll. But managed care, health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, not so much, reports the HEALTHPopuli blog.
Health IT wrong solution? Health Care Renewal blog makes a compelling point about the current Health IT push: The expectations for major quality improvements in healthcare from the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on health IT might be vastly overstated, based on false assumptions about the causes of adverse events.
GE Healthcare extends Clarient offer. GE Healthcare is extending its tender offer for molecular diagnostics firm Clarient Inc. shares until Thursday, Dec. 16. Apparently, investors in the $587 million acquisition need more time to mull new information about a proposed settlement of a shareholder lawsuit over the deal.
A Personalized Approach to Medication Nonadherence
At the Abarca Forward conference earlier this year, George Van Antwerp, managing director at Deloitte, discussed how social determinants of health and a personalized member experience can improve medication adherence and health outcomes.
FDA panel vote could expand Lap-Band use. A federal advisory panel Friday endorsed an expansion of the use of Allergan’s Lap-Band stomach-restricting device to patients who are less-than-severely obese. The vote could double the number of Americans who qualify for weight-loss surgery, reports the New York Times.
Where there’s smoke… Abbott sales representative spent $2,159 to buy a whole, slow-smoked pig, peach cobbler and other fixings for a barbecue dinner at the home of Dr. Mark Midei, the Baltimore cardiologist who reportedly inserted 30 of the company’s cardiac stents in a single day in 2008. Now, the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees Medicare, is looking into whether all those implanted patients really needed stents, according to the New York Times.
