TOP STORIES
Dr. Margaret Hamburg’s second act will be as foreign secretary for the Institute of Medicine.
It’s going to be a bumpy landing for the Doc Fix/CHIP bill: “Much of the work by Boehner and Pelosi was done behind the scenes, and a number of healthcare groups feel they were left out of the process.”
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If you didn’t get your fill of the Mark Cuban discussion last week this should fill you up (and this too).
LIFE SCIENCE
Aduro Biotech had upped its IPO goal to $93 million.
Medical device manufacturer InfaredX withdrew its IPO registration, according to Fortune’s column Term Sheet. The company produces medical devices to diagnosis and manage coronary artery disease. No explanation was offered, but the news follows a $24.5 million net loss on $3.68 million in revenue for the first nine months of 2014. To date, Infraredx raised more than $175 million in equity funding from backers like Sanderling Ventures, Nipro Corp., and Eastwood Capital.
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OpGen prepares for IPO with a goal of $35.3M in net proceeds.
Carbylan Therapeutics had refiled its IPO, but is seeking a quarter less ($69 million).
Juno and Novartis have called a truce in the CAR-T patent battle
Ocular Therapeutix eye-pain drug fails in a Phase III trial.
Rucaparib gets “Breakthrough Therapy” status and Clovis’ shares jump.
Shire will re-file Adderall XR in 2017.
Brilinta, the heart medication, gets an new FDA approval.
Hedge fund manager Kyle Bass is asking the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to reconsider coverage on two Shire meds, Lialda and Gattex.
PAYERS-PROVIDERS
Frederic Brandt – the “Baron of Botox” – is dead of an apparent suicide.
Aetna will pay $1 million for inaccurate information about which pharmacies were in network.
Hospitals should be happy Medicare doesn’t reimburse based on and U.S. News rankings, don’t factor in leadership diversity.
According to a new study, only around a third of health care providers use mobile and remote technologies in their work. As a result, many struggling to coordinate care among themselves and their patients.
Clinicians report that they feel hindered by old or underused technologies, wasted exchanges and concerns about privacy and security. Among respondents, 69 percent reported that patient care is often delayed while waiting for important medical records.
TECH
Here’s a quirky little summary of HIMSS. Here are 5 hacks to make HIMSS a little easier.
Researchers have developed a new method to activate genes by synthetically creating a key component of the epigenome that controls how our genes are expressed.
The researchers say having the ability to steer the epigenome will help them explore the roles that particular promoters and enhancers play in cell fate or the risk for genetic disease and it could provide a new avenue for gene therapies and guiding stem cell differentiation.
POLITICS
Florida Gov. Rick Scott has reversed his stance on expanding Medicaid under Obamacare, once again, which would use billions of federal dollars to extend coverage to about 800,000 people.
American Action Network, a center-right political group, is spending $1.8 million on advertisements thanking Republican lawmakers for supporting the House budget and a bill to reform payments to doctors under Medicare.
A LITTLE EXTRA
There should be more delicious take downs of health-focused frauds in our country. Read this excoriation of Vani Hari – aka the “Food Babe.”
Reading Hari’s site, it’s rare to come across a single scientific fact. Between her egregious abuse of the word “toxin” anytime there’s a chemical she can’t pronounce and asserting that everyone who disagrees with her is a paid shill, it’s hard to pinpoint her biggest sin.
Hari’s superhero origin story is that she came down with appendicitis and didn’t accept the explanation that appendicitis just happens sometimes. So she quit her job as a consultant, attended Google University and transformed herself into an uncredentialed expert in everything she admittedly can’t pronounce. Slap the catchy moniker “Food Babe” on top, throw in a couple of trend stories and some appearances on the Dr. Oz show, and we have the new organic media darling.
But reader beware. Here are some reasons why she’s the worst assault on science on the internet.
The Morning Read provides a 24-hour wrap up of everything else healthcare’s innovators need to know about the business of medicine (and beyond). The author of The Read published it but all full-time MedCity News journalists contribute to its content.