Seven Bridges Genomics has formed a new subsidiary-the Unified Patient Network (UPN) to facilitate clinical research and collaboration between participating health systems and biopharma companies with a focus on advancing precision medicine and improving patient care.
The Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and its affiliated health system, BJC HealthCare, is the first academic health system to join the UPN as a founding member. The UPN is also working with Genome Medical, the leading telehealth provider of genetics and genomics care.
The UPN will operate across many disease states and therapeutic areas, including rare, complex neurodegenerative, psychiatric and autoimmune diseases and disorders, as well as cancer, cardiology and common diseases such as diabetes. Data will be gathered from patients across multiple health systems and used as part of institutional review board (IRB)-approved research studies, to understand how genes contribute to or protect against various diseases and influence how well patients respond to treatment.
Partnering closely with Seven Bridges, the UPN is leveraging the Seven Bridges highly-secured research and development ecosystem as the interoperability infrastructure for the network community, and enabling exploration and analysis for complex cohort stratification across populations of millions of patients, via the ARIA™ scientific intelligence system. The content will be made available only to credentialed researchers as part of IRB-approved research studies, as mutually agreed to by the UPN and the health system members, by leveraging Seven Bridges’ proven security, authentication and authorization protocols and technologies.
For information on UPN, click here.
Carrum Health announced that Bryan Chen has been named as senior vice president, User Growth. An early employee and former executive at Vida Health who accelerated the digital health company’s growth as its head of business development and strategy, Chen will work cross functionally across Carrum Health’s various functions to enhance user growth and COE utilization.
“Carrum Health is accelerating the transition to outcomes-based care, and we want to ensure that our members can optimize their healthcare experience by accessing the highest quality, most affordable care,” said Sach Jain, CEO and founder of Carrum Health. “Chen brings unique experience as a multifaceted executive who has been at the forefront of the digital health revolution. He will leverage this expertise to ensure that our marketing, provider, patient, client success and data teams work in concert to deliver the most impactful experiences to our members.”
Chen’s hiring comes on the heels of other key executive hires in the last quarter, including former Google executive Pallav Sharda joining as Chief Platform Officer and former ConsumerMedical executive Randy K. Hawkins, M.D. joining as Chief Medical Officer. Earlier this month, Carrum Health was recognized among an elite group of innovative digital health startups and named to the CB Insights Digital Health 150.
In an effort to reduce discrimination and increase compliance oversight, CMS is implementing new rewards and incentives regulations for Medicare Advantage on January 1, 2022, that will require plans to rapidly adapt their incentive programs or face potential sanctions due to noncompliance. Are you prepared for these changes? For more information, read the latest article from James Haskins, Director of Government Programs, Healthmine.
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Norwest Venture Partners has closed a $3 billion fund, Norwest Venture Partners XVI, LP. The new fund will target investments in high-impact companies from early to late stage venture and growth businesses across healthcare, consumer, and enterprise sectors. NVP XVI brings the firm’s total capital under management to $12.5 billion.
Since November 2019 when its last fund closed, it has invested in healthcare companies such as Devoro Medical and VisitPay,
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Strados Labs, a Philadelphia-based medtech company and INVEST Digital Health Pitch Perfect winner that developed a wearable device to detect lung sounds in patients with asthma, COPD, and other respiratory disorders, has added a Procter & Gamble healthcare executive to its board of directors.
When Steve Bishop was the CEO of Procter & Gamble’s healthcare business, he expanded the business through organic growth as well as M&A deals.
Strados Labs was recently granted a CE Mark for the Company’s RESP Smart Sensor Platform for respiratory health. Last year it received an FDA Class II 510(k) clearance for RESP. In addition to targeting asthma, COPD and infectious respiratory diseases, Strados plans to add heart failure in late 2022.
In an interview with MedCity News, CEO Nick Delmonico said the device fits into the growing adoption of technologies that enable decentralized clinical trials, in which patients participate in drug studies from their homes rather than having to visit a clinical site.
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Picture: akindo, Getty Images
