Highlights of the important and interesting in the world of healthcare:
It’s election day. Research!America offers to help you better understand your candidates’ positions on issues in health and research.
No magic bullet for diabetes. Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) Chief Executive Kevin Sharer said Monday at the Cleveland Clinic’s medical innovation summit on obesity and diabetes that he doesn’t envision the drug industry developing new medicines over the next decade that stem the rising tide of diabetes, according to Dow Jones.
Using Informed Awareness to Transform Care Coordination and Improve the Clinical and Patient Experience
This eBook, in collaboration with Care Logistics, details how hospitals and health systems can facilitate more effective decision-making by operationalizing elevated awareness.
Should genes be patentable? The U.S. Department of Justice’s reversal of longstanding policy with its recent statement that human and other genes should be ineligible for patents because they are part of nature could have huge impacts on medicine and the biotechnology industry, according to the New York Times.
Got germs? GoJo Industries Inc. in Akron, Ohio, has reacquired the Purell hand sanitizer brand from Johnson & Johnson’s consumer products division, Crain’s Cleveland Business reports. Just in time for cold and flu season.
Pounding on Medicare’s door. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) shot off another letter to CMS Administrator Dr. Donald Berwick, focusing on possible conflicts of interest among Medicare contractors that conduct fraud investigations, according to FierceHealthcare.
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.
Credit thumbs up for HCA. Credit rating agency Fitch raised its sights on the debt of HCA Inc. because the for-profit hospital chain could significantly pay down debt with $2.5 billion in proceeds it expects from its third initial public offering, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.