- So the AHCA is DOA. What happens now? Matt Herper reads the tea leaves. The bill’s failure is great news for hospitals, he says, and could portend a pharma M&A spree if the Republicans can successfully move on to tax reform. However, there’s much the Trump Administration can do to trip up the ACA’s individual marketplaces, and statements by the President and other prominent Republicans suggest they’ll do just that.
- Fast Company looks at “Apple’s plan to crack the $3 trillion health care sector,” which aims to integrate the iPad and Apple’s suite of data aggregation software offerings into hospital care, at-home care and medical research. To get there, and avoid the experience of Google Home, Apple is striking up partnerships with healthcare and health tech companies, including Epic and other EHR giants. Apple’s interest in healthcare, we learn, was piqued in part by the late Steve Jobs’ experiences as a patient and his realization that the user experience in healthcare could use some redesigning.
- FDA is getting with the patient-centricity program. The agency is soliciting feedback on a proposed Office of Patient Affairs, a “single, central entry point to the agency for the patient community”which would seek to infuse FDA operations with the patient perspective. It’s a response to a 2012 law commanding HHS to “develop and implement strategies to solicit the views of patients during the medical product development process and consider the perspectives of patients during regulatory discussions.”
- Incoming FDA commish (pending Senate confirmation) Dr. Scott Gottlieb has argued for loosening FDA regulation of mobile health – in fact, he’s proposed shifting oversight of apps outside of the agency, to a purpose-built industry or government body, to speed innovation. And there are a number of other places Gottlieb’s FDA could take a lighter-touch approach.
- J&J and GSK joined a growing revolt of mega-advertisers that have pulled advertising from YouTube over concerns about adjacent content. Google has pledged to review its ad-placement practices and give advertisers more control over adjacencies.
- Here’s how Bayer built digital capabilities and expertise throughout its organization. C-Suite buy-in and a digital council spanning the organization are part of their special sauce.
- A small study of Pokemon Go users found that the average number of steps taken jumped 35%after they started to play the game – and that the biggest gains came to those who were overweight or obese.
- Veeva’s collaboration with a number of pharmas on a universal login for physicians under the Align Biopharma umbrella is getting some competition. DMD Marketing is launching an audience identity manager “which comprises a tag and a reader that requires no sign on.”
- ZocDoc has revamped its search function to include natural language processing and machine learning, drawing on a decades-worth of search data.
- How WebMD’s Cold and Flu Map and the makers of Mucinex walk the fine line of “the creepiness factor” in targeting ads for medications to searches (tldr: they’re not doing real retargeting but rather geo-targeting to areas where the flu is running rampant).
- Sanfoi is working on a diabetes app described as a “digital insulin titration system,” allowing remote monitoring by the patient’s care team. Sanofi is collaborating with a French developer, Voluntis on the app, which will debut in North America and “several European countries,” according to PMLive. Voluntis has already secured FDA and EU approval for the app.
- A look into how Google is thinking about advertising in the age of voice search and digital assistants.
- The big story out of last week’s ACC cardiology conference was a perfect illustration of the growing power of payers, as Amgen released study findings showing that Repatha reduced risk of cardiovascular events substantially – but not so much that Wall Street thought payers would pay for the $14K-plus drug, which sent Amgen’s stock sinking.
- Mayo Clinic’s CEO said the health system would give preferential treatment to privately-insured patients over those receiving Medicare or Medicaid, for which providers are reimbursed at a lower rate. That’s kind of shocking, though Mayo said the practice “isn’t unique to Mayo Clinic” – in essence, “Oh, everybody does it – their CEOs just don’t say it right out loud like ours did.”
- FDMs at hospital pharmacies are cracking down on expensive drugs amid unchecked pricing and an anticipated surge in the volume of uninsured patients.
- A grim milestone: US deaths from opiate overdoses have surpassed those from AIDS at the epidemic’s peak in the ‘80s and ‘90s.
