About pharma
‘De-integration’ of Sandoz from Novartis expected to include manufacturing cuts: This story exemplifies changes that have been occurring over years in the pharma sector. Merger, restructuring, divestiture/spinoff, etc. It is a great case study.
Winners and losers under bold Trump plan to slash drug rebate deals: On the heals of last week’s story about federal initiatives to funnel drug rebates to patients instead of benefit managers, this article provides a nice analysis of the winners and losers with this new scheme.
About health insurance
New Poll: Americans Are Focused on Health Care Affordability, Drug Costs, Protecting Pre-Existing Conditions in 2019: Results of this type of poll are not new, When you ask Americans if they are satisfied with their health plans, the large majority usually say yes. However, ask about the situation in the nation as a whole, and you get very different answers. In this insurance-industry sponsored poll, two thirds of Americans “support the existing health care system over a government-run health care system” and 72% are “satisfied with their current health care coverage.” Those questioned said they want the government to focus on affordability (particularly pharmaceuticals) rather than coverage for all.
About hospitals and health systems
Catholic Health Initiatives, Dignity Health combine to form CommonSpirit Health: These two systems have been talking about merging for more than 2 years. They finalized this effort on Friday. The resulting non- profit company will be called CommonSpirit Health, based in Chicago. The new company has 142 hospitals, 150,000 employees, nearly $30 billion in revenue and more than 700 care sites across 21 states.
Prevalence of Malnutrition Risk and the Impact of Nutrition Risk on Hospital Outcomes: Results From nutritionDay in the U.S.: About half of hospitalized patients eat half their food. Poor nutrition in hospitals is linked to increased mortality. This study used data from the annual “nutrtionDay,”which was in November.
Read the study(Abstract available on this subscription site)
Read an article summarizing the findings