About health insurance/insurers
Appeals court pauses Texas ruling against ACA preventive care coverage “The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has temporarily blocked a Texas court's ruling earlier this year that struck down an ACA provision requiring payers and employers to provide coverage for preventive services.”
2023 EDITION High-cost claims and injectable drug trends analysis [From Sun Life] “Some key insights included in this year’s report are:
—71% of all stop-loss claims came from the top 10 conditions.
—While cancer continues to be the largest driver of high-cost claims, cardiovascular disease rose one spot to the #2 claim condition in 2022, with $142.4M in reimbursements for over 2,300 members.
—11 of the top 20 high-cost injectable drugs are related to the treatment of cancer.
—Rylaze, the cancer drug with the highest average cost ($808.7K), is new to the
top 20 injectables drug list this year.
—Approximately one in nine employers (11%) experienced a birth-related stop-loss claim in the four-year benefit period of 2018 through 2021. Newborn/infant care ranks at #5 in 2022, consistent with its previous ranking in the top five last year and has one of the highest average costs at $371.8K.
—20% of employers had at least one member with over $1M in claims during the four-year benefit period from 2018 through 2021.
—Million-dollar claims on a per million covered employees basis rose 15% in the past year and 45% over the past four year.”
About hospitals and healthcare systems
30 most trusted healthcare brands When evaluating these lists, consider if they make sense. The facts that Mayo is #4 and Cleveland Clinic did not make the top 30 list is not believable.
CommonSpirit reports $1.1B operating loss in 9-month period “Chicago-based CommonSpirit, one of the largest nonprofit health systems in the country, recorded operating losses of $658 million and $1.1 billion for the three- and nine-month periods ended March 31.
Those figures compared with operating losses of $591 million and $638 million for the same periods in the prior year. Lower contract labor costs helped stem some of the operating losses, although hiring challenges remain, the system said.
Improved investment returns also helped mitigate the overall loss..”
About pharma
CVS closing down clinical trials business after 2 years “CVS Health is closing down its clinical trials arm just two years after its launch, a company spokesperson confirmed to Fierce Healthcare.
The spokesperson said the healthcare giant routinely reviews its portfolio to ensure its assets are ‘aligned with our long-term strategic priorities.’ The company will wind down Clinical Trial Services in "a phased way" and expects a full exit by Dec. 31, 2024.”
AstraZeneca is third member to leave PhRMA in five months “AstraZeneca has decided to leave the brand drug lobbying powerhouse PhRMA halfway through the year, the organization said.
The exit is the group’s third in five months, as AbbVie exited PhRMA in December and Teva Pharmaceuticals left in February.”
Comment: The company did not furnish a specific reason for the withdrawal.
About the public’s health
Effect of HPV self-collection kits on cervical cancer screening uptake among under-screened women from low-income US backgrounds (MBMT-3): a phase 3, open-label, randomised controlled trial “Among under-screened women from low-income backgrounds, mailed HPV self-collection kits with scheduling assistance led to greater uptake of cervical cancer screening than scheduling assistance alone. At-home HPV self-collection testing has the potential to increase screening uptake among under-screened women.”
Black communities endured wave of excess deaths in past 2 decades, studies find “America’s Black communities experienced an excess 1.6 million deaths compared with the White population during the past two decades, a staggering loss that comes at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, according to two new studies that build on a generation of research into health disparities and inequity.
In one study, researchers conclude that the gap in health outcomes translated into 80 million years of potential life lost — years of life that could have been preserved if the gap between Black and White mortality rates had been eliminated. The second report determined the price society pays for failing to achieve health equity and allowing Black people to die prematurely: $238 billion in 2018 alone.”
World Health Organization Warns Against Using Artificial Sweeteners “The World Health Organization on Monday warned against using artificial sweeteners to control body weight or reduce the risk of noncommunicable diseases, saying that long-term use is not effective and could pose health risks.
These alternatives to sugar, when consumed long term, do not serve to reduce body fat in either adults or children, the W.H.O. said in a recommendation, adding that continued consumption could increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and mortality in adults.”
About healthcare IT
Google Cloud Launches AI-powered Solutions to Safely Accelerate Drug Discovery and Precision Medicine “Google Cloud announced two new AI-powered life sciences solutions to accelerate drug discovery and precision medicine for biotech companies, pharmaceutical firms, and public sector organizations. Available worldwide today, the Target and Lead Identification Suite helps researchers better identify the function of amino acids and predict the structure of proteins; and the Multiomics Suite accelerates the discovery and interpretation of genomic data, helping companies design precision treatments.”
About health technology
Your DNA Can Now Be Pulled From Thin Air. Privacy Experts Are Worried. “Over the last decade, wildlife researchers have refined techniques for recovering environmental DNA, or eDNA — trace amounts of genetic material that all living things leave behind. A powerful and inexpensive tool for ecologists, eDNA is all over — floating in the air, or lingering in water, snow, honey and even your cup of tea. Researchers have used the method to detect invasive species before they take over, to track vulnerable or secretive wildlife populations and even to rediscover species thought to be extinct. The eDNA technology is also used in wastewater surveillance systems to monitor Covid and other pathogens.
But all along, scientists using eDNA were quietly recovering gobs and gobs of human DNA.”
Comment: Fascinating article in The NY Times. Read it if you can get access. Some questions that remain: who can use this DNA and for what purpose?
About healthcare finance
Trade commission fights Amgen's $28B purchase of Horizon Therapeutics “The Federal Trade Commission said on Tuesday it will try to block an effort by biopharmaceutical leader Amgen Inc. from purchasing Horizon Therapeutics for $28.3 billion, charging the move could force insurance companies to favor their products.
The FTC said the coupling of Amgen and Horizon could have allowed Amgen to leverage its portfolio of top-selling drugs to entrench a monopoly position in treatments for thyroid eye disease and chronic refractory gout.”
Scribe's CRISPR tech Prevails in new $1.5B biobucks deal with Lilly unit “Eli Lilly’s Prevail Therapeutics is jotting down up to $1.5 billion for Scribe Therapeutics in hopes of writing some new CRISPR-based genetic medicines for neurological and neuromuscular diseases into history.
Prevail, a wholly owned Lilly subsidiary developing genetic medicines for Parkinson’s disease and other neurodegenerative conditions, will also give California-based Scribe $75 million in an upfront payment and equity investment. Additionally, Prevail will provide R&D funding and pay Scribe certain royalties on future sales, offering the biotech more than $1.5 billion in milestone payments tied to the collaboration.
In return, Prevail gets exclusive rights to Scribe’s CRISPR X-Editing (XE) technologies to develop new in vivo therapies for certain targets known to cause serious neurological and neuromuscular diseases. Scribe will also have the chance to co-fund one program and share the profits for it in the U.S.”