News
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While Auto vs. Allo Cell Therapy Debate Continues, VCs Look for ‘Next Shiny Thing’
Allogeneic cell therapy hasn’t caught up to autologous cell therapy yet, and the disappointing data so far has soured the entire allogeneic field for at least one venture capitalist. The cell therapy debate was one of the topics covered during a panel discussion at the Biopharm America conference.
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Payer’s Place: Dawn Maroney
Dawn Maroney, President, Markets of Alignment Health and CEO of Alignment Health Plan, to discuss how they are using technology to provide better service and care to consumers.
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Consumer / Employer, Health Tech
GoodRx, MedImpact Launch Medication Savings Solution
MedImpact and GoodRx are teaming up to lower costs for MedImpact members. When eligible MedImpact members refill a generic prescription, the companies’ savings solution will compare the member’s benefit to GoodRx’s price and will automatically apply the lowest one.
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MedCity Influencers, Artificial Intelligence, Health Tech
How Health Tech is Squashing AI Biases and Leveling the Playing Field in Healthcare
By making large amounts of diverse data widely available, healthcare institutions can feel confident about the evaluation, creation, and validation of algorithms as they’re transitioned from ideation to use.
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What CVS Stands to Gain by Setting Up Biosimilar Subsidiary Cordavis
Pharmaceutical industry observers say CVS Health’s creation of Cordavis, a new biosimilar drugs company, is part of a strategy to make its move into this market as profitable as possible.
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The Gigification of Healthcare
By leveraging technology and strategies used within the gig economy—and even tapping into the talent pool of gig workers themselves—healthcare organizations can address staffing shortages, retain and motivate more workers, and ultimately deliver better patient care.
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Medicare Startup Prioritizing ‘Movement As Medicine’ Snags $17M
Bold, a Los Angeles-based company offering a healthy aging platform for older adults, closed a $17 million Series A funding round. The startup seeks to improve the health of Medicare Advantage beneficiaries through personalized exercise programs designed to prevent falls, decrease musculoskeletal pain and boost physical activity levels.
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Generative AI, RPM Were Among the Biggest Trends In Health IT Fundraising During Q2
Healthcare IT companies raised $1 billion in venture capital in Q2 — down slightly from the $1.3 billion raised in Q1 but up significantly from the $451.3 million raised in Q4 2022. Unsurprisingly, a lot of these investments were made in companies offering generative AI products. Another key trend was increasing cash flow to remote patient monitoring startups, likely caused by expanded reimbursement for these services.
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An Ounce of Prevention Isn’t Enough To Treat Obesity
If we want to support people with obesity, the weight loss debate must stop conflating obesity prevention with obesity treatment. Instead, we should focus on the tools that best solve the needs of people where they are – just as we would for cancer or diabetes – by making the most effective treatments possible available.
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Applying Remote Patient Monitoring to Surgery Prep and Recovery, Oncology and Women’s Health
Join us to learn about the latest trends in remote monitoring and how to extend its benefits beyond chronic conditions to more patients – all while using fewer staff resources.
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How Hospitals Should Manage Cybersecurity Risks, Per Baptist Health’s CIO
As health systems shore up their defenses against cybercriminals, they should openly communicate with their third-party vendors about data security risks and work together to actively manage those risks. That was some of the advice given by Aaron Miri, Baptist Health’s chief digital and information officer, during a Tuesday webinar.
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Walgreens, Pearl Health Strike Strategic Partnership To Advance Value-based Care
Through a new partnership with Walgreens, Pearl Health will work with primary care providers by offering its technology and data insights to help them better their care and transition to value-based payment models. Walgreens is then providing prescription fulfillment, medication adherence, immunization and diagnostic testing services.
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Neuro Startup Arialys Raises $58M for Privilege of Tackling Brain Inflammation
Avalon BioVentures unveiled new portfolio company Arialys Therapeutics. The startup’s lead program, an antibody from Astellas Pharma, is a potential treatment for anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis (ANRE), a rare autoimmune inflammatory disorder.
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How 4 Mental Health Firms Want the DEA to Handle Virtual Prescribing of Controlled Substances
Talkiatry, Array Behavioral Care, Iris Telehealth and Quartet Health sent a letter to the DEA asking for a special registration process that would allow for the prescribing of certain controlled medications via telemedicine.
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Babylon Health’s CEO ‘Should Spend Some Time With Elizabeth Holmes’
U.K. doctor David Watkins has been a public critic of Babylon Health and its AI technology for years, during which has received anonymous emails from Babylon employees who shared his concerns but feared to speak out publicly. After Babylon collapsed, a former employee publicly declared that the AI engine was indeed faulty. As a longtime skeptic of Babylon’s claims surrounding its technology, Watkins said that Ali Parsa, the company’s CEO, shouldn’t be treated any differently to Elizabeth Holmes.
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FDA Approves Updated Covid-19 Vaccines to Address Now Circulating Variants
The FDA said the updated messenger RNA vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna will protect against the omicron subvariants now prevalent in circulation. Left out of the FDA decision is Novavax, whose protein-based vaccine is still under regulatory review.
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Consumer / Employer, Health Tech
Pumpspotting Secures $2.2M To Expand Access to Breastfeeding Support
Pumpspotting’s funding round was led by Sincere Corporation and Maine Venture Fund and included participation from Unum Business Ventures and Maine Technology Institute. In total, pumpspotting has raised more than $3.3 million.
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Moderna Puts Up $120M to Start Cancer Drug R&D Alliance With Immatics
Moderna and Immatics aim to see if the combination of their respective technologies can lead to better cancer treatments spanning multiple therapeutic modalities. Milestone payments to immunotherapy developer Immatics could top $1.7 billion.
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How Meditech Plans to Integrate Google’s Generative AI Into Its EHR
Over the past year, Meditech has deepened its relationship with Google Cloud by exploring ways to embed Google’s generative AI into its EHR. Some of the use cases the EHR vendor is exploring include an enhanced search and summarization tool that would present clinicians with a longitudinal view of their patient and a tool that would auto-generate clinical documentation for the hospital course summary.