TOP STORIES The World Health Organization has called for the release of clinical trial results for all drugs, vaccines and medical devices in an effort to prevent the withholding of data. The U.S. Senate voted to pass the “Doc Fix Bill,” repealing Medicare’s sustainable growth rate formula for paying doctors. We think Obama will sign […]
TOP STORIES
The World Health Organization has called for the release of clinical trial results for all drugs, vaccines and medical devices in an effort to prevent the withholding of data.
The U.S. Senate voted to pass the “Doc Fix Bill,” repealing Medicare’s sustainable growth rate formula for paying doctors. We think Obama will sign this quick. MedPage had a nice write up of everything politicians tried to add to the bill and didn’t make it.
Canada has a proud history of achievement in the areas of science and technology, and the field of biomanufacturing and life sciences is no exception.
You can’t ignore the studies like the one in BMJ, which openly question the medical value of most health apps to the worried well (who are probably apps’ biggest customers).
LIFE SCIENCE
Aduro Biotech: A healthcare unicorn
Voting is now open for the Buzz of BIO at the 2015 BIO International Convention. It will stay open until April 21.
StemBioSys landed $8 million to launch its stem cell culture system.
Ortho Kinematics got $9.5 million for its spinal imaging products.
AstraZeneca diabetes drug Onglyza’s label should include new information about the risk of heart failure, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel has concluded. The same goes for Takeda’s Nesina alogliptin.
The CDC announced a clinical trial of an Ebola vaccine has been launched in Sierra Leone.
Boston Scientific has invested in Frankenman Medical to support the Chinese company’s minimally invasive endoscopes.
Lilly executive Ramona Sequeira will run Takeda’s U.S. pharma business.
PAYERS-PROVIDERS
Via Modern Healthcare: “Hospital chain HCA and health insurer Harvard Pilgrim Health Care have agreed to work together on new medical research studies with the goal of spreading best practices throughout the country.”
ABIM is starting to return fire of the Maintenance of Certification critics.
Hallmark Health, which operates two hospitals outside of Boston, will end up paying $1.75 million over claims that it over-billed the state’s Medicaid program.
Slidell Memorial Hospital and New Orleans-based Ochsner Health System have signed a letter of intent to form a partnership with a joint operating agreement.
TECH
EHR data analytic company Arcadia Healthcare Solutions added $13 million.
Health data breaches going up and up and up.
Biogen and PatientsLikeMe claim multiple sclerosis patients benefit from a wearable device that tracks their activity.
Apple went live with ResearchKit, making the resource for medical researchers that claims to gather data frequently and accurately from participants using mobile devices, available to researchers and developers.
Foxconn, the world’s biggest contract electronics maker by revenue and Taiwan-based iPhone assembler, is in talks with Varian Medical Systems to obtain the rights to sell radiation-treatment devices
Symphony is interested in launching a health tech incubator in its Madison, Wisconsin offices.
POLITICS
Texas is looking to give advanced practice nurses the power to prescribe controlled substances.
Florida doctor Salomon Melgen has been dragged into the Sen. Bob Menendez Medicare fraud scandal.
Really nice piece in Xconomy: Healthcare Is Transforming Regardless of What Happens to the ACA
Turns out seniors think Democrats know a little more about Medicare.
A LITTLE EXTRA
A cow has received a new heart, but it’s not your average transplant.
We’ve seen the many ways that the Atomic Energy Commission tried to find peaceful uses for nuclear weapons . Here’s a new crazy twist. They hired a physicist and a doctor to create a nuclear-powered heart.
The Morning Read provides a 24-hour wrap up of everything else healthcare’s innovators need to know about the business of medicine (and beyond). The author of The Read published it but all full-time MedCity News journalists contribute to its content.
