Month: May 2019

Recon takes an analytical look behind select developments in healthcare

Facing new vertically integrated competitors, WellSpan and Capital Blue Cross prepare for a long siege

Summary The Capital Region of Pennsylvania is shifting in “real time” from traditionally separate plan vs. plan competition and provider vs. provider competition to integrated vertical plan/provider vs. plan/provider competition Vertically integrated competition can initiate both arms races in delivery system capacity and new product and care management strategies The two big independents – WellSpan and Capital Blue Cross – are trying to match the disruptors with their own capital spend and a vertical alliance Once you cede decisions on terrain and timing to the competitor, you must make do

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An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for May 2019

TAVR for all? TAVR has become the standard of care for patients who need an aortic value replacement but are at high/medium surgical risk.  But what about those at low-risk? Two studies answer that question, one with the Edwards device and the other with Medtronics. Both show that TAVR is superior along a number of end-points (stroke, hospitalization duration, atrial fibrillation) both at 30 days and at 1-2 year. Long-term outcomes remain a question though. Low-risk patients are younger (mean age 73-74) and will live with their valves longer, which

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Amazon to startups: stay close to the consumer and let us own the platforms

Amazon’s healthcare play appears to be heavily focused on platforms rather than specific applications They would prefer startups focus on elements that are truly differentiating for consumers and let Amazon take care of the infrastructure Early-stage companies investing in their own back-end services may find their dollars wasted or their applications incompatible with Amazon The following insights around Amazon’s healthcare strategy rely on comments made by Eliot Menschik, Global Head, Healthcare + Life Science Startups, at Amazon Web Services and other speakers at the recent TiECon East conference. Because of

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OptumCare’s legacy entanglements could slow its site-of-service shift

By bringing together accountable-minded physicians, urgent care and ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) on a national scale, OptumCare could prevent a lot of avoidable hospital care and move much of what remains to lower cost sites of service.  Wrap a capitation business model around it and you have a powerful “anti-system” – profitable for itself and toxic to hospital margins. OptumCare has a long way to go to put this theory into practice.  It is still in only ~35 of its target 75 markets.  And, within many of those 35 markets,

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It’s in the brain: An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for April 2019

He’s dead, Jim As previously widely advertised, the BACE-1 inhibitor verubecestat (Merck) (and in journal correspondence atabecestat, Janssen) has now failed in a population with very early signs of cognitive impairment (this after a failure of those agents in mild-moderate Alzheimer’s). Target engagement clearly occurred with a decline of the amyloid detected through PET imaging in the treatment arms and an increase in the placebo arm. However, if anything, cognition declined more in the treatment arm than in the placebo arm after 2 years on study. A silver lining is

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