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Recon takes an analytical look behind select developments in healthcare
Fishing for nucleic acids: An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for June 2019
Huntington’s disease: light at the end of the tunnel? The awful thing about Huntington’s is that in most cases, people know they are going progressively lose their mind at an early age, but there is absolutely nothing they can do about it. Recently there has been tremendous excitement around suppressing toxic huntingtin production in the brain by using antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) administered intrathecally (i.e. in the cerebrospinal fluid through the spine). Two ASOs are in full blown clinical testing: HTTRx (Ionis and Roche) which does not discriminate between mutant and
Full-service vs. self-service: an emerging bifurcation in healthcare
A clinical vignette: the cases of Jane and Joe Imagine if you will two individuals both at age 50. Jane is a project manager whose recent health care has focused on managing menopausal symptoms, a knee injury sustained while skiing, and moderate episodic depression, with a medication list of one chronic medication, and one medication as needed. Joe is a bus driver whose recent health care has focused on managing Type II diabetes, hypertension, and low back pain, with a regimen of 4 chronic medications, and 2 medications as needed.
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
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
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
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,
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
An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for March 2019
Target assessment with genetic polymorphisms Please bear with me for a long (but interesting!) story. Bempedoic acid (Esperion) is an inhibitor of ATP citrate lyase (ACLY), an enzyme in the cholesterol synthesis pathway (upstream of HMG-CoA reductase, the target of statins). In a study of 2,230 patients at high risk for cardiovascular events, on maximum statin therapy, and LDL > 70 (basically the PCSK9 target population), bempedoic acid was well tolerated and lowered the LDL by around 16% – a substantial effect. This would potentially position bempedoic acid, an oral
February was short and cold: An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for February 2019
Targeted conjugated cancer therapeutics – so few, but may be more soon The idea that one could combine the precision of a targeted biologic with the potency of a traditional cytotoxic to demolish a tumor has been around for decades, but with very rare exceptions, has not had the level of traction one would have expected. But this month, the journal has two studies reporting on these types of therapies, both in breast cancer. One shows that in a group of heavily pre-treated triple-negative breast cancer patients, sacituzumab govitecan-hziy (Immunomedics)
There’s always a bigger fish: healthcare services giants are looking anxiously over their shoulders
With the closing of the CVS/AET and CI/ESRX combinations, healthcare services are now led by a triumvirate of vertically-oriented goliaths. And we can anticipate that there will be more care delivery acquisitions and investments to fill out the new vertical platforms—just as the leader UnitedHealth Group (UNH) continues to invest in its care delivery arm (with the pending acquisition of DaVita’s physician group) a decade after it first went into the clinic business. The extent to which the two new combinations have allowed legacy constituents CVS, AET, CI and ESRX
Methods towards better care: An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for January 2019
The bundle Unlike many other CMMI experiments, the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) program was a true randomized control trial in that participation was mandatory in a selection of metropolitan areas and not allowed anywhere else, which allows for an analysis untainted by self-selection bias. In brief the question to be answered was does a 90-day bundled payment for a joint replacement (knee/hip) get better value (improved care and/or lower costs) than the traditional FFS approach? A differences of differences analysis comparing the bundled vs. control arms before and
On the uses of genetic information in disease: An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for December 2018
Genetic trade secrets In 2012, the US Supreme Court decided a case known as “Prometheus” establishing that therapeutic methods based on biomarkers were not patentable – this essentially blocked one of the two main avenues to monetizing intellectual property from the very hard clinical work of figuring out personalized medicine, i.e. what works for whom. The other avenue that would remain is that of trade secrets, and I for one, have been waiting for the other shoe to drop. A hint comes from a study on ovarian cancer just published
Eating your way out of disease: An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for November 2018
Peanut medicine that won’t cost peanuts Allergy to peanuts is a major issue and though prevention is now possible in infants there is a huge population for whom actual survival is connected to vigilance in what they consume and availability of epi-pens. Desensitization to allergens is a well-established method to overcome an allergy, but it is typically done through injections, and it requires well calibrated micro-doses of the allergen. Aimmune has been pursuing an oral approach with progressive dosing with peanut protein (AR101) and in a phase 3 trial, two
New class of therapeutics calls for new regulations: thoughts on the FDA’s new process for regulating digiceuticals
Interest and investment in digital health has increased rapidly in recent years. Some digital health software is impactful enough that it requires FDA approval, but current regulatory pathways are slow and cumbersome for tech companies. In July 2017 the FDA announced a beta-test of a new pathway, the pre-certification program, which is intended to increase innovation and minimize barriers to market entry for digital health software. While early signs show the program will have these intended consequences, it also may create an uneven playing field for incumbent players relative to
T-cells are everywhere: An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for October 2018
One century after the use of convalescent serum, convalescent T-cells The use of tailored T-cells (e.g. CAR-T) is transforming our approach to (blood) cancers, but what about using T-cells against their raison d’être, intracellular pathogens such as viruses? JC virus is the cause of Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy (PML), a fatal disease of the brain triggered by immunosuppression commonly occurring during cancer or auto-immune disease therapy. In a series of three consecutive patients with PML, scientists from MD Anderson infused in the spinal fluid T-cells that had been selected and expanded
An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for September 2018
Primary care organizations are better ACOs when it comes to achieving savings Initial results from the Medicare Shared Savings Program ACO have been disappointing pointing to small to negligible net effects on net spending, but a clever analysis digging into the details shows that there is a silver lining. The key insight is to distinguish between ACOs that are health systems and those that are physician practice groups: health systems show no net savings (after bonus incentive payments) while physician group ACOs do. In the physician group ACOs, the savings
An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for August 2018
Transthyretin heats up Last month saw a couple landmark papers about the use of parenteral RNA drugs (from Alnylam and Ionis) in hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis with a focus mainly on mitigating the progression of polyneuropathy. But what matters most for the survival of these patients is cardiomyopathy and although the Alnylam paper did show some impact on that pathology, this was based on exploratory analyses of biomarkers, not pre-specified hard outcomes. A few weeks later, Pfizer comes out with their oral Tafamidis with clear improved cardiac outcomes including survival, in
What’s harder, making new drugs or improving care delivery at scale? An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for July 2018
RNA drugs coming of age Hereditary Transthyretin Amyloidosis (ATTR) is a genetic disease in which one of the alleles of Transthyretin (TTR), a protein produced by the liver and with a role in thyroid hormone metabolism, is mutated resulting in amyloid fiber deposits mainly in nerve and cardiac tissues. Patisiran (Alnylam) and inotersen (Ionis) are both oligonucleotides designed to knock down translation of TTR mRNA, the first through the silencing mechanism, the second through an antisense effect. Phase 3 placebo-controlled studies published back-to-back in the journal show clear efficacy for
An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for June 2018
It’s hard to quit (and E-cigs don’t help) A large trial (6000 participants) comparing free cessation support, e-cigarettes, and a $600 cash incentive for sustained abstinence shows that none of these approaches are particularly effective with 1-3% overall success rates depending on the arm. Prevention is where it’s at. A Pragmatic Trial of E-Cigarettes, Incentives, and Drugs for Smoking Cessation (free access) NPs and PAs numbers are growing fast A look back at the last 15 years and forward to the next 15 shows that the physician workforce is
Struggling: An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for May 2018
One more on the chin for Alzheimer’s A report of a large phase 3 study of the highly potent oral BACE inhibitor verubecestat (Merck) with yet again a lack of therapeutic effect, despite a dramatic reduction of the cerebrospinal fluid content of beta amyloid in various forms. With a string of prior failures, this may be the near final blow for amyloid as a treatment target for Alzheimer’s disease (and Biogen’s adacanumab would be the end of the line if it also comes up tails). But note that the study
An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for April 2018
Are we nearing an asymptote with implantable cardiac pumps? Severe heart failure is common, and spare hearts for transplant are rare, which has led to the development of implantable mechanical alternatives. In the last few decades, progress has been immense, and in the latest installment of a 3rd (4th?) generation pump, outcomes have reached a level where survival of several years is the rule. Still, at every iteration incremental improvement is less, and performance remains well behind what happens with transplant in terms of complications such as infection, stroke, or
Disease as an information defect
One way to think about disease[1] is as a loss of information[2] from the operating blueprint for human physiology. Broadly speaking, there are three main possible types of informational defects depending on the nature of the informational encoding that is compromised. The first is genetic through loss of information due to corruption of the genetic (and sometime epigenetic) code, for instance in congenital disease or in cancer. The second is spatial through loss of architectural information due to cumulative changes away from a structural template. This prevents turnover of tissue
Consider this speculative scenario on WMT-HUM: nibbling at the bottom and taking a slice off the top of the healthcare delivery pyramid
WMT is in talks with HUM about a relationship enhancement, possibly an acquisition. The two already know how to work together in alliances (narrow pharmacy network, marketing collaborations, points programs). If a new structure is needed, WMT and HUM must be considering a major expansion of scope or a set of operating models where contributions are difficult to attribute and reward (e.g. joint asset builds). What is on their minds? Beyond any interim incremental moves, what could be the endgame? Catching convergence fever Horizontal combinations among the top five health
United’s Medicare Advantage footprint and OptumCare network do not overlap much (so far)
United’s OptumCare promises a lot of value for health plans. An integrated system supported by Optum technology should be able to deliver consistent, analytically sophisticated care. Its ambulatory-focused configuration (clinics plus urgent care plus ambulatory surgical centers or ASCs) should keep patients out of high-cost settings through mutually reinforcing referral loops (where it has density[1]). One obvious question is whether United can use OptumCare to materially advantage its own health plans. Is a new, nationally-scaled Kaiser in the offing? If that is its endgame, United has a lot of work
EHRs + Genomics = Drugs? – An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for March 2018
GWAS, Regeneron and Geisinger, and liver disease Genome wide association studies (GWAS) look at broad populations for gene variants associated with a particular phenotype. Often, like in Type II diabetes, one finds hundreds of genes correlated with disease, and that’s obviously not very helpful. In lucky cases there are only a few variants, and that gives clues on potential underlying mechanisms of disease. But for the very lucky, there is a jackpot which is finding a variant that is actually protective against the disease – this is what happened with
Google’s health insurance apprenticeship: some unicorns (maybe) but no masterpieces
Last month, word got out that Verily is in talks with health plans to “jointly bid” on care management contracts. Medicaid populations might be a reasonable surmised as the target given that (1) managed Medicaid requires bidding, (2) Medicaid contracts typically come in packets of hundreds of thousands of lives (which was the scale mentioned in the press reports) and (3) Verily had been considering (but decided against) bidding on Medicaid contracts using Oscar Health as a partner. It is curious, however, to see an organization seek collaboration with health
What precisely lies behind UPMC’s $2B investment in three new specialty hospitals?
Last December, UPMC announced plans to spend $2B on three new specialty hospitals in downtown Pittsburgh. Each will abut an existing UPMC hospital currently serving as system center of excellence for the particular specialty: cancer will be located near Shadyside; cardiac and transplant near Presbyterian; eye and rehab near Mercy. Given inpatient’s declining share in care delivery, any new hospital construction in an over-bedded market with slow-moving demographics is a curiosity. Even if, as UPMC has promised, no net new beds will be added to the market, the new hospitals
Amazon offering health insurance: a potential mistake
35%+ of consumers who purchased on Amazon over a 30-day period say they would be “open” to health insurance created by Amazon according to a new survey (see Becker’s headline and the LendEdu study description). Not surprisingly, interest varied depending on degree of commitment the consumer had to Amazon: 62% of the sample were Amazon Prime customers, and, of them, 42% were open to the idea. That implies that 26% of non-Prime customers were open. This data point is a fine example of the kind of freebie thinking Amazon can
An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for February 2018
A-fib in heart failure – time to be aggressive Over the last 15 years, there has been a growing body of evidence for the effectiveness of catheter ablation to treat atrial fibrillation (a-fib), a condition for which the standard of care has been anti-arrhythmic medications. A-fib commonly coexists with heart failure but until now it has not been clear whether medication or catheter ablation would be the preferred treatment – we now have the answer, at least for patients with a substantially reduced ejection fraction. In a randomized trial of
Consider this speculative Amazon scenario in your strategic planning
Amazon has many puzzled about its plans for healthcare. Arguably, Amazon is just as puzzled, but is – in effect — running a massive Delphi process to sort out the plan. Amazon is, after all, the Breaker of Industries, Destroyer of Margins. Allow rumors to float, hire some people, have meetings, seek a few regulatory approvals, start a vaguely missioned non-profit with other business titans. Fear and greed do the rest. Stock prices gyrate as investors bet and counter bet on who is vulnerable, incumbent CEOs promise cooperation or competitive
Will the coming wave of gene therapies have a Sovaldi-like impact?
The first approval of a gene therapy for congenital disease in the US (Luxturna) inaugurates a new – though long anticipated – era for therapeutics. Along with questions around durability of response and long-term safety, pricing and reimbursement is a particular challenge. At $850,000, the price of Luxturna is nominally higher than other high-cost specialty medicines. However, as a one-time cost with a multi-year benefit, the cost per year of efficacy is far lower. This is not a new challenge for the industry: Hepatitis C antiviral therapies such as Sovaldi
How can Optum be in only 35 out of 75 target markets while also being available to 70%+ of the US population? An analytical speculation
During the UnitedHealth quarterly earnings call earlier this month, Larry Renfro, CEO of Optum, offered some additional color on the growth of OptumCare: “Combined with [Davita], OptumCare will be in 35 local care delivery markets, nearly one-half of the 75 markets targeted for engagement or development. And these market operations are still in the early stages of growth and development” (per transcript on SeekingAlpha). Yet, based on our data, we think OptumCare (including Davita Medical Group and its MedExpress and Surgical Care Affiliates components) is already present in Hospital Referral
Two steps forward, one step back: an opinionated take on NEJM highlights for January 2018
Playing chess against cancer Tumors are not intelligent, but, because they have escaped mutational control, they constantly probe for mutations that will allow them to escape chemotherapeutic suppression. The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is a frequent driver of malignancy in the lung and as such, a target for EGFR inhibitors such as erlotinib (Tarceva, Roche) or gefitinib (Iressa, Astra Zeneca); unfortunately, tumors initially responsive to these agents quickly develop mutations which make them resistant. Osimertinib (Tagrisso, Astra Zeneca) was designed to overcome the most common resistance mutations and has
The UPMC/Highmark brawl spills into Philadelphia’s backyard – what happens next?
(For background on Pennsylvania market, please take a look at previous note here) Summary The UPMC/Highmark rivalry continues to open new fronts in Pennsylvania Highmark’s response to UPMC is differentiated in two ways: first, Highmark is using a coalition building strategy and, second, it is controlling its exposure to big in-patient assets; in contrast, UPMC is building an integrated, single-brand system and happily taking over hospitals (and building more) along the way When UPMC and Highmark make major investments in a region, local systems will be caught in the capex
Ochsner signs LOI to enter northern Louisiana and secure a medical school affiliation
(For Louisiana market context, please take a look at previous notes on Ochsner here and here) Before the holidays, Ochsner signed an LOI to take over the management of ailing University Health located in Shreveport and Monroe and affiliated with LSU Health Sciences Shreveport. The details have yet to be finalized and public disclosure of discussions do not necessarily mean a deal will be made. But Ochsner has been looking at the system for a while and must know its warts and the state appears to have precluded other partnership
A golden age for gene therapy: an opinionated take on NEJM highlights for December 2017
Successes in gene therapy for hemophilia B and A Hemophilia A and B are X-linked genetic diseases which prevents the formation of functional coagulant factors VII and IX respectively and cause a propensity to bleeding in about 20,000 people in just the US. The standard of care of intravenous administration of recombinant factors is effective but also burdensome, expensive, and does not fully prevent the disabling sequellae of the disease caused by repeated bleeding in the joints. A possible cure is to deliver a functional copy of the defective gene
With the DaVita Medical Group acquisition, OptumHealth deepens its presence in existing markets rather than adding new ones
OptumHealth and its proposed acquisition target DaVita Medical Group (DMG) have a lot in common: Ambulatory care portfolios: physician practices, urgent care centers and ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) – both directly owned and affiliated via owned independent practice associations (IPAs) Geographic position: multiple states and markets Advantaged model: within-market cross-referrals and care collaboration which should support market share, economics and a value-based care advantage Construction: largely assembled via acquisition resulting in similar challenges in integrating operations (e.g. multiple EHRs, management structures) In short, the DMG acquisition is a classic horizontal
United’s ambulatory delivery system OptumCare can reach 70% of the US population
Who will be the first to take integrated health care delivery national? A few years ago, the best bet might have been an established provider with a nationally compelling brand and a growing affiliate federation such as Cleveland Clinic or Mayo. Instead, Optum – just a decade ago three separate services largely focused on serving United’s health benefits business – has entered care delivery and — by a constant stream of acquisitions big and small — built up beachheads in a majority of markets and is – via ongoing big
Gene therapy, headaches, and tattoos: an opinionated take on NEJM highlights for November 2017
Two new therapies against a horrible congenital disease – but trouble ahead on pricing… Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) is a genetic disease that declares itself at a few months of age, and typically leads to death before the second birthday. Two studies for two different therapies are reported in the Journal. First, the final results for a phase 3 placebo-controlled trial studying nusinersen (Spinraza, Sarepta, approved by FDA Dec 2016) therapy which involves monthly injections into the infant’s spine of an RNA-based drug. These show a clear beneficial effect over
Allegheny Health Network adds micro-hospitals to its ground game
UPMC’s recent spectacular deal-making careen through central Pennsylvania (picking up the big Susquehanna and Pinnacle systems as affiliates and Tower as a joint venture partner all in under a year) contrasts oddly with its tentativeness at home: in mid-September, UPMC unexpectedly scuttled plans to build a 90-bed, $211M hospital in the South Fayette suburb of Pittsburgh just a week after signing a deal with a developer which would have launched construction. Spokespeople said UPMC is “pursuing other, more significant strategic options” (per Pittsburgh TribLive). Perhaps UPMC caught early wind of
Between the very common and the very rare – An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for October 2017
Between the very common and the very rare – An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for October 2017 Another tool for prevention in cardiovascular disease Taking aspirin daily has been standard of care for cardiovascular disease for decades, but attempts to demonstrate the additive usefulness of other agents to prevent clot formation have not been successful. Now things have changed: in a large study of patients with established cardiovascular disease, those who took rivaroxaban (Xarelto, Bayer) daily on top of aspirin did markedly better than with aspirin alone, although
Marrying into the right family pays off! Update on revenue cycle management joint venturing
Back in 2013, Dignity and Optum formed a joint venture for revenue cycle management (RCM) services named Optum360. Dignity contributed processing centers and 1,700 employees in return for ~25% share in the venture. Optum contributed technology and 1,300 employees in return for owning the rest. In addition, Dignity promised to buy RCM services from the joint venture for the subsequent ten years. At the time, our view was that the joint venture “marriage” gave Optum the scale and reference client needed to credibly compete vs. majors (R1, Parallon, Conifer) at
An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for September 2017
A new drug to address hard-to-treat severe asthma In ~10% of people with asthma, traditional therapies do not work well and they have recurrent exacerbations leading them to the ED. Over the past few years, a number of biologics (mAbs) have been developed to treat such patients, but each of these agents is targeted to a small subgroup with specific biomarker characteristics for which it has been shown to be effective, resulting in ultra-niche therapies with limited uptake. For broader penetration of those modalities, what is needed is a drug
Price, costs, value, and rules: An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for August 2017
At last, drug prices influence physician usage patterns Association of Reference Pricing with Drug Selection and Spending (subscriber access); Nitroprusside and Isoproterenol Use after Major Price Increases (free access) Not that long ago, the share of mind US physicians devoted to the cost of the drugs they prescribe was essentially zilch. Thankfully, times have changed as demonstrated in two interesting papers that describe natural experiments. The first compared trends in prescribing patterns at a payer that instituted reference pricing in 2013 vs. one that did not (reference pricing means that
An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for July 2017
Taking stock: two decades of progress in heart failure: Here comes a clever study using existing clinical trial data to assess progress in standard of care over time for heart failure. For each trial, the authors assessed the rate of sudden cardiac death during the early part of the study (excluding patients with ICDs), and it appears that between 1995 and 2014, it decreased by nearly half. As always, in observational retrospective studies, one has to worry about systematic biases around the population that are included (i.e. are they really
UPMC’s race to the sea and the tentative steps towards Highmark-Geisinger alliance
On May 10, Highmark and Geisinger announced plans for a clinical joint venture to create community-based care in four rural north-central Pennsylvania counties. The target counties are small (200K lives total), largely peripheral to Geisinger and Highmark core markets, and are already served by the Susquehanna Health system. Why all this complexity and investment to launch a battle for 1.5% of Pennsylvania’s population? Look at the whole board The move should be understood in the context of the widening struggle between Highmark and UPMC. Consent decrees have temporarily fixed some
June was negative-to-ambiguous: an opinionated take on NEJM highlights for June 2017
Stent news First there was angioplasty, then bare stents, then drug-eluting stents, and now the next generation: bioresorbable stents: each generation commanding a significant price premium for the manufacturers (but only for a few years). But, while bare stents and drug eluting stents were clear improvements on the previous standard of care, the case is not at all obvious for bioresorbable stents. Now the latest news is that the Absorb stent (Abbott), instead of showing a benefit over the previous standard of care, appears to lead to a higher rate
An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for May 2017
A hammer finds new nails (which happen to be eyeballs) The insulin growth factor receptor 1 (IGF-1R) was once upon a time a popular cancer target pursued by multiple biopharmas each with their own humanized antibody, and each without much success. In 2013, River Vision licensed the Roche compound teprotumumab, to treat Graves’ ophthalmopathy, a condition in which hyperactivity of the thyroid gland causes (among many other issues) bulging eyeballs with esthetic, comfort, and sometimes severe visual implications for which treatment options are limited. Nobody quite knows why the ocular
April was a light month: an opinionated take on NEJM highlights for April 2017
Calendaring care The length of our sidereal year is an accident – we happen to be circling a G2 star from which the habitable zone where free surface liquid water can exist lies at around 150,000,000 km; by Newton’s laws this in turn corresponds to an orbital period that is our year. Even if it is not particularly strongly connected to the underlying human biology, a lot of healthcare cycles are aligned to the Earth Year for convenience but is it effective and efficient? Individuals with diabetes are at risk
Urgent care gets drawn into system-level market share battles in the Big Apple
Warburg Pincus, the new majority owners of CityMD, a 68 site urgent care chain, will need to bring plenty of capital to an urgent care industry approaching its endgame. CityMD competes on a national stage against the likes of TPG’s Access Clinical Partners and UnitedHealth’s MedExpress. And rapid shifts in individual markets are raising the strategic stakes: where once urgent care could remain independent, today it is increasingly being asked to take sides in the share battles among big delivery systems. In November 2016, for example, Banner completed its acquisition