Current medical news and unique business news for anyone who cares about healthcare.
The deficit reduction committee’s failure’s impact on healthcare. The bipartisan “super committee” tasked with cutting the deficit by $1.2 trillion before Thanksgiving admitted failure Monday, triggering a 2 percent cut in Medicare payments beginning in 2013.
While there’s plenty of time to come up with a solution for that, a more immediate concern for healthcare is the 30 percent cut in doctor’s payments set to kick in at the end of the year as the current “doc fix” on the Medicare payment formula, known as sustainable growth rate, expires. With no time to consider a bill proposed by Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.) to repeal SGR and replace it with another system, another short-term patch is a likely target.
With the Rise of AI, What IP Disputes in Healthcare Are Likely to Emerge?
Munck Wilson Mandala Partner Greg Howison shared his perspective on some of the legal ramifications around AI, IP, connected devices and the data they generate, in response to emailed questions.
Pharmasset’s $11B hep C drugs. Gilead Sciences is acquiring Pharmasset, and its hepatitis C drugs, for nearly $11 billion. One of the drugs it’s developing is PSI-7977, which could become part of the first all-oral treatment for the virus, potentially being approved by 2014, according to the WSJ.
Cigna acquisition of HealthSpring cleared. The $3.8 billion Cigna-HealthSpring acquisition has cleared review by the Federal Trade Commission and is expected to close at the beginning of next year.
VC investing: A man’s game. Only 11 percent of investors at VC firms are women, according to a new National Venture Capital Association report, about the same percentage reported in 2008.
Regeneron riding on approval of Eylea. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s shares were boosted 13.8 percent Monday by the approval of Eylea for wet AMD, which will compete for market share with Roche’s Lucentis and Avastin.
