The doctor's computer will email you now | NPR
For hospitals and health systems looking to improve patient satisfaction and cut readmissions, boosting physician engagement with patients is important. But busy physicians don't have time to personally follow up with possibly hundreds of patients each. Enter automated physician empathy services such as HealthLoop, software which helps physicians send personalized, automated messages to patients following surgery or other incidents of care.
Shkreli was right: Everyone's hiking drug prices | Bloomberg
Martin Shkreli, former Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO and current face of drugmaker greed, told his critics his company wasn't doing anything other pharmaceutical companies hadn't done when it dramatically hiked the price of toxoplasmosis treatment Daraprim. Bloomberg reports a survey of thousands of brand-name drugs confirms his assertion: drugmakers more than doubled the price of 60 drugs and at least quadrupled prices for 20 since December 2014.
Scientists' path to usable Zika vaccine strewn with hurdles | Reuters
With little awareness or understanding of the virus prior to the recent outbreak affecting dozens of countries in the Americas, rapidly mass-producing and distributing a safe, usable vaccine will be even more difficult than efforts to produce a vaccine for Ebola, which has been far more widely studied. But several biotech firms are on the case.
Advances in gene editing, and hype, underlie Editas move to go public | STAT
CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology has begun to enter public consciousness as announcements in recent months have touted its potential to treat diseases, but one company that uses the technology, Editas Medicine, has already announced plans for an initial public offering. Some say that highlights the temptation biotech firms face to cash in on buzz even before proven treatments are developed.
The startup tracking 'valuable' doctors for big pharma | Bloomberg
Pharmaceutical companies, once reliant on sweeteners such as trips and meals to gain access to physicians in hopes of influencing their prescribing habits, have seen their access curtailed thanks to gift-reporting rules enacted under the Affordable Care Act. Now, one data analytics startup is digging into data on physicians to help drugmakers target key docs with the right pitch.
