Safety, quality and clinical practice
Trump administration set to roll back birth control mandate | The New York Times
New rules set forth by the Trump administration, which could be released Friday, would give birth control coverage exemptions to employers that don't want to cover contraception because of their religious beliefs or because of their "moral convictions." The mandate, put in place by the Obama administration, has allowed more than 55 million women to access birth control without copays.
Pharmaceuticals
Sanofi and Regeneron score a big win over Amgen in the cholesterol wars | Stat News
A federal appeals curt Thursday reversed a ban on the sale of Sanofi and Regeron's Praluent, a cholesterol medicine. The ban was put in place last year after Amgen sued the two companies for infringing on its patents.
Peter Thiel and Sean Parker are financing a secretive cancer-fighting start-up, source says | CNBC
Last year, Napster founder and former Facebook president Sean Parker founded a $250 million institute for cancer immunotherapy. He and Peter Thiel, Facebook's first investor, are now backing 3T Biosciences, a company developing T-cell therapy, which sics the body's own immune system on cancer.
Information technology
Providing medical education through virtual reality video games, Level Ex raises $11M | Medcity News
Providers can learn how to do airway procedures using LevelEx's simulator, Airway Ex. LevelEx's customers include Medtronic and Baxter.
How Mount Sinai is transforming its systems with a multi-year Epic EHR rollout | Healthcare IT News
Mt. Sinai is set to complete its Epic implementation by 2020.
In other news
Neanderthal genes help shape how many modern humans look | NPR
The DNA from Neanderthals may play a role in setting skin tone, tanning ease, hair color, and sleep patterns of the modern-day humans—that is, most people who aren't indigenous Africans—whose genetic code is 1% to 3% Neanderthal DNA.
