Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
A Majority Of Doctors Worry Over AI's Role In Diagnoses, Treatments
Nearly 2 in 3 physicians are concerned about artificial intelligence鈥檚 (AI) influence on diagnosis and treatment decisions, according to a recent survey. According to the Medscape survey released Monday, 65 percent of physicians in the survey are 鈥渧ery鈥 or 鈥渟omewhat鈥 concerned about AI driving diagnosis and treatment decisions. Meanwhile, 36 percent said they were 鈥渘ot very鈥 or 鈥渘ot at all鈥 concerned about AI driving diagnosis and treatment decisions. (Suter, 10/31)
On Eli Lilly 鈥
Eli Lilly & Co. is buying rights from Beam Therapeutics Inc. to develop and sell treatments for heart disease that make use of an experimental gene-editing technology. Lilly will pay Beam $200 million upfront and make a $50 million equity investment in the company, the companies said Tuesday in a statement. Lilly, which has deep expertise in heart disease, will pay as much as an additional $350 million if the programs hit certain goals. (Smith, 10/31)
Eli Lilly said Tuesday that it will pay $200 million to gene-editing firm Beam Therapeutics for Beam鈥檚 stake in Verve Therapeutics, another gene-editing company focused on treatments for heart disease. (Herper, 10/31)
In other health industry news 鈥
GSK (GSK.L) on Wednesday raised its full-year profit and sales forecasts for a second time, after better-than-expected quarterly sales of its newly-launched respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine. (Mathews, 11/1)
Pfizer lost more than $2 billion in the third quarter as an expected COVID-19 product sales decline clipped revenue. Sales of the drugmaker鈥檚 COVID treatment Paxlovid and the vaccine Comirnaty slid 97% and 70%, respectively, as Pfizer, like its competitors, switched to selling on the commercial market instead of to governments. (Murphy, 10/31)
AstraZeneca (AZN.L) said on Wednesday it would invest $245 million in French biotechnology company Cellectis (ALCLS.PA) in a deal aimed at speeding up the development of therapeutics in areas including oncology, immunology and rare diseases. Cellectis' gene-editing technology and manufacturing capabilities to design novel cell and gene therapy products will help strengthen AstraZeneca's growing offering in the space, it said. (11/1)
IKS Health, a clinical documentation, coding and revenue tech company, acquired AQuity Solutions for $200 million, the companies said Tuesday. While IKS Health has primarily focused on products for the ambulatory market, AQuity has offered similar solutions in acute care settings. The combined company will have revenue of $330 million and employ 14,000 people. (Perna, 10/31)
Olive AI, a company that was once a 鈥榰nicorn鈥 and valued at $4 billion, has sold its remaining assets and is winding down operations. The company, which developed technology to help providers and insurers automate the revenue cycle, sold its patient access software product to Waystar and its prior authorization business to Humata Health, Olive said Tuesday in a post on its website. (Perna, 10/31)
Option Care Health is sticking to what it knows best聽when it comes to acquisitions, following its failed $3.6 billion聽bid to buy home health giant Amedisys last spring. After losing out to UnitedHealth Group鈥檚 $3.3 billion all-cash offer for Amedisys, President and CEO John Rademacher said the home infusion company will use capital to buy companies more closely aligned with Option Care Health鈥檚 core business. (Eastabrook, 10/31)
Isabelle Kenyon, founder and CEO at weight loss telehealth company Calibrate, is聽stepping down as CEO, she said Tuesday in a post on the user-generated publishing website Medium. Kenyon said she will continue to work with Calibrate, efforts that will include "evangelizing our mission, vision, and values" and helping increase access to the company's weight loss programs.聽聽(Turner, 10/31)