About health insurance/insurers
Cigna posts $1B profit in Q4 “The Cigna Group is projecting $235 billion in revenue by the end of 2024 and recorded double-digit growth in the fourth quarter across its core lines of business at Evernorth Health Services and Cigna Healthcare, according to the company's year-end earnings report published Feb. 2.
Total revenues in the fourth quarter were $51.1 billion, up 12% year over year. Total revenues in 2023 were $195.3 billion, up 8%.
In the fourth quarter, net income was more than $1 billion, down 14% from nearly $1.2 billion year over year. Year-end net income was nearly $5.2 billion, down 23% year over year.”
Medicaid Enrollment and Unwinding Tracker “At least 16,430,000 Medicaid enrollees have been disenrolled as of February 1, 2024, based on the most current data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Overall, 33% of people with a completed renewal were disenrolled in reporting states while 67%, or 32.5 million enrollees, had their coverage renewed (one reporting state does not include data on renewed enrollees). Due to varying lags for when states report data, the data reported here undercount the actual number of disenrollments to date.”
About hospitals and healthcare systems
Novant completes $2.4B acquisition of Tenet hospitals “Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Novant Health has completed its $2.4 billion acquisition of three hospitals along with their affiliated physician clinics from Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare.
Novant acquired Mount Pleasant, S.C.-based East Cooper Medical Center, Hilton Head (S.C.) Hospital and Hardeeville, S.C.-based Coastal Carolina Hospital, according to a Feb. 1 news release from Novant.”
About pharma
Ad firm that marketed OxyContin agrees to $350M settlement “An advertising agency that helped develop a marketing strategy to sell opioids like OxyContin agreed to a $350 million national settlement, attorneys general announced Thursday.
The settlement will be paid by Publicis Health, part of the French media conglomerate Publicis Groupe and one of the world’s largest health care advertising companies. It marks the first time an advertising company has reached a major settlement over the U.S. opioid epidemic.”
Hikma Pharmaceuticals to pay $150M for failure to monitor, report suspicious opioid orders “A multistate settlement in principle with opioid manufacturer Hikma Pharmaceuticals (Hikma) for its role in fueling the opioid crisis will provide $150 million to resolve claims by states and local communities.
Hikma produces a range of branded and generic opioid products and sells hundreds of millions of opioid doses every year. From 2006 to 2021, Hikma failed to monitor and report suspicious opioid orders from potentially illegal distributors, even while its personnel knew their systems to monitor suspicious orders were inadequate and prone to failure.
The settlement will provide $115 million in cash and $35 million in opioid addiction treatment medication. States that do not accept the medication will receive cash in lieu of product.”
Who's No. 1? With $25B in sales, Merck's Keytruda looks to be the top-selling drug of 2023 “With Merck reporting a whopping $25 billion sales haul for Keytruda on Thursday, the PD-1 cancer superstar appears to be the world’s top-selling drug in 2023.
Keytruda looks set to take over the top spot from Pfizer and BioNTech’s Comirnaty, which ruled the previous two years, scoring sales of $55.9 billion in 2022 and $55.1 billion in 2021, according to Drug Discovery and Development.”
CMS to Negotiate Medicaid Outcomes-Based Agreements for Sickle Cell Gene Therapies “The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Tuesday that it will seek outcomes-based agreements with manufacturers of sickle cell disease gene therapies in a bid to lower healthcare expenses and expand patient access to these multimillion-dollar treatments.
Under the agency’s Cell and Gene Therapy Access Model, which it first unveiled in February 2023, CMS will negotiate with manufacturers to come up with a pricing and rebate structure that ties the costs of these therapies to their efficacy and whether they improve health outcomes for treated patients.”
About the public’s health
WHO Report: Worldwide Cancer Cases to Double by 2050 “The latest estimates from the World Health Organization predict global cancer cases will be up 77% by 2050, resulting in an estimated 18.5 million deaths.”
About healthcare IT
HHS finalizes rule on telehealth at opioid treatment programs “Dive Brief:
The HHS on Thursday finalized a rule that will allow opioid treatment programs to begin some medication treatment via telehealth.
Under the rule, these providers will be able to initiate treatment with buprenorphine through audio-only or audio-visual telehealth. They can begin methadone treatment via an audio-visual platform — but not through an audio-only option due to its higher risk profile, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration said.
The regulation makes permanent telehealth flexibilities that began during the COVID-19 pandemic to preserve access to care and tackle a worsening opioid epidemic. “