About health insurance/insurers
Highmark Health hits $27B in revenue and net income exceeds half-billion following layoffs “Highmark Health recorded $27.1 billion in revenue and a net income of $533 million for 2023, the company announced during its fourth-quarter results Monday.
The company reported an operating margin of $338 million, though there was an operating loss of of $117 million during 2023 for the Allegheny Health Network as the system recovers from the pandemic. That was offset by gains seen in health insurance and other investments.”
About pharma
Kroger to sell specialty pharmacy business to Elevance Health's CarelonRx “Grocer Kroger said on Monday it had entered a definitive agreement for the sale of its specialty pharmacy business to CarelonRx, a unit of U.S. health insurer Elevance Health .
The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed…
Kroger Specialty Pharmacy is separate from other Kroger Family of Pharmacies, including in-store retail pharmacies and The Little Clinics, which are not included in the deal.”
AstraZeneca to pay $2B to buy radiopharmaceuticals partner “AstraZeneca is making its first major purchase in the radiopharmaceuticals space, forking out around $2 billion to buy Fusion Pharmaceuticals and its pipeline of assets based on actinium-225. The companies first joined forces in 2020 to develop next-generation alpha-emitting radiopharmaceuticals and combination therapies for the treatment of cancer.”
AstraZeneca to cap out-of-pocket inhaler costs in US, following rival Boehringer's move “Drugmaker AstraZeneca (AZN.L), opens new tab said on Monday it would cap out-of-pocket costs for its inhaled respiratory products at $35 per month in the United States from June, following a similar move by rival Boehringer Ingelheim earlier in the month.”
Online sales begin for first over-the-counter birth control pill in US “Online sales began Monday for the first over-the-counter birth control pill approved in the U.S.
The product, Opill, can be bought online at Amazon and directly from Opill.com, said Sara Young, senior vice president and chief consumer officer at Perrigo, the pill’s manufacturer. Once the drugs are in stock, Walgreens and Walmart will sell them online, as well. Orders will be fulfilled within 24 to 48 hours, according to Young, and will usually arrive in three to five business days.”
About the public’s health
After calling on Congress to fund women's health, Biden directs agencies to boost R&D “Ten days after asking Congress to fund women’s health research with $12 billion, President Joe Biden is doing what he can to boost investment via an executive order to expand and improve research on women’s health.
The orders come with 20 new actions across federal agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services, under which the FDA sits. Within the actions is a $200 million National Institutes of Health initiative for fiscal year 2025 to fund new women’s health research. This would be the first step in the call to action issued by Biden at the State of the Union on March 8.”
8-hour time-restricted eating linked to a 91% higher risk of cardiovascular death “Research Highlights:
A study of over 20,000 adults found that those who followed an 8-hour time-restricted eating schedule, a type of intermittent fasting, had a 91% higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease.
People with heart disease or cancer also had an increased risk of cardiovascular death.
Compared with a standard schedule of eating across 12-16 hours per day, limiting food intake to less than 8 hours per day was not associated with living longer.”
CDC urges vaccination amid rise in measles cases in the US and globally “US health officials are warning doctors about the dramatic rise in measles cases around the world, and advising families traveling to a measles-affected country to get babies as young as 6 months vaccinated before they go.”
About healthcare IT
STATE OF CPS SECURITY REPORT Healthcare 2023 “The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) maintains a growing catalog of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEVs). KEVs that exist on hospital networks are particularly alarming, because
these exposures have exploits written to compromise them, and are therefore easily compromisable. 63% of KEVs tracked by CISA can be found on healthcare networks, while 23% of medical devices—including imaging devices, clinical IoT devices, and surgery devices—have at least one known exploited vulnerability. Complicating matters is that users must contend with 360 medical device manufacturer (MDM) patch certification programs to ensure compliance requirements and verify that products provide reasonable protection against risk…
[For example:] From our research, 4% of devices used in surgeries can be accessible via a hospital’s guest network.”
The new era of consumer engagement: Insights from Rock Health’s ninth annual Consumer Adoption Survey A great summary of consumer preferences for IT use.