Read today’s Kaiser Health News
In other news:
About health insurance/insurers
Alignment Healthcare posts $701M in quarterly revenue, beats expectations: Alignment Healthcare achieved its first year of positive adjusted EBITDA as a company, the insurer announced on release of its fourth-quarter earnings results.
The insurer has 189,100 members, up more than 58% year over year, and the company' stock is up more than 14% today.
Clover Health nets $70M adjusted EBITDA but misses revenue goals:Clover Health’s stock dipped Feb. 28 after the company announced an earnings per share loss of four cents and a 2% miss on quarterly revenue estimates, said Zacks Investment Research.
The company recorded a full-year adjusted EBITDA of $70 million, a huge year-over-year increase of $112 million. Quarterly insurance revenue came in at $331 million, and the company’s insurance benefits ratio improved from 87.4% in the fourth quarter of 2023 to 82.8% in 2024.
Its stock is down more than 5%, plunging to less than $4 a share.
BCBS Massachusetts reports $400M loss driven by GLP-1 spending: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts reported a $400 million operating loss in 2024, driven by spending on GLP-1 medications and other rising medical costs.
The nonprofit insurer reported its financial results for 2024 on Feb. 28. The company posted a -4.3% operating margin in 2024, compared to a 0.4% margin in 2023.
About pharma
First-In-Class Drugs Experienced Different Regulatory Treatment In The US And Europe: The FDA applied substantial regulatory flexibility to first-in-class drugs, with 50 percent lacking clinical endpoints and 30 percent lacking blinding and comparator drugs in the pivotal trials. This flexibility was particularly evident in cancer drugs, for which up to 90 percent lacked clinical endpoints and blinding. The FDA designated 81 percent of first-in-class drugs for expedited programs compared with 30 percent designated by the EMA [European Medicines Agency]. Review durations varied by therapeutic area, ranging from 7.7 months to 14.5 months at the FDA, and were slightly slower at the EMA. Regulators need to carefully balance flexibilities with rigorous assessments of evidence for first-in-class drugs.
About the public’s health
US flu season may have reached its peak, CDC says: The worst flu season the United States has had in more than a decade may have reached its peak, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Data published by the agency on Friday shows that flu activity is still elevated but has decreased for two consecutive weeks.
There were more than 6 flu hospitalizations for every 100,000 people in the US during the week ending February 22, according to CDC data. That’s less than half as many as there were two weeks earlier, but still more than there have been at this point in the season in at least 15 years – and respiratory illness activity was high or very high in all but 11 states last week
About healthcare IT
Info from 1.2 million Geisinger patients found on laptop: Prosecutor: Federal investigators found personal data on over 1.2 million patients of Danville, Pa.-based Geisinger on a former contractor's personal laptop, PennLive reported.
Max Vance, who was fired from Microsoft's Nuance Communications over the incident, has been charged with intentionally accessing without authorization and obtaining information from a protected computer, according to the Feb. 28 story. A federal prosecutor revealed the information about the laptop during a hearing at which Mr. Vance was denied bail.
About healthcare finance
Clearlake to buy majority stake in ModMed that values it at $5.3bn: Private equity group Clearlake Capital is close to clinching a deal to buy a majority stake in healthcare software company Modernizing Medicine in a buyout that values the group at $5.3bn including debt, according to people familiar with the matter. Clearlake, which has more than $90bn of assets under management, beat out rival bids from several other private equity groups after its owner Warburg Pincus put ModMed up for sale earlier this year, two people said. ModMed operates electronic health records systems used by more than 160,000 speciality physicians and surgeons across the US.