The recent approval of CVS Health’s merger with Aetna is being heralded as nothing less than potentially “transformational” to the health care system. Innovative ideas to help streamline care and encourage cost effectiveness are not new as illustrated by the undefined collaboration between Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan, nevertheless here is the joining of the consumers,
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Patient recruitment is a critical component for drug development. A troubling statistic from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports that more than 80% of clinical trials in the United States (U.S.) fail to meet their patient recruitment timelines. This despite that 30% U.S. pharmaceutical industry’s time dedicated to clinical trials is spent on patient recruitment and enrollment.
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Getting to the source of all that ails you! No side effects! Learn all about it while having a great meal! When one thinks of seminar on stem cell therapy, this is not necessarily what comes to mind. Rather the visual is a scientific symposium in which scientists enthusiastically remark on well-cited studies and hypothesize
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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, recently released the latest 2017 Open Payments data, providing now a total of over four years of pharma payment data for analysis. The total database now contains details of over 74 million payments to nearly one million physicians and over four thousand hospitals. Research payments have shown a healthy average annual
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A few months ago, I planned an outing to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia. I know it is an odd place to visit but I enjoy all types of history, including medically-related.  The facility opened in 1864 and reached its peak in the 1950’s, housing 2,400 patients. Changes in the treatment of mental illness and
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Singer Elvis Costello was just forced to cancel his tour to recover from surgery that he underwent to treat cancer. We wish him the best for a full recovery. While termed as “very aggressive”, news reports have noted that it his tumor is small and should be “defeated” through this single procedure. At this time, it
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In this segment we focus on another set of stakeholders who are in the “usual suspects” category, but are really more complicated than meets the eye. Professional societies and patient advocacy groups have long been considered critical partners at all stages of a therapy’s lifecycle, including the early product planning phase. Their value is underscored by their
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There is a tremendous amount of data out there, are you using it to inform your product launches? Every life science professional is well aware of Rx data, ICD-10, CPT codes, and procedure volumes. They are also quite familiar with all the clinicians that focus on a disease state. The question is do you understand
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It is encouraging to hear the news of further investment  – $1B to be exact – into extending research collaboration between AbbVie and Calico focused on developing innovative therapies for “age-related diseases”. This partnership is evidence of the growing industry movement to embrace the differences across the lifespan and focus on therapies which can be tailored to this
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Over the years we have heard a number of concerns regarding KOLs from company employees: “I am worried that if he is asked how to use it, what will he say”?  “She is not loyal to us”.  “I don’t know why he is up there [speaking], he never prescribes our product”.  These are the concerns
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