What You Should Know: - Biotech company Phenomix Sciences launches its biobanking registry, marking the first obesity registry to study the impact of personalized treatment based on phenotyping. The impact of this biobanking registry and the data it will yield has the potential to change the entire system’s approach to obesity, from a treatment recommendation to the way payers determine coverage and how the industry combines diagnostics testing with drug therapy. - The
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Delivering Patient-Centered Care Means Decluttering the Digital Health Landscape
Digital health companies (DHCs) and their solutions continue to grow at a rapid pace. This is in part being fueled by the record funding for DHCs, with over $29 billion for US-based companies in 2021 alone. As a result, patients are inundated with solutions from every direction – from employers, health plans, and directly through consumer-oriented apps and wearables. Physicians are also getting into the mix by directly prescribing digital therapeutics. On the surface, the blossoming of the
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Raising Clinical Outcomes and Engagement Through Healthcare Equity: What Health Plans Need to Know
Structural racism and poverty are correlated with a higher incidence of obesity among Black Americans (49%). Social drivers of health, which impact a disproportionate number of non-white Americans who live below the poverty line, account for as much as 90% of individuals’ health outcomes. These are just two examples of data that highlight the need for equity. Health plans are well-aware that shifting this dynamic and boosting clinical outcomes is possible through better,
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CVS Health Releases Drug Trend Report
What You Should Know: - CVS Health released their Drug Trend Report, examining the drivers of overall and specialty drug trend through the first three quarters of 2021. Data were calculated on a cohort of 1,014 PBM clients—employers and health plans—covering approximately 22 million lives. - The report details how CVS Health delivered an overall drug trend of 2.4% for commercial PBM clients, with 35.9% having a
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Form Health Raises $12M to Expand Obesity Telemedicine Platform
What You Should Know: - Form Health, a pioneer in the emerging field of obesity telemedicine, announced $12M in Series A funding led by M13 with participation from SignalFire and NextView Ventures. - Form Health is specifically aiming to help chronically ill patients with obesity with a science-backed, personalized program combining virtual care from board certified physicians with FDA-approved medications. By accepting most insurance and offering its services
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Phenomix Inks Licensing Deal with Mayo Clinic for Obesity Phenotype Blood Test
What You Should Know: - Today, Phenomix Sciences announced the company has signed an exclusive technology licensing agreement with Mayo Clinic for a novel blood test that accurately predicts obesity phenotypes. - The multi-level “omics” MyPhenome™ test leverages technology developed at Mayo Clinic to analyze genomics, metabolomics and hormone levels. Its AI-driven algorithmic solution identifies four specific obesity phenotypes to give doctors the ability to
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Could ‘Hospitals Without Walls’ Be the New Normal for Telehealth and Remote Patient Monitoring?
The statistics surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic continue to be startling, despite the ever-growing mental and physical fatigue that we’ve all experienced living through this frightening, intimidating and unprecedented era. More than 125 million cases worldwide have resulted in a death toll closing in on three million, while in the United States alone, 30 million reported infections have resulted in a death toll that reached 550,000. (1) One thing that can be said for certain about
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How NLP Can Uncover Social Determinants of Heart Disease
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for people of most racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Cardiovascular disease-related deaths—which occur every 36 seconds—cost our country about $219 billion each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). People with poor cardiovascular health are also at increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19, so the time to act is now. There’s no time like the present to look at major risk factors—from obesity and
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Glooko Raises $30M to Expand Digital Diabetes Management Platform
What You Should Know: - Glooko, a Palo Alto, CA-based provider of remote patient monitoring and chronic care management solutions including diabetes and obesity, today announced that they have raised a $30 million Series D round of funding. The funding was led by Health Catalyst Capital along with participation from existing investors Canaan Partners, Georgian, Novo Nordisk, Insulet and Mayo Clinic. - Glooko plans to use these proceeds from this funding to accelerate organic growth and
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Innovative, Non-Invasive Technologies Advanced Earlier Detection & Monitoring of Liver Disease
Leveraging technological advances to facilitate new ways of engaging patients and integrating non-invasive technology into a liver disease program not only serves to improve individual outcomes and reduce costs but also strengthens the financial performance of health systems and provider organizations that include this approach to testing. At a time when America’s hospitals and physician groups face lost revenues due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a pressing need for reducing costs while
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