COVID reimbursements need Congress, White House says
To view this email as a web page, click here

Today's Rundown

Featured Story

AbbVie, Eli Lilly, Novartis and more cut back in Russia amid corporate exodus over Ukraine war

Since the invasion of Ukraine, hundreds of companies have announced pause or withdrawal of businesses in Russia. Drugmakers Eli Lilly, Novartis and AbbVie are among the latest to join the growing list.

read more

Top Stories

Sanofi steps off the sidelines to ink 3 ADC deal with Seagen, reigniting long-held interest in the modality 

Sanofi is stepping up its long-held interest in antibody-drug conjugates (ADC). Having first teamed up with Immunogen almost 20 years ago, Sanofi has now joined forces with Seagen to jointly fund and develop three anti-cancer ADCs.

read more

White House: Providers won't get reimbursed for uninsured COVID-19 care unless Congress acts

Starting next month, providers won't be able to get reimbursed for testing, vaccinating or treating uninsured COVID-19 patients unless Congress passes new funding, the White House warns.

read more

Illumina launches cancer profiling diagnostic in Europe

Built off of its previous tumor biopsy assays reserved for use by research scientists, the new TruSight Oncology Comprehensive test kit examines multiple cancer genes and biomarkers to help direct European patients to targeted therapies.

read more

'Biotech sisterhood': 25 female CEOs find new ways to 'sponsor' the next generation at Arizona retreat

Two dozen female CEOs from across the biotech industry came together for a first-of-its-kind retreat this past weekend to network, bounce ideas off one another and form the basis for annual and regional events meant to support women in the C-suite.

read more

Biogen piles on more long-term Aduhelm data, linking biomarker to Alzheimer’s clinical benefit

Despite a disastrous commercial rollout, Biogen is still producing longer-term data for beleaguered Alzheimer’s disease therapy Aduhelm. The latest data showed that the drug continued to lower the levels of amyloid beta plaques and produced a sign of cognitive benefit, the company said.

read more

HIMSS 2022: Retail, primary care disruptors are hungry for partnerships with traditional providers

Executives from Best Buy, One Medical and CVS Health say there's enough healthcare demand to go around and that all organizations can benefit from collaborations on new care models.

read more

BioNTech, CureVac part of $3.14B deal to bolster German vaccine capacity through 2029: report

Germany will pay upward of €2.86 billion ($3.14 billion) to lock up local vaccine production capacity through 2029, Reuters reports, citing the country’s economy ministry. On Wednesday, the German government approved plans to sign contracts with mRNA specialists BioNTech and CureVac-GSK, plus contract manufacturers Wacker and CordernPharma, Celonic, and IDT.

read more

FDA's gene editing guidance is 'par for the course' but still important, analysts say

“Par for the course.” “Benign.” “Not surprising.” These are some of the creative ways analysts described the FDA’s new guidance on gene editing for biotechs, but they are at least happy to see the FDA take some leadership and provide guidance to industry.

read more

Verily adds AI to Lumea’s digital pathology platform for prostate cancer

Startups like Ibex, Paige and PathAI have racked up a handful of regulatory approvals and hundreds of millions in funding for their respective AI-powered biopsy-reading technologies—and now, Verily is looking for a piece of the digital pathology pie.

read more

HIMSS 2022: Microsoft rolls out Azure Health Data Services to unify clinical, imaging and medical device data

Microsoft is stepping up its healthcare cloud services with a new platform that brings together diverse data sets, like clinical, imaging and streaming data from medical devices, in the cloud.

read more

Lilly and Boehringer's Jardiance, trailing AZ's Farxiga in chronic kidney disease, posts efficacy win

Following an interim assessment, the independent data monitoring committee in charge of Lilly and BI’s phase 3 Empa-Kidney study in chronic kidney disease (CKD) have recommended the trial stop early. At the trial’s midpoint, Jardiance met the mark for positive efficacy, the partners said.

read more

Shionogi’s COVID-19 antiviral heads to phase 3 backed by NIH after receiving FDA go-ahead

Shionogi's COVID-19 treatment, backed by the National Institutes of Health, is moving on to phase 3 after the FDA finalized the study design, a positive step after several clinical pauses and discontinuations have marred pandemic research funded by the NIH in March. 

read more

J&J's DePuy Synthes found guilty of infringing orthopedic device patent in $20M verdict

Gary Lynn Rasmussen, M.D., accused DePuy of having used two of his patented inventions “without his permission or compensation.” His mechanisms were allegedly integrated into DePuy’s Attune system for knee replacement procedures.

read more