Friday, November 19, 2021 | Kaiser Wellness News

Bloomberg:
J&J Break up: What The New Drug Corporation Will Concentration On Immediately after Break up

Johnson & Johnson will emphasis on establishing medicine for ailments this kind of as lung cancer and eye disorder as it prepares to make its pharmaceutical and health care-devices organization an independent entity. The 135-12 months-aged health huge faces its finest-at any time overhaul as it readies for a spin-out of its consumer device, subsequent a path trod by rivals such as GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Pfizer Inc. In her first-at any time interview, Jennifer Taubert, J&J’s executive vice president and throughout the world chairman of pharmaceuticals, told Bloomberg News that the organization will make investments in new regions of desire. (Griffin, 11/18)

Reuters:
J&J Sees Potential For 14 New Multibillion-Dollar Medicine By 2025

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) expects to file for acceptance of 14 new medicine by 2025, and has projected average peak profits of $4 billion a calendar year for each and every, a top J&J scientist mentioned ahead of a strategy overview of the company’s prescription drugs unit on Thursday. Among the major pipeline assets, Mathai Mammen, world head of investigate for J&J’s Janssen pharmaceutical division, pointed to a drug combination for non-tiny mobile lung cancer, an anticoagulant it is establishing with partner Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY.N) and a vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). (Erman and Steenhuysen, 11/18)

In information on CVS, Lasik, Biogen, Northwestern Drugs and Mass Typical Brigham —

Modern Health care:
CVS To Close 900 Outlets In Significant Retail Approach Shift

Major improvements are coming for CVS Health and fitness, the corporation announced Thursday. Above the upcoming 3 a long time, CVS Health and fitness designs to shutter 900 pharmacies and intensify its attempts to reconceive its retail places as web sites for far more in depth healthcare expert services. The corporation, which also operates Aetna health and fitness insurance plan and CVS Caremark pharmacy reward management subsidiaries, introduced a connected senior govt leadership shakeup. (Devereaux, 11/18)

The Wall Road Journal:
Dominant Eye Surgical treatment Chain LasikPlus Place Profits Around Patient Care, Some Medical doctors Say

Due to the fact the laser operation that can repair nearsightedness was approved in the 1990s, a single organization, called LasikPlus, has grown into the U.S. industry’s dominant drive by working with very low selling prices as a attract and vacuuming up rival players. Alongside with its advancement, LasikPlus has gathered critics, such as some of its possess doctors, existing and former, who alleged in lawsuits and interviews that they had been pressured by corporate administration to observe methods that they felt place the company’s revenue around client care. Some explained they were being predicted to conduct so numerous strategies just about every working day they apprehensive they couldn’t hold up. “It felt like we had been in a war zone all the time,” explained Therese Alban, who stop LasikPlus two years in the past after 15 years there, element of an exodus of about 20% of the chain’s then 40 or so health professionals to a rival business or non-public practice. (Maremont, 11/18)

Bloomberg:
Insurers Balk at Spending for Biogen’s $56,000-a-Yr Alzheimer’s Treatment method

U.S. overall health insurers say they want a lot more evidence ahead of spending for Biogen Inc.’s Aduhelm, stalling revenue of the high-priced new Alzheimer’s therapy that the enterprise hailed as a breakthrough for sufferers. None of the 25 huge insurers that responded to a Bloomberg News survey judged the $56,000-a-year drug “medically required,” a expression utilized to explain therapies that are required for distinct conditions and fulfill professional medical criteria. Most have deemed Aduhelm experimental, while some say they are however evaluating it. (Tozzi, LaVito and Dave, 11/18)

Crain’s Chicago Organization:
Northwestern Medicine Launches Lung Remedy Center

Northwestern Medication has introduced the Canning Thoracic Institute with a $20 million donation from Madison Dearborn Companions founder John Canning and his spouse Rita to satisfy the growing desire for lung transplants and lung remedies thanks to COVID-19 and lung most cancers, the health method said these days. Because July 2020, Northwestern Drugs surgeons have performed more than 30 double-lung transplants on COVID people, the most of any wellness program in the earth, Northwestern said in a assertion. And with far more than 47 million People obtaining now contracted COVID, desire for inpatient and outpatient pulmonary treatment is predicted to grow, the assertion said. In addition, almost a million men and women in the Chicago place, or about 10% of the population, endure from some form of chronic lung ailment, the statement claimed. (Asplund, 11/18)

Chicago Tribune:
With COVID-19 Continuing To Destruction Patients’ Lungs, Northwestern Announces New Institute Concentrated On Lung Treatment, Thanks To $20 Million Donation 

With COVID-19 continuing to wreak havoc on the lungs of its victims, Northwestern Medicine is doubling down on its efforts to be a nationwide chief in lung care with the start of an institute committed to the discipline. Northwestern declared the opening of its Canning Thoracic Institute on Thursday — named for John and Rita Canning, who donated $20 million to get the institute off the ground. John Canning is the chairman and founder of personal fairness business Madison Dearborn Companions. (Schencker, 11/18)

The Boston Globe:
Healey Involved Mass Standard Brigham’s Enlargement Would Bring Increased Health and fitness Treatment Costs

Attorney Basic Maura Healey is warning that Mass Common Brigham’s proposal to establish 3 new medical procedures centers is probably to enhance overall health care expenses throughout Massachusetts, turning up the pressure on the state’s major well being care company as it pursues a extensive-prepared and significant expansion. Healey, just after examining files from MGB, released a report Wednesday that explained the task would have broad implications for the health care marketplace. It would let Mass Typical Brigham to attract new sufferers not just to its outpatient clinics, but to its hospitals as well, by way of referrals from health professionals. (Dayal McCluskey, 11/18)

In other industry news —

Stat:
Biotech Corporations Scramble To Uncover Experts To Regulate Troves Of Knowledge

Nikhil Munshi’s lab at the Dana-Farber Most cancers Institute has accrued an mind-boggling volume of knowledge — over a thousand terabytes of intel on balanced cells and most cancers cells that could assistance researchers unlock new tricks about health and fitness and sickness — what he known as the “unbelievable complexity of how cells stay normal and turn out to be abnormal.” “It’s extremely, quite remarkable. We can do things we could not do actually two many years back or five yrs back. A petabyte of data sounds like a Star Trek range, but a good deal of people have [more],” Munshi, an oncology researcher, mentioned. There is just a person issue: “There’s so a lot demand for informatics, the offer is not there however. There really is a lack of good bioinformaticians.” (Chen, 11/19)

Stat:
Gilead Licenses Cancer Medicines From Arcus, A Guess On Its Cancer Business

Gilead Sciences said Thursday that it has exercised an solution to license 4 cancer medicines from Arcus Biosciences, including an immunotherapy that performs versus a intently followed anti-cancer focus on called TIGIT. In trade for licensing legal rights to the four most cancers drugs, Gilead is spending Arcus $725 million. The two providers will co-develop the prescription drugs, share fees, and if accredited, break up earnings in the U.S., the companies said. For Gilead, the Arcus deal represents one more possibly rewarding but dangerous work to develop its most cancers enterprise, which has struggled to obtain traction apart from its bespoke Car or truck-T therapies. (Feuerstein, 11/18)

Stat:
GSK’s Walmsley Predicts A ‘Landmark’ 2022 For The Company

Future 12 months will be a “landmark” one particular for GlaxoSmithKline, according to CEO Emma Walmsley — although many of the most significant improvements she forecasted may perhaps not grow to be evident right up until up coming 12 months. On up coming year’s agenda: refreshing info from medical trials of a vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus, a quite widespread childhood ailment a Meals and Drug Administration choice for daprodustat, GSK’s experimental remedy for a form of anemia and the de-merger of GSK’s client enterprise from its pharmaceutical arm — 20-a person several years just after the large merger that produced GlaxoSmithKline in the 1st position. (Sheridan, 11/18)

Boston Globe:
Make Biomedicines Raises $370m To Use Device Understanding In Investigation

Cambridge biotech Create Biomedicines reported Thursday it has lifted $370 million in enterprise capital from traders eager on its plan to use equipment learning in drug discovery, cash that will empower the startup to increase its workforce a lot more than sixfold. Create, which was founded in 2018 by undertaking capital business Flagship Pioneering, has about 80 staff at 26 Landsdowne St. and expects to retain the services of some 420 much more in the subsequent two several years, according to top rated executives. The corporation programs to move quickly to two new properties, totaling 140,000 square toes, in Andover and Somerville. (Saltzman, 11/18)

Stat:
By Selling Bonds Tied To Drug Obtain And Local climate Aims, Teva Takes Pharma In A New Direction 

In a to start with-of-its-type transfer by a drug maker, Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA) recently offered $5 billion in bonds that are tied specifically to its development in reaching goals joined to weather adjust and generating medicines available in sure minimal and middle-profits nations. The aim is to raise the cumulative number of marketing and advertising purposes submitted to regulators in reduced and middle-earnings international locations — as perfectly as the quantity of donated medications — by 150% by 2025, when compared with the preceding five-12 months period of time. The solutions must be considered vital medicines by the Environment Health Group and would be used for diabetic issues and heart disorder, between other conditions. (Silverman, 11/18)