It’s My Body And I’ll Test If I Want To
While health consumers in America have more skin in the game in terms of paying more via high-deductible health plans and out-of-pocket costs, they are largely unempowered when it comes to diagnostic testing in labs. Theranos is working to change that and empower consumers to access convenient lab testing and get results quickly and online. Describing the lab-disempowerment story in a Wall Street Journal op-ed dated July 28, Elizabeth Holmes writes about How to Usher In a New Era of Preventive Health Care. Holmes is the founder and CEO of Theranos (named by joining the words “therapy” and “diagnosis”), a health technology company
Medicare Makes the Case for Outcomes, As Increasing Costs Loom
Health costs in America will grow faster (again), and health outcomes have improved in the past decade. This week, two of the most important health journals feature health economics data and analyses that paint the current landscape of the U.S. health care system – the good, the warts, and the potential. Health Affairs provides the big economic story played out by the forecasts of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in National Health Expenditure Projections, 2014-24: Spending Growth Faster Than Recent Trends. The topline of the forecast is that health spending growth in the U.S. will annually average
Beauty, Health and Power
CVS is expanding the beauty aisles in stores, along with adding fresh and refrigerated foods and healthy snacks to its offerings. This is part of the company’s re-positioning in its post-tobacco mission, having re-branded from CVS/pharmacy to CVS Health last year. (You can read more about this strategic transformation here in Health Populi and here in my Huffington Post column). When CVS made this announcement, a portfolio manager for Gabelli Funds noted that health and beauty products have very high profit margins. These margins will be useful as CVS replaces the tobacco sales lost last year when the company went tobacco-free.
Health Politics – Learning From History in Art from the Reagan/AIDS Era
The high cost of specialty drugs, opaque information on risks of many existing prescription drugs, and lack of cures for diseases impacting millions of people are forces driving patients into activism, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the emergence of AIDS. I was reminded this yesterday, not inside the Beltway at an FDA or Congressional hearing, or in an online social network of patient activists. I was visiting the newly re-opened and re-built Whitney Museum, an architectural gem now re-energizing the Meatpacking District in Lower Manhattan. It wasn’t the building design (which is getting rave reviews from architecture
Older People and Activity Tracking: AARP Weighs In
Activity and sleep trackers hold promise for the health and wellbeing of people over 50. But they’ve miles to go before their design and usefulness get props from older people. The AARP’s Project Catalyst report, Building a Better Tracker: Older Consumers Weigh in On Activity and Sleep Monitoring Devices, presents research conducted with Georgia Tech’s Home Lab which gave 92 people a digital wearable to track activity or sleep over a six week period. The second graphic shows the devices used in the study. 3 in 4 of the activity tracking users said their devices were, or had the potential to
Entresto – model for future Rx?
The FDA approved Novartis’s new heart failure drug Entresto (LCZ696) on July 7, 2015. This product was approved under the FDA fast track program which prioritizes therapies that fill unmet needs for patients with life-threatening conditions. Heart failure affects over 5 million people in the U.S. and is often caused by heart attacks and high blood pressure. So heart failure impacts lots of people and, in aggregate, the CDC says represents about $32 bn of medical spending annually in the U.S. and is a factor in 1 in 9 deaths in America each year. Novartis is looking to price Entresto as much
The $20 Fitness Tracker
Misfit Wearables launched a fitness tracker, the Flash Link, for under $20. The device offers “more powerful at a lower price,” according to the title of the company’s press release yesterday. Available now on Misfit’s website, the Flash Link is described as “an easy-to-use activity tracker and smart button. A low priced, modular, and multi-functional wearable, Flash Link gives users even more ways to connect with the world around them. Use any Flash or Flash Link with the Misfit Link app to take a selfie, control your music (pause, play, skip songs, adjust the volume), or advance slides in a presentation.”
Fitness tech will boost holiday retail sales for consumer electronics
Sales of computers and tablets and LCD TVs won’t be hot on peoples’ holiday shopping lists in 2015. But smartwatches, health and fitness tech, and 4K Ultra HD TVs will be in peoples’ gift wish-lists and under homes’ holiday trees. The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) published its 2015 U.S. Consumer Electronics Sales and Forecasts report, and it shows a shifting retail picture where traditional consumer electronics categories — notably computers and mainstream TVs — are declining in demand. But new-new categories are expected to buoy 2015 retail sales. The new categories of consumer electronics will generate about $10 bn (wholesale
Sports and the Internet of Things: the Scoop & Score podcast
From elite soccer and football fields to youth athletes in public school gyms, wearable technology has come to sports bringing two big benefits of gathering data at the point of exercise: to gauge performance and coach back to the athlete in real time, and to prevent injury. I discussed the advent of the Internet of Things in sports on the Scoop and Score podcast with Andrew Kahn, sports journalist and writer, and Stephen Kahn, sports enthusiast and business analyst. [In full disclosure these two Kahn’s are also my brilliant nephews.] We recorded the podcast on July 14, 2015, the day
Collaboration in health/care drives value – in & beyond bio/pharma
“Tomorrow [drug makers] may not get paid for the molecule, they may only get paid for the outcome,” expects Brian Niznik of Qualcomm Life. He’s quoted in a report from PwC’s Health Research Institute, 21st Century Pharmaceutical Collaboration: The Value Convergence. What Brian’s comment recognizes is the growing value-based environment for healthcare, which couples purchasers driving down drug costs via discounts and stringent formulary (approved drug list) contracts, and growing patient responsibility for paying for prescription drugs — especially financially costly for specialty drugs that are new-new molecules. But as Brian points out, if the high-cost molecule doesn’t perform as
IoT in Healthcare, Take 3 – Accenture & the Internet of Me in Health
We’re entering the era of personalized healthcare promising convenient and meaningful health experiences, according to Accenture’s 2015 Healthcare IT Vision articulated in their report, Top 5 eHealth Trends. This post is third in three published here on Health Populi this week, exploring the growing role of the Internet of Things in health/care. On 8th July, we dug into McKinsey Global Institute’s research on IoT’s influence over nine industries, including human health; and on the 9th, we reviewed Goldman Sachs’ report on digital health’s potential impact on the U.S. healthcare system. Accenture’s five eHealth trends include: The Internet of Me; the Outcome Economy, with
IoT in Healthcare, Take 2: Goldman Sachs weighs in
In this week’s posts on Health Populi, we’re diving into three big reports focused on digital health and the Internet of Things (IoT) in healthcare: from the McKinsey Global Institute, Goldman Sachs, and Accenture. In this post, we dig into Goldman Sachs’ analysis, The Digital Revolution comes to US Healthcare, the investment firm’s fifth volume in their Internet of Things report series. Goldman Sachs’ definition of the Healthcare IoT is, “a device that is connected via the Internet and informs clinical decision making,” which bridges digital and physical worlds “to change physician and patient behavior.” The firm identifies three IoT
The Internet of Things in Health: McKinsey Sees $1.6 T Value
‘Tis the summer of big, smart reports covering the Internet of Things (IoT) impact on health and fitness. Just this month, three of these missives have come to my inbox, and they all contribute sound thinking about the topic. Today, tomorrow and Friday, I’ll cover each of these here in Health Populi. We begin with McKinsey Global Institute’s The Internet of Things: Mapping the Value Beyond the Hype. [In full disclosure, I was an outside adviser to the MGI team members who focused on the human/health and fitness aspects of this report, and thank MGI for the opportunity to provide