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Buongiorno! We’re now officially in this year’s home stretch. For me, that means I am flying home to Italy (with Tuna — please send any and all tips for long flights with spicy little dogs) at the end of this week. Meanwhile, don’t miss Allison DeAngelis’s fascinating profile on Reed Jobs and his investment in oncology.
Reed Jobs charts his own course in biotech
For Steve Jobs’ son, Reed, his father’s cancer wasn’t just cause for heartbreak and grief. It was also what led him down the path that culminated this past August with the founding of Yosemite, an investment firm focused exclusively on oncology research, with $200 million in financing and plans to raise $200 million more.
Jobs’ journey to Yosemite wasn’t straightforward. He abandoned cancer research as an undergraduate at Stanford after his father’s death, graduating in history instead. But what could have been a setback ended up working in his favor: By the time he eventually re-entered oncology, now as an investor with the resources to have an impact, immunotherapy was changing everything.
“The timing of my re-entry was amazing, because I was a beginner, but so was everyone, too, even if they didn’t know it,” he told STAT’s Allison DeAngelis. First by adding a health portfolio to his mother’s Emerson Collective, then by moving the team over to Yosemite, Jobs has been making his mark in the field. And he has no shortage of ambition: “We really just want to be part of the things that are wondrous and kind of take people’s breath away.” Read more.
The mere threat of antitrust scrutiny may have killed Cigna’s deal with Humana
Only two weeks after rumors of a merger between Cigna and Humana were reported, the deal is off. The big issue: Fear of antitrust intervention.
Experts told STAT’s Bob Herman that they expected the Department of Justice to conduct an investigation into the deal and potentially block it, in line with its track record with previous attempts at insurance mega-mergers such as Anthem-Cigna and Aetna-Humana. Although Cigna and Humana’s insurance products don’t overlap much, other aspects of the businesses do, in particular their pharmacy benefit managers, among the top four in the country.
Not much seems lost for Cigna, anyway. The company’s stock has climbed to its highest point since November in the wake of its plan to use its available cash to increase stock buybacks by an additional $10 billion. Read more.
Mobile clinics offer way to care for hard-to-reach patients
Chongcan Zhu, a 83-year-old longtime resident of Boston, lives alone — but she doesn’t feel a sense of isolation when it comes to receiving health care. That’s thanks to the van that comes straight to the senior residential community where she lives, providing services to people dealing with conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure and cholesterol.
“It’s very convenient to have the doctor check up on me,” said Zhu, who has been a patient at the Mass General Brigham Community Care Van about five times so far, speaking through a translator to STAT’s Anika Nayak.
The vans are part of a larger movement of mobile clinics in Boston that grew during the peak of Covid-19 as the pandemic shed light on health disparities. Recent policy changes mean that more cities across the U.S. may expand their own initiatives to bring care straight to patients. Read more.
Why methadone clinics are fighting addiction doctors
A groundbreaking new bill, slated for a Senate markup today, would allow select doctors to prescribe methadone directly to their patients. The bill’s supporters, including doctors and patient advocates, say that freeing patients from the burden of daily visits to the methadone clinic would ease access to a treatment that drastically reduces the risk of overdose death.
But methadone clinics and their trade organization, the American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence, oppose the bill, reports Lev Facher. Clinics argue that changing the rules would destabilize the treatment system and potentially increase risks to patients. The clinics’ trade group may be in for defeat since the bill has bipartisan support. However, its path after the Senate Committee is still unclear. Read more.
What are the risks of taking GLP-1 drugs during pregnancy?
Taking GLP-1 receptor agonists for type 2 diabetes during pregnancy does not pose more risks for the fetus compared to insulin treatment, according to a large new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine. The observational study looked at data from about 52,000 pregnant women with pregestational type 2 diabetes between 2009 and 2021. Of that group, roughly a third had a prescription for a non-insulin diabetes medication, including GLP-1 drugs, which are becoming more popular as type 2 diabetes cases increase.
Overall, infants born to mothers with prenatal type 2 diabetes have a higher incidence of significant birth defects — more than 5.5%, compared to a baseline of 3.7%. Exposure to insulin in utero further increases the risk to 7.8%, and the study found that other anti-diabetic drugs do as well, but not to a significantly larger degree. The study’s authors note that the data, “[a]lthough reassuring,” requires further confirmation.
The link between acid reflux and anxiety
Previous studies have shown that levels of depression and anxiety tend to be higher in people with gastrointestinal reflux, or GERD. A new review and meta-analysis published in this month’s issue of the Journal of American Gastroenterology, aims to quantify the impact of GERD on these kinds of common psychiatric conditions.
The review of 36 studies found that one in three people with GERD also showed symptoms of anxiety and depression. The causal link may go both ways: Gastrointestinal issues may lead to increased risk of anxiety and depression, and mental health conditions may increase the risk of GERD.
What we’re reading
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- Surge in number of ‘extremely productive’ authors concerns scientists, Nature
- The prices of 8 drugs were hiked without proof of new benefits, costing the U.S. $1.2 billion in 2022, report finds, STAT
- Biology, anatomy, and finance? More med students want business degrees too, KFF Health News
- Amid fears of superbugs, sales of antibiotics used in food-producing livestock rose last year, STAT
- On the streets, opioids sometimes more potent than fentanyl: nitazenes, The Washington Post
- It’s time to rethink the Medicare annual wellness visit, STAT