GSK Unveils Haleon | Walmart’s Vaccination Efforts | Cerebral Refund Issues

Plus: Study suggests positive effects of alcohol on the heart are a ‘myth’

What’s in a name? For pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline’s consumer health unit spinoff, it’s a combination of Old English and Greek. Haleon, the name unveiled this week, is a mashup of Old English word “Hale,” which means “in good health,” and the Greek word “Leon,” which means “strength,” Forbes marketing editor Marty Swant reports. It was the winning name of more than 2,000 options GSK worked through with the agency Interbrand. The demerger, expected to be completed in mid-2022, will separate out brands like, Advil, Centrum, Tums, ChapStick and Nicorette, from GSK’s pharmaceutical and vaccine business. The consumer unit generates around £10 billion ($13.6 billion) in annual sales.

Katie Jennings

Staff Writer, Healthcare

Getting A Refund From Mental Health Startup Cerebral Can Take Its Own Toll On Customers

Internal documents show Cerebral has a strict protocol for refunds, and customers say the company resists when they seek repayment for services not rendered – until they pull out the big guns. As with many automatic recurring subscriptions, Cerebral immediately charges customers upon registration and “there are no refunds regardless of whether Services were utilized,” according to the company’s publicly available terms and conditions. But what’s posted publicly differs from Cerebral’s internal refund policy, which lays out 12 specific scenarios when the company will grant a full refund, including threats of legal action, according to an internal memo obtained by Forbes. Cerebral, which has cared for more than 200,000 patients since launching in 2020, was valued at $4.8 billion following a $300 million funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 in December.

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Deals Of The Week

Don’t Call It A Retirement: Last year, Jefferson Health announced CEO Stephen Klasko was “retiring” at the end of 2021 to “concentrate on the critical need to reform America’s fragmented, disconnected and expensive healthcare system.” Today we got some insight into Klasko’s post-retirement plans as he joins venture firm General Catalyst as an executive-in-residence. Klasko has a longstanding relationship with GC managing partner Hemant Taneja since the two developed a “health assurance” thesis and later co-published a 2020 book on the topic. General Catalyst said it’s working with more than 50 companies in this “health assurance” space, meaning moving the focus away from “sick care” and towards meeting people where they are. Klasko and Taneja are both sponsors of a blank check company known as Health Assurance Acquisition Corp., which was first announced in November 2020 and has yet to name a target company.

Digital Health: Omada Health, which provides digital interventions for chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension, announced a $192 million Series E funding round led by Fidelity Management & Research Company. The company currently serves more than 1,700 customers up from 1,000 customers in 2019 and has 550,000 members, according to a press release.

Faster Claims: Kansas City-based Cerner announced last week that it has signed a deal with the Social Security Administration to use its EHR data to help simplify the process of applying for disability claims beginning with three pilot customers.

AI Expansion: Radiology software company Sirona Medical, founded by Forbes Under 30 alumnus Cameron Andrews, announced that it’s acquiring Nines, a medical AI company with two FDA-cleared devices. The acquisition includes Nines’ Ai algorithms, machine learning technology and its clinical data pipeline.

Antiviral Nose Spray: Australian biotech company ENA Respiratory is teaming up with the non-profit COPD foundation to further develop the former’s broad-spectrum antiviral nose spray, which is aimed at combating a number of respiratory infections, including Covid. The company has completed a phase 1 trial and expects to move to phase 2 later this year.

Noteworthy

Moderna’s stock crash steepened ahead of the company’s earnings report on Thursday morning, even as one analyst projected incoming results for one of the company’s flu vaccine candidates would likely be a promising development for the firm’s struggling stock as it looks beyond Covid-19 vaccines.

Global health pioneer and founder of Partners in Health Dr. Paul Farmer died in his sleep in Rwanda.

Cybercriminals are charging anything from $500 to $7,000 for access to organizations’ computers including healthcare organizations, such as hospitals and NGO Doctors Without Borders.

Mosquitoes can learn to avoid pesticide after a single non-lethal pesticide exposure, according to a new study, which could complicate malaria eradication efforts.

Coronavirus Updates

Big pharma powerhouses GSK and Sanofi announced today that they’re beginning the process of seeking regulatory authorizations for the Covid-19 vaccine they’ve co-developed. The applications will be based on clinical trials the two companies ran with both the vaccine as a primary series and also as a booster for other vaccines. The vaccine used a protein-based technology which allows it to be stored in refrigerators rather than freezers. In clinical trials, the vaccine showed 57.9% efficacy against symptomatic infection and 100% efficacy against severe Covid and hospitalizations. Additionally, when used as a booster, the companies report clinical trials found an increase in neutralizing antibodies across different vaccine platforms. “We are confident that this vaccine can play an important role as we continue to address this pandemic and prepare for the post-pandemic period,” Roger Connor, president of GSK Vaccines said in a statement.

Alex Knapp

Senior Editor, Healthcare & Science

Walmart: 4 In 5 Covid Vaccines Went To ‘Medically Underserved’

Walmart administered 80% of its vaccines against Covid-19 in “medically underserved” areas of the U.S. since the shots became widely available a year ago, the company said. The disclosure in Walmart’s Covid vaccine report released Wednesday is the latest snapshot into the effort by retailers to expand deeper into the business of providing healthcare services, particularly during a time of crisis.

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In other coronavirus news:

Los Angeles County, one of only two counties in California that still requires masks indoors, plans to let vaccinated people take off their masks later this week in indoor spaces that require proof of Covid-19 vaccination.

Canadian authorities instructed banks to release the financial accounts of people whose accounts had been frozen when the country’s federal government used emergency powers to crack down on people protesting public health measures by occupying areas in Ottawa for several weeks.

Health service leaders have called on the British government to release evidence behind its controversial new "Living with Covid" policies.

A larger share of American voters are now more concerned about the economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic than the public health fallout for the first time since it began, a new Morning Consult poll finds.