SOTU Recap | Biden’s New Covid Plan | Hospitals in Ukraine

Plus: England’s hospitals told to boost cybersecurity due to Ukraine war

While the war in Ukraine dominated the beginning of President Joe Biden’s State Of The Union address yesterday, he covered a wide range of healthcare topics, including the pandemic, nursing homes, transgender kids, cancer and veteran’s health. Top of the list was the high cost of prescription drugs and, in particular, insulin, the life-saving drug for diabetics. Insulin costs around $10 a vial to manufacture but drug companies charge 30 times that, the president said, and proposed capping the cost of insulin at $35 a month. “Drug companies will still do very well,” said Biden. “And while we’re at it let Medicare negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs, like the [Veterans Health Administration] already does.”

As to be expected, this did not sit well with the pharmaceutical industry. “Allowing the government to set the price of medicines isn’t the answer,” Stephen Ubl, president of the trade group PhRMA, said in a statement. “We know that story will end with less access to medicines and less future innovation, and we know there’s a better way.” 

Biden also took aim at “Wall Street firms” that have bought nursing homes where quality has gone down and costs have gone up. “That ends on my watch,” the president said. “Medicare is going to set higher standards for nursing homes and make sure your loved ones get the care they deserve and expect.”

With the Supreme Court poised to issue a ruling on a Mississippi abortion law that could have sweeping implications for Roe v. Wade, Biden affirmed his commitment to preserve “a woman’s right to choose.” And as Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to investigate medical treatments provided to transgender children as “child abuse,” Biden asked Congress to pass the Equality Act. 

For vulnerable child cancer patients in Ukraine’s capital city, the only option is to go underground. As Russian shelling continues and a military convoy approaches Kyiv, patients at the Okhmatdyt National Children's Specialized Hospital have gathered on makeshift beds in the basement. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created a dire need for more medical personnel and also threatens essential supplies like oxygen. Ukraine’s Health Minister Viktor Liashko called on doctors in Russia to condemn the actions of the country’s military. “This is terrorism, because your military is shelling peaceful neighborhoods of our cities, shooting at ambulances, destroying our hospitals with bombs, refusing to bring medicines and food to hospitals,” he said in a statement.

Deals Of The Week

Remote Patient Collaboration: Microsoft will be collaborating with New Jerssey-based IT services company Cognizant on a new digital health product aimed at remote patient monitoring. The solution aims to use hardware like wearables and glucose monitors for patient insights and to assist in telehealth appointments. The solution will use components of Microsoft’s Cloud For Healthcare platform, and Cognizant says the product is first in a series of digital health solutions it plans to develop. 

Another Flagship: Today, venture firm Flagship Pioneering announced the launch of another healthcare company: Vesalius Therapeutics, which is coming out of stealth with a $75 million commitment from the firm for platform and pipeline development. Vesalius’ platform uses AI to cluster patients suffering from common diseases into disparate groups based on their specific symptoms and comorbidities to provide more meaningful treatment. 

Nine Figures For Testing: San Jose-based diagnostics company Visby Medical announced this week that it raised a series E round of $100 million. The round was led by Ping An Voyager Partners, joined by Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan. The company says the funding round will enable it to scale production capacity for its diagnostics tests, which are currently aimed at flu, Covid and STIs. 

AI For Mental Health: Kintsugi, which is using machine learning to identify signs of depression and anxiety from biomarkers in patients’ voices, has raised a $28 million Series A round led by Insight Partners. 

Digital Therapeutics: DarioHealth, which has developed digital therapeutics to treat chronic conditions, entered into a $30 million strategic agreement with Sanofi to help commercialize its platform. 

Noteworthy

Health insurer Cigna announces a new $450 million fund to invest in new technology startups. 

A federal law passed in 2020 requires employers to demonstrate the health plans they offer employees are high quality and cost effective. Few are ready to comply. 

The ACLU has sued to block a new rule in Texas directing investigations into parents whose children have received gender-affirming medical treatment.

Coronavirus Updates

The Biden Administration unveiled its new Covid-19 preparedness plan today. The plan focuses heavily on prevention, both in terms of future Covid surges as well as new pandemics. The proposal prioritizes treatments, testing and booster shots for those particularly vulnerable to Covid, such as the elderly and immunocompromised. It also directs mental health funding to healthcare workers who’ve been working through the pandemic. The Administration also looks to boost surveillance efforts to quickly detect new Covid variants and develop updated vaccine boosters. 

The plan drew praise from public health experts from both sides of the aisle on social media, including former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who called it “comprehensive, forward looking, well crafted.” Eric Topol, founder and director of Scripps Research Translational Institute, said “it’s the comprehensive plan we’ve needed for some time.” Céline Gounder, senior fellow at Kaiser Family Foundation, was more circumspect, praising the focus on indoor ventilation and air filtration, but noting that a lot of the plan hinges on legislation.  She also shared articles critical of the Administration’s more individualist approach to combatting the pandemic, tweeting “Public health has an uphill battle to fight in countries like the US, where individualism trump[s] collective good.”

In other coronavirus news:

Earlier this month, scientists in Brazil began manufacturing the country’s first domestically-produced Covid-19 vaccine doses. 

Just two years ago, federal officials declared that the pricing and affordability of Covid-19 vaccines should be left to the market, but things have shifted significantly since then.

A recent study suggests that when the coronavirus binds to cells, that process alone can disrupt cellular function.

Across Forbes

• Biden And Allies Are Coming For Russian Billionaires’ Yachts: Forbes Tracked Down 32. Here’s Where To Find Them

• While War In Ukraine Rages Below, Astronauts Cooperate Above

• Fracking Billionaire Harold Hamm Plans To Reverse Course And Pump Millions Of Tons Of Carbon Into The Earth

What Else We Are Reading

• China quietly plans a pivot from ‘zero COVID’ (Science)

• 3 burning questions spurred by the big CRISPR patent ruling (Stat)

• Tenet Healthcare is no longer spinning off Conifer, its revenue cycle subsidiary (Fierce Healthcare)