In this week’s InnovationRX edition, we are considering efforts to improve the previous authorization, the trading of IP Bell Labs portfolio, a new billionaire from the IPO of CARIS LIFE Sciences, a large round of funding for robots to perform cataract surgery and much more. To take it to your inbox, Sign up here.
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Mondayreported representatives from multiple health insurance companies They had committed To the Ministry of Health and Human Services that would improve their previous authorization procedures, the bureaucratic process required to pay for certain tests, medicines or procedures. Insurers pledged to reduce the number of requirements subject to previous authorization, to standardize electronic applications for them and to provide 90% of real -time approvals by 2027.
This is not the first time the industry has committed to rationalize the previous authorization process. Insurers made a similar promise During the first Trump administration in 2018, with some of these promises reflecting the language in the current announcement.
When the centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz were asked at a press event why he believed that this effort could work when others failed, he replied that “there is violence on the roads over these issues”, he probably emphasized the murder of CEO’s United Briancare CEO. Technology is also better now, he said, and the administration plans to support efforts with the regulation.
“Either you fix it or we will fix it,” Oz told The Insurance Company Execs.
Bell Labs markets the historic IP portfolio, starting with health care
Nishant Batra, Nokia’s head and technology chief, has made the IP Bell Labs commercial priority.
Mining
For decadesBell Labs research was legendary – an innovation factory that created transistors, lasers and solar cells. But his researchers were always better in ideas than commercialization. Even today, many patents and research ideas remain hidden in New Jersey’s suburban offices.
Ever since Nokia participated in 2021, the chief strategic and technology officer Nisant Batra has been working to change it. Said Tower That when he started commercialization effort, he thought he could exceed two or three companies a year, but now he believes he could be able to do three to five. “The world wouldn’t exist without Bell workshops, but what does not do Bell Labs well is to create revenue,” Batra said Forbes.
Much of the change effort accompanied by a partnership with Deep Tech Investor Celesta, which has $ 1.1 billion in management assets and with which Nokia has realized in the past. The two are Bell Bell Labs portfolio for technology pieces that may have commercial applications – and the first spinout is in health care.
This first company, called Astranu, returned in May with a small amount of seed funding to apply Bell Labs imaging technology, known as a comprehensive visual cohesion tomography in the diagnosis of mid -ear conditions. He finally hopes to transform ear diagnostic care with advanced, non -invasive 3D high -resolution 3D reducing the need for exploratory surgery and precise magnetic resonance imaging
“We created this technology for visual use, for communications,” Batra said. But as Bell Labs and Celesta investors analyzed technology, they realized that what was built for communications could be applied to create an expensive mid -ear test. “Our Optical researchers said,” This is a good application, “and our friends at Celesta said,” We can take this to the market with you, “Batra said.
Most of this hidden IP will not be related to health care, but it is interesting that the first company to start with the Bell Labs portfolio is, which not only shows the range of its research applications, but also how many technological innovations can adapt to help patients.
“We call it” Bioconvergence “, said Celesta’s founding collaborator himself, noting how technology microscopy could be extremely useful for medical applications.” It is the intersection of advanced technologies associated with AI and the semiconductor.
Biotechnology and pharmacy
Drugmaker Novo Nordisk said on Monday that it was finished to sell the weight loss drug, Wegovy, through Provider Telehealth Hims & Hiss. The pharmaceutical company accused Hims and his own for the use of “Misleading marketing” to sell Knockoff versions of the drug in a statement. The price of Hims shares and her own collapsed shortly after the announcement, reducing market capitalization by almost a third in a recent $ 9.6 billion, abolishing the fate of co -founder and Managing Director Andrew Dudum, who is no longer a billionaire.
Plus: A study published in Newspaper of immunology identified a biomarker This helps to predict whether colon patients will respond to treatment using cytokine -caused killer cells.
Digital health and ai
Last week, the precision company Caris Life Sciences became public, thinking a new billionaire with founder David Dean Halbert. At the company’s recent $ 7.4 billion market ceiling, Halbert is worth at least $ 3.3 billion from Tower Calculations. It has almost 44% of the company. “I believe that if there was something wrong with the human body, there was something that had no molecular rosary and technological developments could find and diagnose and possibly deal with it,” Halbert said, he said, he said, ” Forbes. Read more here.
Plus: Starting of medical writing reached to Valuation of $ 5.3 billion Following the increase of $ 300 million in funding of businesses led by Andreessen Horowitz. The Pittsburgh -based company has increased as doctors and health systems have adopted environmental listening applications and the new valuation is almost twice as much as the $ 2.75 billion it deserves when it has last in February. Co -founder and CEO Shiv Rao said Tower That “not surprised” by the new valuation, because of how fast AI changes the way companies operate. Abridge extends from the use of the environmental hearing to improve the physician-patient relationship with the use of technology to help health systems by billing and coding. “Because we have raised funds and invested so strongly in R&D is that we are getting our models at the School of Revenue and the Risk Adaptation School,” he said.
Mold
Waterfall surgery is one of the most common medical procedures in the world, with more than 4 million of them being made each year only in the United States, but there are simply not enough doctors available to meet the demand for all those who need surgery. Enter the robotics. An Israeli start is betting that robots can eventually make it better and cheaper than human doctors. Fonsight Robotics said on Tuesday that it had raised $ 125 million led by Eclipse Ventures expanding its robotic platform, called Oryom, which says it is the first in the world for waterfalls and other ocular diseases. Funding represents one of the largest investments in a robotics surgical start and brings Forsight’s total investment to $ 195 million.
“Initially people were intimidated by the progress of robotics,” said Dr. Joseph Nathan, the co -founder, president and leading physician of Forsight. Forbes. “Now they see robotics as the things that will get them the best results.”
Read more here.
Public health and hospitals
The CDC’s ACIP Advisory Committee, which makes recommendations for vaccine practices, is scheduled to meet today and tomorrow to discuss the Covid-19, influenza and RSV vaccines. Senator Bill Cassidy, R-LA., A doctor chaired by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, called on the table to be delayedciting the lack of expertise between the new appointments of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the fact that it includes fewer members than they are typical.
Rfk Jr. The vaccine Advisory Committee was cleaned earlier this month. The erosion of the new members of the committee expressed skepticism about the vaccines, according to his own views. But one new poll Harvard’s research program found that these attitudes were off -step by the overwhelming majority of Americans. The survey found that 79% of Americans believe that parents should be required to vaccinate their children to attend school and that even among the Republicans, 66% possessed this view. Among the others who did not support compulsory vaccinations, 60% believed that vaccines are safe and effective – they prefer to leave the choice up to parents.
Plus: The American Cancer Company liberated The latest version of Atlas cancer today, which found that “it is estimated that 50% of all cancer deaths worldwide is attributed to modified risk factors” and urged public health officials to focus on prevention.
What do we read
People with severe diabetes were healed In a small test of a new infusion based on stem cells by Vertex pharmaceuticals.
GOP is Press Medicaid work requirements Although similar efforts in agriculture and Arkansas have fallen flat.
Changes in federal health services leave experts who are interested in that the US is in worse form to handle a new pandemic than before 2020.
Researchers say their studies misled from health and human services for unjustifiably support anti-inflammatory conclusions in a Note in Congress.
Arine, which has developed an AI platform for drug management, Increased funding of $ 30 million led by the Town Hall.
A new flu drug could be better than a vaccine. In a small phase 2 study, a drug developed by Cidara Therapeutics offered 76.1% protection Against the capture of influenza against a placebo, higher protection against many flu vaccines.
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