Amazon is trying to disrupt the pharmacy business, but the industry's incumbents aren't willing to simply assist Amazon in killing them off. Now a minor war has broken out over the ability to share information on patients across prescription providers. Joseph Walker reports for The Wall Street Journal: Amazon.com Inc. AMZN -1.25% ’s foray into the pharmacy business is causing the company to clash with entrenched industry incumbents that are putting roadblocks in front of the company’s growth plans. Last week, Surescripts LLC, a provider of the technology widely used to route electronic … [Read more...]
Is CVS Pioneering a Revolution in Dialysis?
It's not often a drug store/insurance company begins building its own medical devices. In fact, this may be a first. CVS is testing its own home dialysis machine. The machine could make the process of dialysis easier for the nearly 500,000 Americans on dialysis. Anna Wilde Mathews reports at The Wall Street Journal: CVS Health Corp. CVS -1.17% is making an ambitious move into kidney care, launching a clinical trial for a new home-dialysis device designed by the firm of Dean Kamen, the Segway inventor. The company is delving into unusual territory for a drugstore and health insurer. The … [Read more...]
Hospitals Take a Step Back from Amazon’s Healthcare Push
After initially accepting Amazon's push into healthcare supply enthusiastically, hospitals are now cooling on the e-commerce giant's efforts. Tatiana Darie reports for Bloomberg: Amazon.com Inc.’s push into distribution of health-care supplies and equipment has lost momentum, according to a survey by UBS Group AG. Hospital purchasing managers say they are buying fewer medical supplies from Amazon compared to last year, while increasing their purchases of office supplies from the online retailer, UBS analyst Kevin Caliendo wrote in a research note on Monday. One reason could be that … [Read more...]
Healthcare Could Cost You Your Retirement
Americans tend to work hard their entire lives, saving pennies and dimes wherever they can to build a retirement nest egg. When they finally do retire, Americans are generally frugal, with retired couples having just an 80% spending-to-income ratio on average, according to research just released from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). Where things go bad for retirees though, is usually when healthcare costs rise. According to Rebecca Moore at PLANSPONSOR: EBRI found housing expenses were by far the largest item in all groups’ budgets. For the average single retired household, … [Read more...]
Is the Socialist Bent of the 2020 Presidential Race a Threat to Markets?
As the 2020 presidential primary election season heats up, some of the nearly 20 Democratic contenders are suggesting proposals that are more than a bit socialist in nature. One of the leading contenders, Sen. Bernie Sanders, has proposed Medicare for all. The proposal would displace the massive private insurance industry, and his suggestion led to market volatility. The proposal rocked markets, and sent share prices of healthcare stocks dropping. Sanders isn't the only candidate offering up such economy-shifting proposals. In his rhetoric however, Sanders is going after individual … [Read more...]
Novartis Leads from the Front on Cancer Treatment
Novartis is working on pioneering advanced new cancer therapies, rather than looking for incremental improvements in existing drugs. Denise Roland explains Novartis' strategy at The Wall Street Journal, writing: Novartis AG’s NVS +0.43% recent acquisition streak is pivoting the company toward new treatments that bear little resemblance to traditional drugs. The Swiss company has spent nearly $15 billion in the past year to build its presence in cutting-edge areas of medical research, including gene therapy, or treatments that introduce new DNA into the body, and radiopharmaceuticals, which … [Read more...]
Why Does Healthcare in America Cost so Much?
In a piece for The Wall Street Journal, Joseph Walker attempts to understand why Americans pay so much for healthcare by examining a number of charts. The short version of his conclusion is that Americans aren't buying much more healthcare than other OECD consumers, but they are paying more for what they get. He writes: The U.S. spends more per capita on health care than any other developed nation. It will soon spend close to 20% of its GDP on health—significantly more than the percentage spent by major Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations. What is driving costs so … [Read more...]
Is My Bezos Law About to Hit Healthcare?
I've discussed my Bezos Law before. It's my theory that any industry Jeff Bezos enters will see lower prices. Now, Bezos' Amazon.com and consortium of investors including JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway is about to enter the employee health care market. What does this mean for the future of health care? David Marino-Nachison writes in Barron's Next: When Amazon.com takes concrete, public steps into huge industries—which it did Tuesday, announcing a joint venture to tackle employee health care with JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway—it should make investors blink. But what else … [Read more...]
Can Hospitals Lower Drug Prices by Making Their Own?
Four nonprofit hospital systems are applying to the FDA for approval to produce and market their own line of generic drugs. The hospitals are looking to produce generics for which there currently isn't much competition. Melanie Evans writes in The Wall Street Journal: The hospitals said they would prioritize production of generic drugs for which the market lacks competition, though they declined to specify which drugs they would produce first. “We have no designs on being a major pharmaceutical power,” Intermountain President and Chief Executive Marc Harrison said. “This is a very specific … [Read more...]