The parent company of digital health unicorn Everlywell Inc. is expanding its portfolio of women’s health products through the acquisition of Charleston, S.C.-based startup Natalist Inc. The purchase marks Everly Health’s third acquisition of the year following agreements to buy national clinician network PWN Health and home lab testing company Home Access Health Corp. Financial terms of all deals were not disclosed. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Everly Health will add Natalist’s suite of reproductive products to its existing tests for menopause, fertility hormones and sexual health. Read More
Prospects for Zerigo Health Inc. brightened with a series B fundraising round that brought in $43 million to support expansion of the company’s at-home ultraviolet B phototherapy system for chronic skin conditions. The connected system enables a physician to ensure the prescribed dose is delivered while freeing patients from the thrice-weekly office visits often required for treatment of psoriasis, vitiligo and eczema. Read More
The push for legislation that would lower prescription drug prices in the U.S. has mounted in recent months, but support for Medicare pricing negotiations has faltered in the past few weeks. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) is the latest Senate Democrat to signal his aversion to giving the government the authority to negotiate prices with drugmakers, breathing new life into hopes that the pharmaceutical industry will yet again escape a mechanism that critics say would suppress innovation at the expense of patients in desperate need of state-of-the-art therapies. Read More
Medical device maker PHC Holdings Corp. listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange recently, raising around ¥20 billion (US$175 million). The listing was touted as the biggest IPO in Japan since 2018 but crashed spectacularly. The Tokyo-based company listed on the bourse’s First Section, and saw its shares slide 18% to ¥2,651 per share in their debut on Oct. 14. They were up 1.28% to ¥2,685 at the close of trade on Oct. 21. The 460 million shares that were issued priced at the bottom of a ¥3,250 to ¥3,500 range. Read More
Enforcement against false claims filed with federal health care programs continues to snare a number of testing clinics as demonstrated by the recent news that a clinical lab has come to terms with federal prosecutors over urine drug testing. MD Spine Solutions LLC, of Reno, Nevada, has agreed to pay up to $16 million to settle allegations that it performed unnecessary urine drug tests, a case brought to the attention of the courts not by a former employee, but by Omni Healthcare Inc., which has been active in the False Claims Act space, thus highlighting the hazards of third-party litigation to clinical lab operators. Read More
PARIS – The French National Authority for Health (HAS) is expanding the available range of novel autologous technologies reimbursed in the context of breast reconstruction following ablative surgery. In doing so, the HAS is paving the way towards reimbursement for novel autologous techniques in general. Read More
New hires and promotions in the med-tech industry, including: Delfi Diagnostics, Iceni Diagnostics, Inheart, Lucid, MCRA, Medtronic, NDD Medical Technologies, Pathai, Pathmaker Neurosystems, Qynapse, Vitrolife. Read More
