Jan 9, 2023

Bloomberg IN THE WAKE OF COSTLY HILLROM DEAL, BAXTER MAKES CHANGES: Following a botched acquisition and a tanking stock price, Baxter International announced a series of plans to restructure the company and disclosed one of its top executives has resigned. The Deerfield-based medical products manufacturer said today it plans to spin off its kidney care business into an independent and publicly traded company in the next 12 to 18 months, a move it said will help the company focus on growth. Baxter said separating the renal care segment, its largest division, will allow it to expand the unit's margins in the near term and beyond. In 2021, Baxter's renal care business, which serves 1 million patients across more than 70 countries, reported more than $5 billion in global sales. Leadership for the spinoff has yet to be determined, it said. In addition to spinning off the kidney care segment, Baxter said it will also pursue "strategic alternatives" for its BioPharma Solutions business, which could include a sale or separation. Baxter also disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission that Chief Operating Officer Giuseppe Accogli resigned on Jan. 4. He had been with the company for 15 years. The restructuring comes after a troublesome year for the company. Following the $10.5 billion purchase of Hillrom in 2021, Baxter disclosed last fall  that it was forced to take a $3.1 billion impairment charge related to the acquisition, showing that it overpaid significantly for the Chicago-based maker of hospital equipment and raising questions about the combined company's future. READ MORE. OAK STREET NAMES A PHYSICIAN FOR ITS PHYSICIANS: Oak Street Health's Dr. Deb Edberg has a new mission: preserving the health and well-being of the company's 5,900 employees, particularly its 500 primary care providers. Last week, Edberg was named Oak Street's first chief wellness officer, an internal role meant to fight the kind of burnout that is plaguing health care providers. "National physician burnout has been widely documented and the resulting stress and anxiety from the pandemic has exacerbated it," Edberg said in an email statement to Health Pulse. "This role was created to build on the work Oak Street was already doing to be sure our providers feel seen and heard and find great joy in their work, and ultimately reinforces our commitment to wellness and being a great place to work." Chicago-based Oak Street Health cares for adults of Medicare age, focusing on underserved and lower-income communities. Providing care to those populations carries its own kinds of stressors for providers, she said in the email. "Our patients are incredibly complex not only because of their challenging medical issues, but because of the interplay of the societal burdens that have been placed on them through poverty, discrimination, violence and multiple other social determinants of health that impact their well-being beyond the clinical space," Edberg said. "We know that physicians and other health care workers who choose to work with this community are at higher risk of burnout due, in part, to the ongoing moral injury of bearing witness to this type of struggle. That’s why it’s so critical to proactively create a positive environment for our providers." "At Oak Street, we know how important it is to take care of our frontline providers in order for them to deliver the best care possible to our patients," she said in the email. "It has always been an important focus at Oak Street and we are honored to be a recipient of the 2022 and 2021 Joy in medicine health system recognition program by the American Medical Association." Edberg joined Oak Street Health in 2019 and has been delivering primary care at the Madison Street center in Garfield Park ever since. In addition to patient care, she has been involved in organization-wide programming, having helped develop and launch Rush University System for Health's family medicine residency and Northwestern Medicine/Erie Family Health's family medicine residency programs. CEO OUTLINES VILLAGEMD'S PRIORITIES: As the $8.9 billion deal in which Walgreens Boots Alliance subsidiary VillageMD acquired Summit Health-CityMD closed last week, VillageMD CEO Tim Barry spoke with Crain's sister publication Modern Healthcare about his priorities for the coming months. The deal creates a combined company with roughly 20,000 employees in more than 680 locations across 26 markets that provides primary, specialty and urgent care. Barry said that the "ultimate goal" is to become a multispecialty provider. While the company has historically focused on primary care, it is developing strategies for what specialties to bring to individual markets. Another priority is continuing to pursue risk-based payment models and wants to build that up at Summit Health, which has already signed capitation contracts with several Medicare Advantage insurers, Barry said. With growth the company will also announce a new leadership team, Barry said. Other priorities Barry discussed were getting providers better access to performance data and developing a united corporate culture. ADHD DRUG SHORTAGE EXPANDS TO RITALIN: Shortages of ADHD medications that started this summer with Adderall have widened to now include another major category of stimulants, methylphenidate drugs. For the past two months, patients have had a hard time finding drugs in the class that includes Novartis AG’s Ritalin and Johnson & Johnson’s Concerta. A drug manufacturer and a major pharmacy told Bloomberg News there are issues with the supply of the drugs, though it’s unclear what’s causing the shortage. There has been a shortage of ADHD stimulant medications, taken by millions in the U.S. each month,  since August , starting with amphetamine-based drugs like Adderall. Now methylphenidate drugs are in short supply, according to the University of Utah’s Drug Information Service, which tracks shortages. “We continue to see some intermittent supply issues” with methylphenidate medications, said Fraser Engerman, a Walgreens Boots Alliance spokesperson. READ MORE. FDA APPROVES LEQEMBI FOR ALZHEIMER'S: U.S. Food and Drug Administration Friday announced that it has approved Leqembi (lecanemab-irmb) the  Accelerated Approval pathway  for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Leqembi is the second of a new category of medications approved for Alzheimer’s disease that target the fundamental pathophysiology of the disease, the FDA statement said. The approval of first of these medications, Biogen's controversial and expensive treatment aduhelm, was the target of an 18-month congressional investigation that concluded FDA's process was rife with irregularities. Nevertheless, FDA said in its statement that the medications represent an important advancement in the ongoing fight to effectively treat Alzheimer’s disease. “Alzheimer’s disease immeasurably incapacitates the lives of those who suffer from it and has devastating effects on their loved ones,” Dr. Billy Dunn, director of the Office of Neuroscience in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research said in the statement. “This treatment option is the latest therapy to target and affect the underlying disease process of Alzheimer’s, instead of only treating the symptoms of the disease.” Eisai Co.'s leqembi was approved using the  Accelerated Approval pathway , under which the FDA may approve drugs for serious conditions where there is an unmet medical need and a drug is shown to have an effect on a surrogate endpoint that is reasonably likely to predict a clinical benefit to patients. HEALTH CARE DOLLARS IN LOCAL CONGRESSIONAL EARMARKS: Scores of Chicago-area projects, causes and groups will be recipients of a portion of the much more than $300 million for member-designated projects packed into the big omnibus spending bill approved at the end of 2022, Crain's Greg Hinz wrote last week. Among the health care funding were $2 million to the University of Illinois Chicago's School of Public Health for a "community-driven air monitoring program" to develop data on how some neighborhoods are much more affected by poor air quality than others and $1.25 million to the University of Chicago Medical Center for street outreach and violence recovery services and $1 million for Chicago to replace lead pipes in licensed day care centers. Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Matteson, says she got $2 million for facilities and equipment at South Shore Hospital. Rep. Sean Casten, D-Downers Grove, says he got $1 million for the DuPage heath department's new central receiving center or those undergoing a mental-health crisis. Rep. Jesus "Chuy" Garcia says he got $3 million for a new community health center in LeClaire Courts that will be operated by Alivio Medical Center. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Schaumburg, allotted much of his $13.6 million for health needs. Among them are $3 million for a community mental health center in Elgin and $1 million for Cook County Health to improve urgent-care access in Arlington Heights. Also, the Gordon Public Library District will get $2.4 million for an expansion of its South Elgin branch, and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Dundee Township $2 million for a new community center in Carpentersville. CHICAGO YMCA MAKES MENTAL HEALTH APP AVAILABLE: The YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago said in a statement that it is providing a month's free premium membership to the mental health app Alkeme, which is designed to boost mental health resources for Black people. Alkeme was founded by former NFL player Ryan Mundy in 2020 in response to a lack of available mental-health resources for Black individuals and families, the statement said. There is a free version of Alkeme, and paid upgrade, Alkeme Gold. The Alkeme app features a culturally centric library of 250+ pieces of audio and video content created by clinical and mindfulness experts. "Partnering with the Y is exciting for us, because our organizations share the same dedication to strengthening community," Mundy said in the statement. "Every partnership where we can amplify what Alkeme is setting out to provide for the Black community is important, and especially the partnerships at a local level." "Mental health conditions have increased due to several factors that impact our daily lives," Cherese Ledet, chief community development and equity officer, YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago said in the statement. "We must acknowledge positive wellness resources like Alkeme, which provides a digital platform that is open and available to all ages, removes the negative stigma, and assists in overcoming the barriers related to mental health and well-being. "  STARTUP KEYCARE RAISES ANOTHER TOTAL OF $27M: Chicago-based virtual-first platform KeyCare said last week that its Series A funding round has totaled over $27 million, following new investments from Ziegler and two additional health systems. Crain's reported in August  that the round had taken in about $24 million. The new investors join 8VC, LRVHealth, Bold Capital, and Spectrum Health Ventures in supporting KeyCare's vision of providing patients access to 24/7 urgent care virtualist providers in 50 states on an Epic-based platform, the company said in a statement. ABBVIE, IMMUNOME COLLABORATE ON ONCOLOGY TARGETS: North Chicago-based AbbVie and Exton, Pa.-based biopharmaceutical company Immunome said in a statement that they've signed a worldwide collaboration and option agreement directed to the discovery of up to 10 novel antibody-target pairs. The companies will work on treatment approaches for specific types of cancerous solid tumors. Under the terms of the agreement, Immunome will grant AbbVie the option to purchase worldwide rights for up to 10 novel target-antibody pairs arising from the selected tumors, the statement said. Immunome will receive an upfront payment of $30 million and will be eligible to receive additional platform access payments in the aggregate amount of up to $70 million based on AbbVie's election for Immunome to continue research using its Discovery Engine. Immunome is also eligible to receive development and first commercial sale milestones of up to $120 million per target with respect to certain products derived from target-antibody pairs that AbbVie elects to purchase, with potential for further sales-based milestones as well as tiered royalties on global sales, the statement said. OMRON HEALTHCARE TOUTS NEW U.K. CARDIAC MONITORING AND AFIB BUSINESS AT CES: Hoffman Estates-based Omron Healthcare unveiled its new U.K. remote patient monitoring service at the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show, the company said in a statement. In addition, it talked about its plans to help stem "the growing Atrial Fibrillation (AFib) epidemic" at CES. Omron is touting a "Going for Zero" mission to eliminate heart attack and stroke, it said. "For 50 years, OMRON Healthcare has worked to create and provide a blood pressure monitor to anyone who wants one. In the last six years, OMRON has transformed the global heart health market with breakthrough innovations such as HeartGuide, the first wearable blood pressure monitor; and VitalSight, our first remote patient monitoring service," OMRON Healthcare President and CEO Ranndy Kellogg said in the statement. Viso is Omron's remote patient monitoring service that's recently been approved by the United Kingdom's National Health Service. Physicians may communicate medication decisions and other treatment actions in real time, directly to the patients, through an app. The unveiling of Viso in the U.K. follows Omron's launch of its first remote patient monitoring service, VitalSight, in the U.S. two years ago. VitalSight is being used by health systems including Northwestern Medicine and New York's Mount Sinai, the statement said. Omron is also looking at ways to spot AFib and other irregular heartbeats, with Complete, the first blood pressure monitor with built-in EKG, and with the first wearable blood pressure monitor, HeartGuide, which the statement said has also identified potential AFib. LUNG, PEDIATRICS GROUPS TO HELP KIDS QUIT TOBACCO THROUGH INTERVENTION: The American Lung Association and American Academy of Pediatrics have launched the program Ask, Counsel, Treat to Address Youth Cessation to further health equity among adolescents and to help health care providers, community-based youth leaders and school officials identify teens who use tobacco and help them quit. "This is an urgent issue as we continue to see millions of teens vaping, and tobacco use is still the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the country," Harold Wimmer, national president and CEO of the Chicago-based American Lung Association said in the statement. "We must intervene now as we don't want to lose another generation to tobacco use." ACT for Youth Cessation is a one-hour online course based on the Itasca-based American Academy of Pediatrics' Youth Tobacco Cessation: Considerations for Clinicians that aims to teach health care professionals, school personnel and community members on how to conduct a brief intervention for teens who use tobacco. AA MEDICAL, CERTIFIED ENDOSCOPY PRODUCTS MERGE: Mokena-based AA Medical, which provides solutions to both new and resale medical device equipment markets, said in a statement it has completed a partnership with Certified Endoscopy Products, a Chicago-based medical device reprocessing company, to "form a preeminent medical device reprocessing company serving the endoscopy, orthopedic, and other surgical device markets." AA Medical worked with Chicago-based private-equity firm Shore Capital Partners to build a technology-driven medical equipment platform before entering the partnership with Certified Endoscopy, the statement said. "Certified and AA Medical have competed as peers for several years, and united together, we believe we possess the scale and market knowledge to drive transformational growth for our businesses," said AA Medical's founder Ron Plantz. PEOPLE ON THE MOVE • Dr. Chris DeRienzo has been named the American Hospital Association's senior vice president and chief physician executive. DeRienzo was most recently system chief medical officer and senior vice president of quality at WakeMed Health & Hospitals in Raleigh, N.C. He has also served as chief medical officer and advisory board member of Prealize, an artificial intelligence-enabled predictive analytics company that uses machine learning to drive improved care. • Terry Foster, of Kentucky, will serve as the 2023 president of the Schaumburg-based Emergency Nurses Association. The other board members include President-elect Chris Dellinger, of West Virginia; Secretary/Treasurer Ryan Oglesby, of Florida; immediate Past President Jennifer Schmitz, of Maine; Emerging Professional Liaison Nisreen Atta, of Wisconsin; and CEO Nancy MacRae, of Illinois. RECOMMENDED FOR YOU