| | | |   | Good morning, Mario here with a new story from me about the future of a Medicare pandemic program that was a boon to some health tech companies. A few programming notes: STAT Health Tech will be taking next week off, but the newsletter will return on January 3rd. Also, I will be on leave for the first few months of the year, and my colleagues will be covering the Thursday editions. Mohana remains on Tuesdays as before. Happy new year! | | | Hospital at home may get a lifeline from Congress The new government spending package that’s likely to pass Congress includes a two-year extension of the Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver program. Launched in November 2020 by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the program allowed approved health systems to bill for hospital care delivered in people’s homes and was intended to increase capacity at hospitals overburdened with Covid-19 patients. But it had the side effect of creating a public experiment in home-based care for people who require hospitalization for conditions like pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and more.
Over 250 health systems in 37 states have been granted waivers and thousands of patients have been treated under the program.That’s significant momentum for a novel program, but advocates will need to use the waiver extension to shore up longer-term support. Read my story on what the extension means for the future of home care. | Inside a new startup tackling serious mental illness You’ve probably noticed the field of startups promising to solve mental health problems has gotten crowded, but Vanna Health is doing something a little different. Rather than go after conditions like anxiety and depression with more straightforward treatments, the new startup focusing on patients with complex conditions like schizophrenia. Vanna recently launched with $29 million in funding and it boasts former National Institute of Mental Health leader Thomas Insel as a founder. Insel’s no stranger to health tech or startups, but he seems particularly animated about Vanna’s mission.
“I've done a bunch of different things, but through it all, the outcomes have gotten worse and worse,” he told my STAT colleague Theresa Gaffney. Read her story on Vanna’s big bet here. | AliveCor v. Apple: ITC decision watch At some point today, the International Trade Commission is expected to determine what, if anything, to do about the ongoing patent dispute between Apple and medical device company AliveCor. Over the summer, an ITC judge determined that the Apple Watch infringed on two AliveCor patents. The full commission was set to decide this Fall whether to use its authority to ban imports of infringing products. Just before it was set to decide, however, a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office review panel invalidated the patents saying they were obvious in light of previous developments. That left the ITC in a funny spot. Experts have told us they expect the commission to confirm the ruling over the summer but to suspend any remedy, including a possible import ban, until after the patent board’s decision has been appealed and settled. Got all that? Assuming the ITC sticks to its timing, I’ll publish a story on the decision later today. | Find patterns in clinical trials data for clear decision-making that will get you ahead. STAT Trials Pulse combines machine learning and STAT’s award-winning newsroom to help you reduce information overload and identify the signals that matter in the clinical trials landscape. Build watch lists to monitor the companies and therapeutic areas you care about, receive personalized email briefings about your followed trials, and decode patterns you wouldn’t otherwise see. Learn more here. | Pre-holiday industry bits -
Carallel, which seeks to empower caregivers with guidance and digital tools, raised $8.2 million led by FCA Venture Partners. It will use the funding to expand its footprint with commercial and Medicare Advantage health plans. -
Nectar, a startup that delivers allergy care, raised a $16.5 million Series A round led by Harmony Partners. - Pharma company Boehringer Ingelheim and digital therapeutics developer Click Therapeutics are expanding their collaboration on software to help treat schizophrenia. The follow-up partnership builds on an original program, announced in 2020, which “has achieved all development milestones to-date and generated supportive data across clinical learning studies in advance of an upcoming pivotal registration study,” the companies wrote in a release.
| What we're reading -
The IPO market disappeared in 2022. Will it return in 2023?, Modern Healthcare -
Every kick, a reminder: in post-Roe California, a painful wait before ending a wanted pregnancy, STAT -
Police seize on Covid-19 tech to expand global surveillance, Associated Press - Philips says tests on recalled products show limited health risks, Reuters
| | | Thanks for reading! See you next year!  | |
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