GoodRx fined for data leak, little investment for addiction drugs, & controversial blood-clot devices still in use

Imagine having a tiny, spider-like device that snares blood clots before they can do any harm. 

February 2, 2023 Check out STAT+

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By Elizabeth Cooney Reporter, Morning Rounds Writer

Good morning. The FTC's fine against GoodRx for leaking health data hits a nerve with anyone suspicious about why certain ads pop up for them. But the size of the fine is drawing fire.

health  In a first, FTC fines GoodRx for data leaks. But not enough, a commissioner says In a historic move, the FTC said yesterday it will fine GoodRx $1.5 million for sharing its users' private health information with data brokers and advertising platforms such as Facebook and Google. The FTC's complaint alleges GoodRx explicitly told consumers that it would never share personal health information with third parties or advertisers, but used data it shared to target medication ads to users on Facebook and Instagram, among other privacy violations.  Christine Wilson, one of FTC's commissioners, called out the fine in a statement lambasting the company's "sieve-like data practices, an indicator that the company's ill-gotten gains almost certainly constitute a large multiple of the $1.5 million civil penalty." Wilson pointed to the FTC's 2019 settlement with Facebook for $5 billion over the company's privacy violations, a deal that excluded CEO Mark Zuckerberg from personal liability. STAT's Brittany Trang has more. addiction Addiction treatments attract little venture capital Here's a striking comparison: About as many Americans live with addiction as with cancer, but investment in the form of venture capital falls far short of even. A new report from the biotech industry trade group BIO says about 270 times more money is devoted to developing cancer drugs than addiction cures. For opioids, there just aren't many potential new drugs to invest in, David Thomas, BIO vice president of industry research, told STAT's Lev Facher. That speaks to the lack of understanding of the biology behind addiction, Thomas said. There are only three FDA-approved medications for opioid use disorder, few for alcohol addiction, and none to treat addictions to cocaine or methamphetamine. The pipeline does not look promising: Only 7% of Phase 2 clinical trials for opioid addiction treatments over the last decade were successful, the report said. Read more on the problem. Business 'A lot of water under the bridge': Medicare Advantage insurers score $2 billion gift We've been telling you all week about the wrangling between Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans over audits comparing diagnostic codes submitted by insurers for payment and actual diagnostic codes in a patient's medical record. Now it's time to do the math. The final regulation published Monday gives a free pass to Medicare Advantage plans for any erroneous codes they submitted between 2011 and 2017. That means insurers get to keep $2 billion in taxpayer money, STAT's Bob Herman and Tara Bannow report. Medicare likely recognized insurers would take them to court no matter what the final rule dictated, said David Lipschutz, an attorney and associate director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy, a nonprofit advocacy group. "The insurance industry wants to say, 'Water under the bridge.' But that's a lot of water under the bridge to let go," he said. Read more. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is floating a major 2024 pay cut for Medicare Advantage plans.

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Closer Look Controversial devices to catch blood clots are still used despite risks Adobe Imagine having a tiny, spider-like device (above) that snares blood clots before they can do any harm. They're intended to help people who can't take blood thinners because they're at high risk for internal bleeding. Called inferior vena cava filters, they've come a long way from their first iterations in the 1960s, when they stayed in for life. Now questions are being raised about how well they work and how safe they are. Reports in an FDA database of adverse events related to the filters rose from 1,020 in 2016 to 2,842 in 2020. Many devices are supposed to be removed once either the risk of clots or the danger of blood thinners has ended. But filters stay in patients longer than necessary, STAT's new medical device reporter Lizzy Lawrence writes. Read more on the history of the devices, their removal, and their future.  health tech Verily's role in a drug study may predict its future When is a small Phase 2 trial potentially more telling for its sponsors' strategy than its future results? When it's a collaboration between an Alphabet spinout and a drugmaker. That's the case for Verily, the health tech offshoot of Google's parent company that shed employees and announced a new direction last month. Now Verily has embarked with Otsuka Pharmaceuticals on a study testing an extended release form of centanafadine, a new type of antidepressant. Here's what different: The goal will be to recruit patients more remotely and gather more data in ways that don't require patients to come into a doctor's office unnecessarily. That business — providing digital services to drug companies conducting clinical trials — is becoming more important to Verily as it moves away from remote patient monitoring for heart failure, microneedles for drug delivery, and its health system analytics tool. STAT's Matthew Herper and Casey Ross explain. politics New York hospitals have friends in Congress They love New York, as the old slogan goes. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and new House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) could be the New York hospital lobby's dream team, STAT's Rachel Cohrs tells us. Schumer goes way back with the Greater New York Hospital Association and its CEO Kenneth Raske, often pushing for more funding for teaching slots at hospitals. Jeffries doesn't have that kind of history, but GNYHA has strong ties to hospitals in his Brooklyn district. These relationships take on added importance as hospitals fear their payments from federal health programs might get slashed along with other spending cuts. Rachel notes that GNYHA's campaign-giving strategy during the midterm elections involved contributions to both New York lawmakers and vulnerable Democrats in both the House and the Senate. That's unusual. Read more, including who got how much.  by the numbers

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Thanks for reading! More tomorrow,

@cooney_liz

elizabeth.cooney@statnews.com

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