Cerner To Pay New CEO $35 Million; Pfizer’s Trillium Purchase Explained
Dr. David Feinberg will earn roughly $34.5 million through 2022, after his move from Google Health — which is also in the news, after Google began dismantling the organization. Separately, Stat reports on what Pfizer's $2.3 billion purchase of cancer drug maker Trillium will mean.
Modern Healthcare:
Cerner To Pay New CEO Feinberg Nearly $35M Through 2022
Cerner's compensation package for new CEO Dr. David Feinberg will total roughly $34.5 million through 2022, according to a federal filing. Feinberg—who currently serves as vice president of Google Health, a division that Google plans to disband after he leaves—will join Cerner in October. Under an executive employment agreement approved by the Cerner board of directors, Feinberg's initial annual base salary will be $900,000, according to an 8-K form that Cerner filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week. He'll receive a one-time cash bonus of $375,000 to replace annual incentives he had accrued with Google. (Kim Cohen, 8/23)
Stat:
Will Breaking Apart Google's Health Bets Give Them A Better Shot?
Google is once again overhauling its ambitious health efforts. But this time around, some experts see its shakeup as less of a stumbling block than a potential path to progress. Less than three years after relaunching its ambitious health care division, Google Health, the tech giant is dismantling the organization and spreading its health efforts across the company. The reorganization follows the news that Google Health vice president David Feinberg is departing for health record company Cerner and kicks off another wave of speculation about whether tech giants can truly transform health care. (Brodwin, 8/24)
Stat:
Four Takeaways On Pfizer’s $2.3 Billion Purchase Of Trillium
Pfizer said Monday that it is buying Trillium, a Toronto developer of cancer drugs with which it already has a development partnership, for $2.3 billion. The purchase represents nothing but a win for Trillium shareholders, capping off a two-year period in which Trillium traded below 30 cents and as high as $20.96. The deal price — Pfizer is paying $18.50 per share — is triple the stock’s recent closing price and almost at that all-time high. (Herper, 8/23)
Bloomberg:
Cilo Cybin Plans Cannabis IPO, Then Expansion Into Magic Mushrooms
Cilo Cybin Pharmaceutical Ltd. is considering an initial public offering in the next 12 months after becoming the first South African company to win the right to grow, process and package cannabis products. The firm, named after the psychoactive substance in magic mushrooms, received the required certification from the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority. It will now be able to produce marijuana for sale to consumers around the world, founder and Chief Executive Officer Gabriel Theron said in an interview. (Prinsloo and Sguazzin, 8/24)
On nonprofits —
KHN:
Mission And Money Clash In Nonprofit Hospitals’ Venture Capital Ambitions
Cone Health, a small not-for-profit health care network in North Carolina, spent several years developing a smartphone-based system called Wellsmith to help people manage their diabetes. But after investing $12 million, the network disclosed last year it was shutting down the company even though initial results were promising, with users losing weight and recording lower blood sugar levels. The reason did not have to do with the program’s potential benefit to Cone’s patients, but rather the harm to its bottom line. Although Cone executives had banked on selling or licensing Wellsmith, Cone concluded that too many competing products had crowded the digital health marketplace to make a dent. (Rau, 8/24)
KHN:
‘An Arm And A Leg’: Meet The Mississippi Lawyer Who Helped Start The Fight For Charity Care
Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, famous for taking on Big Tobacco in the ’90s and winning, worked on a series of ill-fated national lawsuits against nonprofit hospitals. The goal? Get nonprofit — or “charity” — hospitals to actually provide charity care instead of price-gouging and dunning low-income patients. Scruggs didn’t exactly score a total victory — some hospitals kept behaving shamefully. And he lost big, eventually. But he did help start important changes. (Weissmann, 8/24)
In news on the Theranos trial —
Stat:
Elizabeth Holmes Will Be On Trial. But The Evidence Will Expose A Bigger Collision Between Tech Culture And Health Care
When the long-awaited trial of former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Homes opens at the end of this month, expect a showdown between defense attorneys and federal prosecutors who have accused her of perpetrating one of the biggest corporate frauds in recent U.S. history. But perhaps even more striking will be the collision it spotlights between the “move fast and break things” culture of Silicon Valley and the more cautious cadence of health care, where the first rule is to do no harm. (Ross, 8/24)
In obituaries —
The Baltimore Sun:
Hannah H. Jones, Retired Johns Hopkins Health System Executive Secretary, Dies
Hannah H. Jones, a retired Johns Hopkins Health System executive secretary who was also a cat fancier, history buff, avid reader and gardener, died of complications of kidney disease Aug. 3 at her Anneslie home. She was 74. The former Hannah Layne Hyatt, daughter of Vance Layne Hyatt, a TV repair shop manager, and his wife, Elizabeth Souder Moyer, a registered nurse, was born in Baltimore and raised on Kimble Road in Ednor Gardens. (Rasmussen, 8/24)
