Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Apple Stops Selling Some Smartwatches In Health Sensor Patent Fight
Stat: Apple Pauses Sales Of Latest Apple Watch After Import Ban
Apple is temporarily pulling certain Apple Watches from the U.S. market to comply with an import ban issued by the International Trade Commission in October. The ITC declared two months ago that Apple infringed on the patents of pulse oximeter company Masimo. President Biden has until Dec. 25 to approve or veto the import ban, but Apple has decided to preemptively comply with the order. (Lawrence, 12/18)
Bloomberg: Apple Watch Ban Prompts High-Stakes Engineering Changes
Engineers at the company are racing to make changes to algorithms on the device that measure a user’s blood oxygen level — a feature that Masimo Corp. has argued infringes its patents. They’re adjusting how the technology determines oxygen saturation and presents the data to customers, according to people familiar with the work. (Gurman, 12/18)
In related news about health data —
Stat: Health Care Providers Are Fighting Efforts To Limit Health Data Tracking
Wherever you go on the internet, trackers follow. These ubiquitous bits of code, invisibly embedded in most websites, are powerful tools that can reveal the pages you visit, the buttons you click, and the forms you fill to help advertisers tail and target you across the web. (Palmer, 12/19)
Other companies are embroiled in controversy —
Reuters: AbbVie Lawsuit Says Rival Adcentrx Stole Anti-Cancer Secrets
Pharmaceutical company AbbVie has sued startup Adcentrx Therapeutics in California federal court, accusing it of stealing trade secrets to develop competing cancer-fighting antibodies by hiring away an AbbVie scientist. (Brittain, 12/18)
Axios: Tennessee Company In Battle With European Regulators Over Weight-Loss Drug
Years before Ozempic became all the weight loss rage, two private equity firms bought a commercialized anti-obesity drug out of bankruptcy and formed a new company around it called Currax Pharmaceuticals. Tennessee-based Currax now is locked in an unusual fight with European regulators, and alleging a possible conflict of interest that's tied to Ozempic. (Primack, 12/18)
Stat: Prime Medicine, Myeloid Therapeutics Clash Over Genome-Editing Deal
The closely watched gene-editing startup Prime Medicine is embroiled in a multimillion-dollar dispute with another biotech it partnered with to develop a potentially powerful new form of genome editing. (Mast and DeAngelis, 12/18)
KFF Health News: Patients Facing Death Are Opting For A Lifesaving Heart Device — But At What Risk?
Too old and too sick for a heart transplant, Arvid Herrman was given a choice: Have a mechanical pump implanted in his heart, potentially keeping him alive for several years, or do nothing and almost certainly die within a year. The 68-year-old Wisconsin farmer chose the pump, called a HeartMate 3 — currently the only FDA-approved device of its kind in use. Instead of extending his life, though, the device led to his death, according to a lawsuit filed in December 2020 by his daughter Jamie Edwards. (Chang and Hacker, 12/19)
