Kidney Care Company Vantive To Invest $1 Billion In New Technology

Modern Healthcare: Vantive, Baxter's Former Kidney Care Unit, To Invest $1B In Tech
Vantive, Baxter International’s former kidney care segment, announced Monday it plans to invest more than $1 billion in new technology over the next five years. The investment will go toward growing its research and development and manufacturing operations. The company is working on digital dialysis and critical care products and services. (Dubinsky, 6/2)

Modern Healthcare: Advocate Health Opens Innovation District The Pearl
Advocate Health CEO Gene Woods said the system's new innovation district in Charlotte, North Carolina, has the tools to transform the healthcare industry through training and research. The district, called The Pearl, includes a second campus for the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, the North American headquarters of surgical training institute IRCAD and lab space for medical devices, biomedical engineering and life sciences. The first phase, which opened Monday, involves more than $1 billion in private investment and spans about 700,000 square feet. (Hudson, 6/2)

Modern Healthcare: Centene Faces Ghost-Network Lawsuit
Centene is the latest insurance company to be hit with a lawsuit accusing it of allegedly misrepresenting the scope of its provider network. The wrongful death suit, filed May 23 in the Superior Court of Maricopa County in Arizona, alleges Centene lists providers in its directories — or those of its subsidiaries — who are not in network, available to members or accepting new patients. It also argues the directories allegedly include providers who are deceased or retired, or who don't actually offer the services listed, according to a court filing. (DeSilva, 6/2)

KFF Health News: Ballad Health’s Hospital Monopoly Underperformed. Then Tennessee Lowered The Bar
Despite years of patient complaints and quality-of-care concerns, Ballad Health — the nation’s largest state-sanctioned hospital monopoly — will now be held to a lower standard by the Tennessee government, and state data that holds the monopoly accountable will be kept from the public for two years. Ballad is the only option for hospital care for most of the approximately 1.1 million people in a 29-county swath of Appalachia. (Kelman, 6/3)

Pharma updates —

Becker's Hospital Review: 1 Rural Health System's Strategy For Saving Patients $10.8M In Drug Costs
Avita Health System, which operates two critical access hospitals and one small acute care hospital in rural Ohio, has helped patients access $10.8 million worth of medications through a program launched in 2022, according to a May 29 article on the the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists’ website. Galion, Ohio-based Avita’s program launched in 2022 after staff noticed patients struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for older adults who had been relying on free medication samples. Today, the program is being run out of three clinics and includes pharmacists and a pharmacy technician to help patients navigate complex assistance programs. (Murphy, 6/2)

Bloomberg: Sanofi To Buy Blueprint For $9.1 Billion Equity Value
Sanofi agreed to buy Blueprint Medicines Corp. for at least $9.1 billion as the French drugmaker expands further in rare immunological diseases. Sanofi will pay $129 per share in cash for the US biotech, it said in a statement. That represents a 27% premium to Blueprint’s closing price on Friday. (Sedgman, Tong, and Furlong, 6/2)

Fierce Healthcare: Scripta Insights, RxSaveCard Team Up On Prescription Discounts
Digital health company Scripta Insights is joining forces with RxSaveCard with the goal of making it easier for employers to manage drug costs and meet their fiduciary duties. RxSaveCard offers a proprietary cost management and payment solution for pharmacy benefits, and those tools will be integrated into Scripta's AI-powered Rx Navigation platform. For members, the integration is designed so they can better find savings for a variety of drugs, including high-cost specialty products. (Minemyer, 6/2)

Bloomberg: Thiel-Backed Psychedelic Drugmaker Atai To Buy Rival Beckley
Atai Life Sciences NV agreed to buy full control of smaller UK rival Beckley Psytech Ltd. and raised $30 million in fresh equity, as it seeks to cement its position as one of the leading makers of psychedelic drugs for mental-health conditions. The German company, which acquired about a 36% stake in Beckley last year, will purchase the remaining shares in an all-stock deal, it said in a statement Monday. The transaction values Oxford-based Beckley at about $390 million, it said. (Henning, 6/2)

Plus —

Axios: PBMs Fight Back Against State Restrictions
Drug price middlemen are going to court to fight a first-in-the-nation effort to police their ownership of retail pharmacies as more state legislatures and Congress crank up scrutiny of their influence on the cost of medicines. Why it matters: Large pharmacy benefit managers like CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and Optum Rx are increasingly being blamed for higher drug prices and the outsize role they play in the pharmaceutical supply chain. (Goldman, 6/3)

NBC News: Family Sues Pharmacy, Drug 'Middleman' After Price Hike Leads To Son’s Fatal Asthma Attack
When 22-year-old Cole Schmidtknecht tried to get a refill on the inhaler prescribed by his doctor to prevent asthma attacks. The medication that had formerly cost him less than $70 at his Appleton, Wisconsin pharmacy was now priced at more than $500, according to Cole’s father, Bil Schmidtknecht. ... Five days after his pharmacy visit last year, Cole had a severe asthma attack, stopped breathing and collapsed. He never regained consciousness and died. Doctors attributed his death to asthma. (Kane, Thompson and Carroll, 6/2)

KFF Health News: Watch: In A ‘Dead Zone,’ Doctors Don’t Practice And Telehealth Doesn’t Reach
There’s a fight in the nation’s capital that could affect health care for millions of Americans. At stake is a $42 billion infrastructure program and whether it should continue as planned. The money is for states to build high-speed internet — particularly in rural areas where telehealth currently doesn’t always work. Chief rural health correspondent Sarah Jane Tribble explains how millions of rural Americans live in counties with doctor shortages and where high-speed internet connections aren’t adequate to access advanced telehealth services. (Tribble, 6/3)