Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Roche's Entry Into Weight Loss Game Could Be A Difference-Maker
Bloomberg: Roche Obesity Shot Led To 18% Weight Loss In Study
Roche Holding AG said patients on its experimental shot lost 18% more weight than those who got placebo in a study that will help set the stage for the Swiss drugmaker to compete in the lucrative obesity market. Almost half of the volunteers treated with the highest dose shed 20% or more of their body weight by week 48 of the mid-stage trial, Roche said Tuesday. (Kresge, 1/27)
MedPage Today: Menopause Hormone Therapy May Boost GLP-1 Drug Benefits
Postmenopausal women on the GLP-1 medication tirzepatide (Zepbound) for obesity lost more weight if they were also using menopause hormone therapy, a retrospective cohort study indicated. Among 120 women with overweight or obesity on tirzepatide, hormone therapy users lost 19.2% of their body weight, while those not using hormone therapy treatment lost 14% (P=0.0023), reported Maria Daniela Hurtado Andrade, MD, PhD, of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, and colleagues. (Monaco, 1/26)
The Wall Street Journal: Merck No Longer In Talks To Buy Revolution Medicines
Merck MRK is no longer in discussions to buy biotech Revolution Medicines, according to people familiar with the matter. Merck had recently been in talks to acquire RevMed in a deal that could have valued the cancer-drug biotech at around $30 billion. The talks cooled after the two couldn’t come to an agreement on price, some of the people said. It is always possible talks could restart or another suitor for RevMed could emerge. (Thomas and Rockoff, 1/25)
On artificial intelligence —
Reuters: Drugmakers Turn To AI To Speed Trials, Regulatory Submissions
Artificial intelligence has yet to deliver on the most challenging aspect of drug development -- finding new molecules that lead to major medical advances -- but it is already streamlining less glamorous parts of the process, industry executives say. AI is helping find participants and sites for clinical trials and drafting documents for regulators, shaving weeks off these labor-intensive processes, seven large drugmakers and six smaller biotech companies said at the recent JP Morgan Healthcare Conference. (Fick and Erman, 1/26)
Bloomberg: AI-For-Prescriptions Startup Tandem Lands $1 Billion Valuation
Health care technology startup Tandem Technology Inc., which aims to smooth the process of writing and receiving medical prescriptions using artificial intelligence, has reached a valuation of $1 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The company is raising $100 million in the deal, which is being led by venture capital firm Accel, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. (Torrence, 1/26)
Undark: What The Rise Of AI Scientists May Mean For Human Research
Ahead of an artificial intelligence conference held last April, peer reviewers considered papers written by “Carl” alongside other submissions. What the reviewers did not know was that, unlike other authors, Carl wasn’t a scientific researcher, but rather an AI system built by the tech company Autoscience Institute, which says that the model can accelerate artificial intelligence research. And at least according to the humans involved in the review process, the papers were good enough for the conference: In the double-blind peer review process, three of the four papers, which were authored by Carl (with varying levels of human input) were accepted. (López Lloreda, 1/26)
KFF Health News: Doctors Increasingly See AI Scribes In A Positive Light. But Hiccups Persist
When Jeannine Urban went in for a checkup in November, she had her doctor’s full attention. Instead of typing on her computer keyboard during the exam, Urban’s primary care physician at the Penn Internal Medicine practice in Media, Pennsylvania, had an ambient artificial intelligence scribe take notes. At the end of the 30-minute visit, Urban’s doctor showed her the AI summary of the appointment, neatly organized into sections for her medical history, the physical exam findings, and an assessment and treatment plan for her rheumatoid arthritis and hot flashes, among other details. (Andrews, 1/27)
The New York Times: How Bad Are A.I. Delusions? We Asked People Treating Them
Julia Sheffield, a psychologist who specializes in treating people with delusions, is difficult to rattle. But she was unnerved last summer when patients began telling her about their conversations with A.I. chatbots. ... By the end of the year, Dr. Sheffield had seen seven such patients at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. Although she is accustomed to treating people with mental instability, Dr. Sheffield was disturbed that this new technology seemed to tip people from simply having eccentric thoughts into full-on delusions. (Valentino-DeVries and Hill, 1/26)
