Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, JPMorgan to name CEO of healthcare venture in two weeks; Geisinger's Feinberg out of the running
Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, said his company's joint healthcare venture with Amazon and JPMorgan Chase will have a CEO in two weeks.
Buffett said the venture had settled on a final candidate for its CEO and an announcement was forthcoming. Few details on the partnership have been released but the companies said their healthcare company will focus making services better and cheaper.
Sources told CNBC that the final choice was Geisinger Health System CEO David Feinberg, but Feinberg issued a statement saying he intends to remain at the Pennsylvania health system.
"I appreciate being part of the conversation, which I believe reflects the accomplishments of the entire Geisinger team," Feinberg said. (FierceHealthcare)
Big-name health systems team up to advance precision oncology
Some of the most influential health systems in the country are teaming up to accelerate the use of precision oncology by sharing best practices.
Syapse, a company that offers a precision oncology software platform, announced Thursday it convened a new Precision Medicine Council. It will meet for the first time in October.
Henry Ford Health System, Dignity Health, Catholic Health Initiatives, Providence St. Joseph Health, Aurora Health Care and the University of Miami Health System are among the council's founding members, according to the announcement.
"Joining the Syapse Precision Medicine Council will...allow us to engage strategically on best practices in scaling precision medicine programs in the future," Thomas Brown, M.D., executive director of Providence St. Joseph's Swedish Cancer Institute, said in the announcement. (Announcement)
Drug price hikes continue despite Trump administration's policy rollout
Though the number of drug price increases dipped in May, a number of pharmaceutical companies still increased the prices of the products in the weeks following the Trump administration's "American Patients First" policy unveiling.
For example, Bayer increased the price of two cancer drugs by $1,000, according to an analysis from Wells Fargo. It was the second price increase for those two drugs in six months.
Many of the increases, particularly those in the double digits, were for older, generic medications.
"We believe drug price remains a risk for the pharmaceutical industry," said David Maris, a research analyst at Wells Fargo and the report's author. (The Washington Post)