2021 - Pharmacist Digest

STAT+: Bubble bursts: 2021 health tech IPOs and SPACs lose value, burn cash

STAT

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

Accelerated by the pandemic’s forced adoption of telehealth and other digital health solutions, 2021 saw more than 30 health technology startups go public, raising hundreds of millions and in some cases billions of dollars. Today, three members of the class of 2021 have gone bankrupt.

The Febrile Infant: Incorporating the 2021 American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines

ALiEM - Pharm Pearls

MARCH 29, 2023

In the most recent 2021 Clinical Practice Guideline, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) aims to provide guidance with 3 separate age-based algorithms for the evaluation and management of the well-appearing febrile infant [4]. 2021 Apr;231:94-101.e2. Unfortunately, delayed or missed diagnosis can be devastating [1-3]. 2020.10.033.

Hospitals

Hospitals Documentation Inpatient Immunity

Survey: Nearly 3 in 5 teen girls felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021

STAT

FEBRUARY 13, 2023

Teen girls reported record levels of violence, sadness, and thoughts of suicide in 2021, experiencing distress at twice the rate of teen boys, according to new federal data released Monday. The nearly 3 in 5 teen girls who felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021 was a 60% increase compared to a decade earlier. Read the rest…

STAT+: Truveta enlists health systems, drugmakers to launch ambitious new genomic database

STAT

JANUARY 13, 2025

DNA sequencer manufacturer Illumina has also invested $20 million in the project, which builds on a 2021 investment and partnership from Microsoft, which will provide the cloud infrastructure for the project. Pharmaceutical company Regeneron has invested $119.5 Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

Medical Records

Medical Records Pharmaceutical Companies Pharmaceutical Companies Drug Development

STAT+: Study shows how UnitedHealth uses coding to rake in extra cash from Medicare Advantage

STAT

APRIL 7, 2025

Medicare Advantage insurers pulled in an estimated $33 billion in additional payment from the government in 2021 as a result of these extra diagnoses, or codes, that made their members seem sicker, relative to people in the traditional Medicare program.

STAT+: To mitigate drug shortages, a new study suggests looking at Canada

STAT

OCTOBER 31, 2024

Between 2017 and 2021, regulators in the U.S. Of 104 reports of supply chain issues with dozens of drugs, meaningful shortages were 40% less likely to occur in Canada than in the U.S., a new study found, and the difference was largely attributed to the approach taken by the Canadian government to the problem.

WHO member countries agree on a draft ‘pandemic treaty’ to try to avoid Covid-19 mistakes

STAT

APRIL 16, 2025

After the world’s largely disastrous response to the coronavirus, countries tasked the WHO with overseeing a pandemic treaty in 2021; negotiations concluded early Wednesday on an agreement expected to be adopted next month at the U.N. health agency’s annual meeting in Geneva. Read the rest…

STAT+: Not-for-profit CommonSpirit Health paid its CEO $35 million in 2021

STAT

AUGUST 14, 2023

million in 2021, the latest year for which data is available. CommonSpirit Health, the massive not-for-profit health system formed through a 2019 merger, paid its former CEO $35.5 The size of Lloyd Dean’s pay package is likely to reignite questions about health system CEO pay, especially at tax-exempt organizations.

Hospitals

Hospitals Packaging

STAT+: 23andMe files for bankruptcy as CEO Anne Wojcicki resigns

STAT

MARCH 24, 2025

It closed Friday valued at a hair under $50 million, a calamitous fall from 2021, when it went public and soared to a nearly $6 billion market cap. The company will now try to sell itself through a court-supervised sale. In a statement released on Linkedin, Wojcicki made clear she plans to continue attempting to purchase 23andMe.

Beam is trading like it’s 2021

STAT

FEBRUARY 28, 2024

Want to stay on top of the science and politics driving biotech today? Sign up to get our biotech newsletter in your inbox. Good morning, everyone. Damian here with a look at a resurgence in psychiatric drug development, a big day for biotech stocks, and some innovation in the world of quarterly earnings. Read the rest…

Drug Development

Drug Development Drug Pricing

Opinion: Maybe the teen mental health crisis is actually a sleep crisis

STAT

JUNE 25, 2025

A 2021 report from Common Sense Media found that people between the ages of 13 and 18 spend almost nine hours a day looking at screens. I have treated thousands of youths struggling with mental illness over the past 25 years. Read the rest…

STAT+: Using AI to design small molecule drugs is tough. Here are five companies trying to crack the code

STAT

DECEMBER 3, 2024

Ian Quigley was employee #13 at AI drug company Recursion until 2021, when he quit and turned the basement of his Utah home into a lab to develop AI models for predicting which proteins small molecule drugs might target — a tool he and co-founder Andrew Blevins found was missing during their time at Recursion.

Drug Development

Routine vaccinations drop among U.S. kindergartners for the third year in a row

STAT

JANUARY 12, 2023

kindergartners who’ve received standard childhood vaccines took a small but notable dip into the 2021-2022 school year, health officials said Thursday, amid disruptions related to Covid-19 and fears that anti-vaccine sentiment stirred up by the pandemic could be spreading to other shots. The percentage of U.S. Read the rest…

Vaccines

STAT+: With $40 million, former DeepMind employees launch startup ‘laser-focused’ on AI protein design

STAT

FEBRUARY 12, 2025

In 2021, the company spun out Isomorphic Labs, an AI drug discovery company. The Alphabet-owned AI company took the biology world by storm in 2020 with AlphaFold2 , the protein structure prediction AI platform that “solved” a decades-old biology problem.

STAT+: Pharma’s reputation with patient groups dips again, mostly due to pricing issues

STAT

APRIL 28, 2025

In 2021, for instance, 59% of companies scored highly, compared with 41% in 2018. The back-to-back declines come after 60% of patient groups believed the industry fared well thanks to the initial response of many companies to quickly develop salves for the Covid-19 pandemic. Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

Drug Pricing

Drug Pricing Drug Development

The European Market Access Lag: 2021–2024

Pharmaceutical Technology

JUNE 9, 2025

Analysis includes innovative medicines with approved indications or indication extensions that were reimbursed since 2021. On average, 58% of branded drugs approved between 2021 and 2024 in Europe have either fully or restricted reimbursement. Patient profiles were counted distinctly.

Communication

Communication Hospitals Drug Pricing Packaging

STAT+: This Ohio health system tested an AI tool to predict sepsis. Here’s how it went

STAT

JULY 9, 2025

In 2021, Summa Health, a community health system with four emergency rooms in the region, was using an alert system built into its electronic health record to flag patients who were likely to develop sepsis, a rapidly developing, life-threatening condition.

Hospitals

STAT+: Latest updates to hospital price transparency rules aim to make the data more useful

STAT

JANUARY 2, 2025

The first phase was the original rollout in 2021, followed by an update in July 2024. ” It’s the final of three phases in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ hospital price transparency rollout. Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

Hospitals

Hospitals Drug Pricing

STAT+: After Canada required pharma to pay fees, drug agency recommended coverage more often

STAT

MARCH 3, 2025

Recommendations for cancer treatments were reviewed through December 2021. The analysis tallied a total of 258 approved drugs for which companies submitted applications between 2009 and 2020, and then examined funding recommendations that were subsequently made through December 2020 for most drugs.

Drug Pricing

Emergency medicine is grappling with a surprising problem: The prospect of too many physicians

STAT

OCTOBER 27, 2023

The American College of Emergency Physicians predicted in a 2021 study that there would be a surplus of nearly 8,000 emergency physicians by 2030. While much of the health care workforce is battling staff shortages, the emergency medicine field is trying to figure out how to manage a potential oversupply of physicians. Read the rest…

Hospitals

Opinion: Better safety studies could restore America’s confidence in vaccines

STAT

AUGUST 14, 2024

In February 2021, I received my second Covid-19 shot — the newly developed vaccine that would eventually save millions of lives worldwide — with great anticipation. It was as if an audible dog whistle began blaring right next to me.

Vaccines

STAT+: More HHS cuts, and DOJ seeks to recoup loans from Medicaid fraudster

STAT

MARCH 31, 2025

Jana Miller owned a company that provided home health and other services to people with developmental disabilities, but in early 2021, she was found to have engaged in fraudulent billing. Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

Drug Development

Drug Development Hospitals

Hospitals pledge to protect patient privacy. Almost all their websites leak visitor data like a sieve

STAT

APRIL 3, 2023

hospitals employed online data trackers in 2021 that transmitted visitors’ information to a broad network of outside parties, including major technology companies, data brokers, and private equity firms. A new study found that 99% of U.S. Read the rest…

Hospitals

STAT+: SalioGen Therapeutics hit by layoffs, as gene-editing biotechs continue to struggle

STAT

OCTOBER 13, 2024

Launched in 2021, SalioGen was among a group of new startups developing technology for inserting full-length genes into patients — a feat that can’t readily be accomplished with older approaches based on the gene-editing technology CRISPR. A spokesperson for SalioGen declined to comment.

STAT+: Biotech lab-space demand falls sharply as industry’s ‘sugar high’ turns into a ‘reset’

STAT

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

million square feet at the end of 2021 to 10.1 million square feet at the end of 2021 to 10.1 million square feet by the second quarter of this year across eight top life science markets: Boston, the Bay Area, San Diego, Raleigh-Durham, Philadelphia, Seattle, Los Angeles, and the Washington, D.C.,

STAT+: Vacancy rate in Boston-area lab space climbs to 10-year high

STAT

NOVEMBER 11, 2023

This represents more than 5 million square feet of unclaimed space, up from just 300,000 square feet of available space on the market in 2021. The demand from companies looking for space has dropped from about 8 million square feet in 2021 to about 2 million square feet today.

130,000 U.S. cancer cases went undiagnosed in Covid pandemic, study finds

STAT

OCTOBER 14, 2024

Instead, the new analysis suggests that cancer diagnoses recovered to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2021 — but didn’t make up for any of the lost cases from earlier in the pandemic. A new paper published Monday in JAMA Network Open suggests that didn’t happen as quickly as experts had hoped.

Women spend 20% more per year on out-of-pocket health costs, says report

STAT

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

In 2021, that meant that women paid about 20% more than men — only 2% of which could be accounted for by maternity care. Women of all ages pay a total of $15.4 billion more than men on annual out-of-pocket medical expenses, according to a new report from Deloitte. chief health equity officer.

STAT+: In race to make gene therapy for age-related blindness, 4D Molecular announces positive results

STAT

SEPTEMBER 18, 2024

In 2021, another leading contender, Adverum, was set back after a patient with a related disease went blind in one eye. In one 30-person Phase 2 study, patients’ need for standard-of-care injections fell by 89% after receiving gene therapy, and 73% did not need another standard-of-care shot for at least 32 weeks.

Drug Development

Opinion: There is no epidemic of autism. It’s an epidemic of need

STAT

MARCH 23, 2023

This is a significant increase from the 2021 estimate of 1 in 44 , which was a big jump from 1 in 110 in 2006. In a pair of new reports — one focused on 8-year-olds and one on 4-year-olds — the CDC found that 1 out of every 36 children has autism. This increase may sound scary.

Rollout of Covid vaccines is bumpy, but not unexpected, experts say

STAT

SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

The latest rollout of Covid-19 vaccines has been messy, with people facing more challenges getting one of the updated shots than they may have experienced since the frantic start of the very first vaccination campaign in late 2020 and the first half of 2021.

Vaccines

STAT+: Pfizer is scolded by a U.K. trade group for remarks its CEO made about vaccination

STAT

JANUARY 27, 2023

And his remarks, which ran in December 2021, prompted a complaint from an advocacy group that argued Bourla was inappropriately touting Covid-19 vaccines. Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

Vaccines

STAT+: Express Scripts overcharged postal workers by $45 million, audit says

STAT

JULY 22, 2024

The report , which was released in March but received little if any public attention, examined drug spending between 2016 and 2021 within the health plan that covers more than 200,000 unionized mail carriers and post office workers, as well as retirees.

Pharmaceutical Companies

Pharmaceutical Companies Pharmaceutical Companies Drug Pricing

Covid’s winter surge is poised to exceed summer peak

STAT

JANUARY 3, 2023

Notably, the number of people hospitalized with Covid — roughly 40,000 — is still far below the winter waves of 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 (the wave driven by the original Omicron variant) as well as the Delta wave in summer and fall 2021. Read the rest…

Hospitals

As midwife-assisted home births rise, so too do high-risk births outside hospitals

STAT

FEBRUARY 23, 2024

Kay Kay Lineweaver’s first birthing experience in 2021 didn’t go as planned. Her baby was breech and the doctor wouldn’t allow her to try to give birth vaginally, so she ended up with an unwanted cesarean section.

Hospitals

Can the world still invent an HIV vaccine? Progress in one area creates new problem

STAT

OCTOBER 2, 2023

The last shot they tested, in 2021, didn’t do much of anything, and the 66-year-old worries that if this fails, he might not get another chance to redesign it. Louis Picker is nervous. Last month, the first volunteer was injected with an HIV vaccine he spent over 20 years designing. It’s prototype No.

Vaccines

Vaccines Immunity Immunization

Exodus of life scientists from academia reaches historic levels, new data show

STAT

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

That’s a sizable step down from the nearly 58% of graduates who went on to do a postdoc in 2021. Among newly minted life science Ph.D.s in 2022 who had firm next steps, roughly 53% planned to pursue postdoctoral research, a temporary period of additional training that is virtually a requirement for those hoping to land a faculty job.

STAT+: Chasing CAR-T, biotech finds its next gold rush in autoimmune disease

STAT

OCTOBER 14, 2024

If the trend continues, autoimmune companies could raise double the amount of money that they raised at the height of the biotech market in 2021, according to data compiled by HSBC. In the first half of 2024, venture capitalists pledged more than $1.7 Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

Immunity

Immunity Immunization Drug Development

STAT+: Merck to buy lung-disease biotech Verona Pharma for $10 billion

STAT

JULY 9, 2025

billion in 2021. Merck is paying $107 per share to buy Verona, representing a 23% premium over its Tuesday closing price. It’s the largest Merck acquisition since the company bought Prometheus Biosciences for $11 billion in 2023 and Acceleron Pharma for $11.5 Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

STAT+: To help migraine patients — and sell more medicines — major drugmakers turn to telehealth

STAT

AUGUST 27, 2024

In 2021, Katey Frederking had reached the end of her rope. The 29-year-old was struggling with frequent migraines, which started after a concussion from a fall on an icy patch near her home in Chicago.

STAT+: Two type 1 diabetes patients now freed from insulin shots with cell therapy, Vertex reports

STAT

JUNE 23, 2023

In 2021, Vertex announced dramatic results from the first man to receive the treatment, but researchers cautioned it was just one person, who had only been followed for 90 days.

Diabetes

Global childhood vaccinations edge closer to pre-pandemic levels: WHO report

STAT

JULY 17, 2023

Global childhood immunization coverage has nearly rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, according to a new report, with 4 million more children receiving full immunization in 2022 compared to 2021. million children who missed at least one dose in 2021. million children who missed at least one dose in 2021. Overall, 20.5 Overall, 20.5

Vaccines

Vaccines Immunity Immunization

STAT+: Years after a polarizing approval, Biogen walks away from Aduhelm

STAT

JANUARY 31, 2024

Biogen is giving up its ownership of Aduhelm , the Alzheimer’s disease treatment whose 2021 approval led to scrutiny and outrage, turning the page on a tempestuous chapter in the company’s long history.

A race-based test for kidney function is finally changing. What about the rest of medicine?

STAT

OCTOBER 17, 2024

She would have been waiting even longer had it not been for a shift, in 2021, in the way that physicians calculate kidney function for Black patients like her. “Now I say the fireworks are for me,” said Evans, who was diagnosed with kidney disease when she was 17. Read the rest…

STAT+: Bubble bursts: 2021 health tech IPOs and SPACs lose value, burn cash

The Febrile Infant: Incorporating the 2021 American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines

Trending Sources

Survey: Nearly 3 in 5 teen girls felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021

STAT+: Truveta enlists health systems, drugmakers to launch ambitious new genomic database

STAT+: Study shows how UnitedHealth uses coding to rake in extra cash from Medicare Advantage

STAT+: To mitigate drug shortages, a new study suggests looking at Canada

WHO member countries agree on a draft ‘pandemic treaty’ to try to avoid Covid-19 mistakes

STAT+: Not-for-profit CommonSpirit Health paid its CEO $35 million in 2021

STAT+: 23andMe files for bankruptcy as CEO Anne Wojcicki resigns

Beam is trading like it’s 2021

Opinion: Maybe the teen mental health crisis is actually a sleep crisis

STAT+: Using AI to design small molecule drugs is tough. Here are five companies trying to crack the code

Routine vaccinations drop among U.S. kindergartners for the third year in a row

STAT+: With $40 million, former DeepMind employees launch startup ‘laser-focused’ on AI protein design

STAT+: Pharma’s reputation with patient groups dips again, mostly due to pricing issues

The European Market Access Lag: 2021–2024

STAT+: This Ohio health system tested an AI tool to predict sepsis. Here’s how it went

STAT+: Latest updates to hospital price transparency rules aim to make the data more useful

STAT+: After Canada required pharma to pay fees, drug agency recommended coverage more often

Emergency medicine is grappling with a surprising problem: The prospect of too many physicians

Opinion: Better safety studies could restore America’s confidence in vaccines

STAT+: More HHS cuts, and DOJ seeks to recoup loans from Medicaid fraudster

Hospitals pledge to protect patient privacy. Almost all their websites leak visitor data like a sieve

STAT+: SalioGen Therapeutics hit by layoffs, as gene-editing biotechs continue to struggle

STAT+: Biotech lab-space demand falls sharply as industry’s ‘sugar high’ turns into a ‘reset’

STAT+: Vacancy rate in Boston-area lab space climbs to 10-year high

130,000 U.S. cancer cases went undiagnosed in Covid pandemic, study finds

Women spend 20% more per year on out-of-pocket health costs, says report

STAT+: In race to make gene therapy for age-related blindness, 4D Molecular announces positive results

Opinion: There is no epidemic of autism. It’s an epidemic of need

Rollout of Covid vaccines is bumpy, but not unexpected, experts say

STAT+: Pfizer is scolded by a U.K. trade group for remarks its CEO made about vaccination

STAT+: Express Scripts overcharged postal workers by $45 million, audit says

Covid’s winter surge is poised to exceed summer peak

As midwife-assisted home births rise, so too do high-risk births outside hospitals

Can the world still invent an HIV vaccine? Progress in one area creates new problem

Exodus of life scientists from academia reaches historic levels, new data show

STAT+: Chasing CAR-T, biotech finds its next gold rush in autoimmune disease

STAT+: Merck to buy lung-disease biotech Verona Pharma for $10 billion

STAT+: To help migraine patients — and sell more medicines — major drugmakers turn to telehealth

STAT+: Two type 1 diabetes patients now freed from insulin shots with cell therapy, Vertex reports

Global childhood vaccinations edge closer to pre-pandemic levels: WHO report

STAT+: Years after a polarizing approval, Biogen walks away from Aduhelm

A race-based test for kidney function is finally changing. What about the rest of medicine?

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