Pharma is fast becoming Donald Trump’s favorite whipping boy. Last month, Trump vowed to bring down drug prices. Early in January 2017, he slammed the industry for “getting away with murder.” And on 14 JAN 2017, he promised the Washington Post he’d subjugate drug makers with the power of the Tweet.
In the same week that Donald Trump met with Silicon Valley leaders to interview for the top job at the FDA, he has also met with an eclectic mix of candidates for his pick as National Institutes of Health (NIH) chief.
The belief that the FDA is to undergo a major shift in thinking was given further credence as another curveball was thrown into the mix. Balaji Srinivasan, CEO of Bitcoin startup 21.co, is now being considered for the Agency’s top job.
Remember the Trump euphoria that hit BioPharma stocks after the president-elect captured the Electoral College in November? Well, scratch that.
Georgetown University’s Institute for Reproductive Health (IRH) is recruiting up to 1,200 women for a real-time study of Cycle Technologies’ smartphone app that calculates a woman’s fertility on a daily basis.
A shorter course of radiotherapy with fewer sessions and higher dosage is as effective as the standard of care in treating prostate cancer, a U.K. study found. Switching over to this shorter schedule would not only benefit patients, but also help the National Health Service save tens of millions of pounds.
Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School have worked together to create an analysis of breast cancer pathology that incorporates artificial intelligence. They found that their system–and the evaluation by pathologists themselves–worked better when used in conjunction than either did alone.
IBM has formed a Watson Health medical imaging collaborative alongside more than 15 health systems, academic centers, imaging technology companies and ambulatory radiology providers. The initiative aims to cut down on inefficient and uncoordinated healthcare and make imaging a daily practice for doctors treating a variety of diseases and conditions, thereby improving personalized care.