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Welcome to Dispensed, Business Insider's weekly
Some news to start off this week's roundup of the biggest healthcare stories from the team: We've gone daily!
We're calling it Dispensed Daily, and it provides your daily dose of pharma, biotech, and healthcare news. That's right, there's another daily healthcare newsletter in town.
In this fast-paced world, we thought it might be nice to have some daily debriefs as well. You'll still get this longer version in your inbox on Fridays, too.
You can subscribe here to get the daily in your inbox every weekday morning.
If you'd prefer a weekly email instead of a daily version, that's still an option. New to the newsletter? You can subscribe for weekly updates here.
Hospitalizations are rising for the first time in 2 months
Guys, it's getting serious again. (Though, was it ever not?)
As the above graphic shows, coronavirus case counts are on the rise, and now hospitalizations are too. That could spell trouble for the US healthcare system.
To be sure, we've been learning a lot since the early days of the pandemic, both about how to avoid risks and about how to treat the virus.
For instance, the cheap steroid dexamethasone has emerged as a "breakthrough" treatment for some hospitalized patients. But, as Shira Feder and Andrew Dunn report, there may be a small risk in using it in people who don't need respiratory support.
Here's hoping that means we won't see the same rates of hospitalizations and deaths that we saw in New York.
As my colleague Aria Bendix put it: "Just put on a damn mask already, America."
Meanwhile, Blake Dodge has a comprehensive list of the at-home coronavirus tests that have gotten emergency authorization.
You can read the full story here >>
There are 8 coronavirus tests you can use from home. Here's how they work and where to order one.
The must-know coronavirus drug industry pros
Meanwhile, scientists are still racing to develop both new treatments and vaccines for the novel coronavirus. These'll be key to ending the pandemic.
Andrew has a comprehensive look at the top executives you need to know leading that charge, from the CEOs of Sanofi and GSK, to the key players at Regeneron and Gilead Sciences.
You can read the full story here>>
COVID POWER PLAYERS: Meet the 14 top drug industry execs who are leading the sprint to develop coronavirus treatments and vaccines in record time
Healthcare CEOs aren't donating to Trump's re-election campaign
You won't find too many healthcare CEOs and other top leaders in the list of donors to President Donald Trump's reelection campaign.
As Kimberly Leonard reports, most donations are going to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — and to Trump's opponent Joe Biden.
Democrats, for their part, are working on a plan to bolser Obamacare — you can read about the 6 key parts of that bill here. It's designed to draw a contrast with the Trump administration, which is working to get the law tossed by the Supreme Court.
In donation filings, Kimberly found that CEOs including Gilead CEO Daniel O'Day and Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier donated thousands to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's reelection campaign. McCarthy is a Republican representative from California.
Read the full story here to see where donations are going>>
We combed through the political donations of 75 top healthcare companies. They reveal execs are making a surprising choice in how they give their cash.
A fundamental shift is hitting the healthcare industry
I probably sound like a broken record at this point: the healthcare industry is ripe for disruption.
If anything, the US response to the pandemic has made that even clearer. And Americans are on the hook for more of their healthcare expenses than they were in the past, leading them to look for cheaper and more convenient options.
Analysts at UBS think a bunch of nontraditional healthcare companies stand to win as Americans get more involved in their healthcare. That includes companies like Walmart, Salesforce, and Samsung. According to UBS, there's a $600 billion addressable market available.
Relatedly, Blake took a look at the healthcare strategies of tech giants Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft.
You can read the full story here>>
Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook are transforming the $3.6 trillion healthcare industry. Here's how they're using technology like machine learning to change the way scientists do research and help patients get care.
The presentations biotech and digital health startups used to raise millions
Over the last week, we got our hands on the presentations startups used to raise recent funding rounds across the healthcare industry:
- Blake got an exclusive look at the presentation BrightInsight used to convince investors to bet $40 million that it can help pharma giants go digital
- Zach Tracer and I got an exclusive look at the presentation that Cedar used to convince investors like Andreessen Horowitz and JPMorgan to bet $102 million on the digital health startup's vision of a better way of paying for healthcare
- Jeremy Berke reports that Cyclica is already using AI to discover new medicines based on psychedelics. Here's the presentation the biotech startup used to raise a fresh $17 million.
Your infrequent reminder that we want to keep seeing these presentations! Have you seen a fascinating healthcare pitch deck? We'd love to check it out. Send it my way - lramsey@businessinsider.com.
Finally, a reminder that we're hiring another healthcare reporter. We're looking for someone interested in the business of healthcare, especially the changing ways people are going to the doctor.
Here's the listing if you or someone you know might be interested.
With that, I hope you all have safe weekends! Thoughts, questions, tips? You can find me at lramsey@businessinsider.com, or you can reach the entire team at healthcare@businessinsider.com.
And remember to sign up for daily updates from the healthcare team!
- Lydia