Walmart is slowing its healthcare push
Hello,
Hope you all had a lovely short week! I spent my day yesterday out skiing. While it was strange to take a random weekday off, it was lovely to avoid the crowds on the weekends.
In the meantime, the rest of the healthcare team held down the fort, covering everything from the future of coronavirus treatments and vaccines, having a chat with CVS Health's new CEO Karen Lynch, and getting the scoop on the state of Walmart's healthcare ambitions.
Inside Walmart Health's changing plans
It's been about two years since we first started hearing about Walmart's latest healthcare ambitions. The idea was to build out health centers that could do everything from primary care to dentist appointments for the communities Walmart was in.
In the time since, analysts and industry experts have referred to Walmart as a "sleeping giant to watch" in healthcare.
Despite the high expectations, Shelby Livingston and Blake Dodge have learned that Walmart is pulling back on its health center plans. Changes in leadership and the pandemic have influenced a more conservative plan from the initial goal of having 4,000 clinics by 2029, they learned through conversations with former and current employees as well as leaked documents.
Read the full story here>>
2 years ago, Walmart secretly signed off on a plan to build thousands of health clinics. Now it's slowing its ambitious push into healthcare.
Connecting the dots of CVS Health's businesses
After CVS's fourth-quarter earnings, Shelby chatted with the company's new CEO about what's ahead for the business.
Karen Lynch became CEO on February 1 after serving as the president of CVS's Aetna business.
It's been three years since CVS bought Aetna, and part of Lynch's job will be connecting the different parts of the business as it pushes deeper into the healthcare business through medical care and insurance.
Read the full story here>>
Pharmacy giant CVS bought a health insurer then rolled out hundreds of in-store clinics. CEO Karen Lynch shares how she'll make all the pieces work together.
The way tech companies fund their healthcare bets is holding them back
You might recall a few week's back I asked y'all if you had any thoughts on the way Big Tech funds its healthcare ventures, and whether it's working for them.
Well, Blake and Hugh Langley have come to a conclusion in their most recent reporting.
Talking to employees at the health bets, industry insiders, and executives, they found that there's a lot that can get in the way of a tech company's healthcare ambitions.
Read the full story here>>
Amazon and other tech giants want to upend healthcare, but time constraints, egos, and infighting are holding them back
The promise of universal coronavirus drugs
Next week will be a key week in the COVID-19 vaccine race, as the Food and Drug Administration published an analyst of Johnson & Johnson's data and an expert panel publicly reviews it.
In the meantime, Andrew Dunn talked to Moncef Slaoui, formerly of Operation Warp Speed about his latest venture Centessa. Here's how the former head of Operation Warp Speed plans to grow it into the next pharma giant.
It's easy to hear coronavirus these days and just think of COVID-19 and the unfolding pandemic.
But coronaviruses are responsible for more than just COVID-19 - they're also the virus that can cause the common cold, SARS, and more.
Allison DeAngelis spent some time this week digging into the biotechs looking at making universal coronavirus drugs. The hope is to protect people from COVID-19 as well as future conditions caused by coronaviruses.
Read the full story here>>
Scientists are racing to develop coronavirus drugs that could fight the common cold and protect us from the next pandemic
I'll leave you with some updates from the panel we hosted last week in which we chatted with VCs on the future of healthcare, reported by Megan Hernbroth and Patricia Kelly Yeo:
- 3 life sciences VCs share why the pandemic's focus on infectious diseases won't reshape the drug industry
- While entrepreneurs have never had more options to exit their companies, 4 top healthcare VCs are cautioning founders against public debuts before they're ready
(You can watch the whole session here.)
Hope you all are staying warm! Thoughts on this week's stories, tips that could inform next week's? Reach me at lramsey@businessinsider.com. You can reach the whole healthcare team at healthcare@businessinsider.com.
- Lydia