News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

Hosted by Robert Michel

News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

Hosted by Robert Michel
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Could ‘Money Back’ Guarantees Become More Common for Medical Devices, Clinical Laboratory Tests, and Prescription Drugs as Manufacturers Strive to Prove Clinical Value?

Examples already exist of manufacturers agreeing to refund payments if their therapeutic drugs don’t benefit patients; Medical laboratories with proprietary tests may find this strategy effective at guaranteeing the clinical utility of their assays

If their medical devices, medical laboratory tests, or prescription drugs are not effective, will payers, patients, and doctors get refunds from the manufacturers of these products? Some experts predict that the increased emphasis on improved patient outcomes, and the need for healthcare enterprises to back up the clinical value of their services, could lead to money-back guarantees and reimbursements for treatment therapies.

Offering a refund for services if the patient does not benefit is a powerful and compelling way for a company to call attention to its confidence level in its products and services.     (more…)

Will IBM’s ‘Watson on Oncology’ Give Oncologists and Pathologists a Useful Tool for Diagnosing and Treating Various Cancers?

IBM’s Watson continues to seek a role as a cognitive computing tool of choice for physicians and pathologists in need of evidence-based clinical patient data

Remember IBM’s Watson? It’s been five years since Watson beat human contestants on Jeopardy. Since then, IBM has hoped Watson could be used in healthcare. To that end, some oncologists are exploring the use of Watson in cancer care. This could have implications for anatomic pathologists if oncologists developed a way to use Watson in the diagnosing cancers and identifying appropriate therapies for those cancers.

In 2011, IBM’s Watson supercomputer defeated human contestants for a charity prize during the television show Jeopardy. Just days later, Dark Daily reported on IBM’s goal for Watson to play a major role in helping physicians diagnose and treat disease. Since then, IBM has been exploring ways to commercialize Watson’s cognitive computing platform through partnerships with some of the healthcare industry’s biggest brands. (more…)

Johnson & Johnson Investing to Learn How to Predict or Prevent Disease; Studies Could Lead to Clinical Laboratory Tests that Detect Disease Earlier and More Accurately

COPD and gestational diabetes research are the subject of two new projects aimed at intercepting diseases prior to onset and identifying preventive treatments

Can new insights into the human genome make it possible to diagnose disease much earlier—even before symptoms can be observed? Multiple research programs are targeting this possibility. One example is being conducted by Johnson & Johnson (J&J). The American multinational medical-device company wants to leverage recent developments in genetics, data analysis, and its worldwide partnerships, in an attempt to answer two profound questions:

• Can the earliest signals of disease be identified; and

• What treatments will assist researchers who are trying to prevent diseases?

To pursue these two goals, Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) is expanding its existing research project into disease prediction and prevention, which currently involves 24 global partners, according to an Associated Press March story. (more…)

Mayo Clinic and Whole Biome Announce Collaboration to Research the Role of the Human Microbiome in Women’s Diseases Using Unique Medical Laboratory Tests

This joint research effort will initiate a new field of clinical laboratory diagnostic tests that target the human microbiome

Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine is about to commence clinical trials utilizing innovative clinical laboratory tests that target the human microbiome. Women’s health is the initial focus for these clinical studies.

Mayo Clinic is collaborating with San Francisco-based Whole Biome, Inc., to conduct these clinical trials. Whole Biome developed the diagnostic tests to be used in the clinical study. (more…)

J&J’s Ortho Clinical Diagnostics Business Snapped up by Carlyle Group for $4.15 Billion in a Sale that Will Impact OCD’s Clinical Laboratory Customers

It’s finally official! Ortho Clinical Diagnostics  (OCD) will be sold to The Carlyle Group (CG: NASDAQ), an asset management firm and equity investor. The sales agreement was announced on Thursday. Carlyle will pay $4.15 billion, and the transaction is expected to close mid-year, pending regulatory approvals.

OCD’s change of ownership will be closely watched by the thousands of medical laboratories in the United States and abroad that are customers of OCD. Typically, pathologists and clinical laboratory managers like continuity and little changes whenever one of their major vendors is sold to new owners. (more…)

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