Employers accessing health data

It’s estimated that 20% of employers are accessing mhealth data.
The data can be used to incentivize employees or raise health insurance premiums.
A study found that wellness programs—even those with incentives—don’t change employees’ behavior much.

Survey on digital health doesn’t make sense

According to Rock Health adoption of health continues to rise while consumers leverage digital health tools to address concrete health needs.
Most doctors say they have not recommended any general health and wellness apps or wearables to their patients. (Source: Kantar)
For medical-grade devices, the results are similar, with 70% of doctors saying they have not recommended medical-grade web-connected devices to their patients. (Source: Kantar).
Millennials, who usually have a high adoption rate of digital health, is failing as they are the most obese generation.
Most Americans are concerned about their weight and understand the connection between weight and cardiovascular health, but a substantial proportion of them are not doing much to lose excess weight, according to a Cleveland Clinic survey.

A CMI/Compass study in 2013 suggested a dip in physician support for DTC with less than half (48%) indicating that DTC advertising informed, educated, and empowered patients. And, a slight majority (53%) of physicians who responded to the survey were opposed to DTC advertising.
78% feel that Direct-to-Consumer advertising leads to a preference for brand name drugs when a generic is adequate
Only 20% of physicians agree (5% strongly; 15% somewhat) that Direct-to-Consumer pharmaceutical advertising strengthens a patient’s relationship with a clinician

As sales of Merck & Co.’s immuno-oncology heavy hitter Keytruda soared 66% in the fourth quarter to $2.15 billion, surpassing Wall Street’s expectations they were knocked because analysts want to know ‘what’s next”?
Pharma is obsessed with fighting and winning and dominating even if it means making bad business decisions.
The wisdom of setting business goals—always striving for bigger and better—is so established within pharma that it seems like the only thing left to debate is whether the goals are ambitious enough.
Pharma is suffering from ambition hyperinflation.

Pharma, which used to cite the high cost of research, now say rebates within supply chain drive up prices.
Pharma says they don’t actually benefit much from list-price increases and that their net prices are suffering, because they are paying bigger rebates to pharmacy-benefit managers that negotiate prices in secret with their clients, such as employers and labor unions.
Drugmakers’ price increases are unrelated to the rebates, according to research commissioned by the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, a trade group for PBMs.

According to the Lancet “from 1995 to 2014, there were 14,672,409 incident cases for 30 types of cancer. Incidence significantly increased for six of 12 obesity-related cancers in young adults (25–49 years) with steeper rises in successively younger generations.
The risk of cancer is increasing in young adults for half of the obesity-related cancers, with the increase steeper in progressively younger ages.
Obesity has been repeatedly linked to an increased risk of certain cancers. The World Health Organization has called obesity a “rising epidemic”, with over 1 billion adults considered obese worldwide.

McKinsey & Company, according to the Massachusetts AG, had helped the maker of OxyContin fan the flames of the opioid epidemic.
McKinsey’s consultants, the attorney general revealed, had instructed the drug company, Purdue Pharma, on how to “turbocharge” sales of OxyContin.
McKinsey had advised numerous pharma clients to raise prices on cancer and rare disease drugs because “insurance would pay the high prices”.

Why pharma companies continue to feel the heat over pricing

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Not having a PCP can be dangerous to patients

Accenture reports that Gen Z and millennials are least likely… more>>
Facebook has a ton of false or misleading health information

Three quarters of health information on Facebook was either misleading… more>>
Employers accessing health data

It’s estimated that 20% of employers are accessing mhealth data.… more>>
Survey on digital health doesn’t make sense

According to Rock Health adoption of health continues to rise… more>>
6 Year old DTC study is not applicable today

A CMI/Compass study in 2013 suggested a dip in physician… more>>