aHollis Johnson/Business
Insider
Welcome to another
edition of Dispensed, the weekly healthcare newsletter where we're busy
compiling names for our DC power-players post (if you haven't
submitted a name, now's your chance!).
On this brisk autumn
day, we'll get right to the stories that filled our minds this week.
But first, Are
you new to our newsletter?
You can sign up for
Dispensed here.
Genealogy giant Ancestry is finally in the health business
For so long (and on so many
stories), I never was quite sure how to grapple with Ancestry in my
beat. Sure, the consumer genetics company was a massive figure that has grown
to test the DNA of 15 million people. But in return, those people (including yours
truly) were getting reports solely focused on their ancestry. Was
Ancestry a digital health company? Or did it have to fit somewhere else?
Well, dear reader, I
no longer have to fret about it.
On Tuesday, the
company came out with two health reports, aimed at mapping out your
health history.
Two noteworthy points
of distinction from where I sit from rival 23andMe: The tests have to be
ordered by a doctor (which Ancestry provides), and beyond the main test, users
who want quarterly updates have to pay into a subscription. You can read
more about what's included in both tests here.
"We didn't want
to be just another company issuing lab reports," Ancestry CEO Margo
Georgiadis told me. You can read
more from our conversation here.
I'll also be interviewing
Margo onstage at the HLTH conference in Las Vegas later this month. What
questions should I ask her? Shoot them over to me at
lramsey@businessinsider.com.
Next, Erin Brodwin took
a deep dive into the microbes that live in your guts and the market potential
investors see in them (as illustrated by this fantastic graphic).
They're betting that
sequencing bacteria that live in and on us could be as hot as the consumer
genetics business, which tens of millions of people have used to trace their
family history or learn about their health.
·
Several
high-profile startups that promised to draw insights from the bacteria living
in and on us, known as the microbiome, have failed in recent months.
·
One
of them, a company called uBiome, which was valued at $600 million, said it
would shut down on October 1 after months of challenges and setbacks.
·
But
investors still see the microbiome as a lucrative opportunity for the
burgeoning digital-health industry, which has raked in $36.3 billion from
investors since 2011.
·
Here's
how the microbiome companies they're betting on plan to succeed.
Clarrie
Feinstein has a great primer on some of the digital health
companies looking to address addiction treatment as the opioid epidemic carries
on.
·
To
curb the opioid-addiction epidemic, startups have been jumping on the
opportunity to provide greater access to different types of treatment.
·
The
startups are focused on medication-based treatment and using patient data to
ensure people are following their treatment plans.
·
Business
Insider chose five companies that are entering the $35 billion addiction
treatment industry, with innovative solutions to help people with opioid use
disorder.
UnitedHealth's big earnings week
All eyes were on
UnitedHealth Group's earnings this week. The company's third-quarter report
sent the stock up 8%.
Ahead of earnings we
spoke to Steve Warner, the head of Medicare Advantage at the company's
insurance arm UnitedHealthcare.
Warner broke down
how America's
largest health insurer plans to compete with a growing number of venture-backed
companies with billions in their war chests.
One thing that caught
my eye in the earnings call: Optum CEO Andrew Witty gave some concrete examples
of how OptumCare is shaking out across the US. He laid out why
the company's work in 4 states is key to building its next $100 billion
business.
Health and social media
It's interesting to
see how social media can be used to spread medical information — for better or
for worse.
Our UK-based
colleague Tom Porter has a great read on how unlicensed
medical 'cures' are flourishing in closed Facebook groups. He
describes how cancer treatments and even surgery are sold beyond the reach of
the law in invite-only groups. The groups Porter looked into through his
reporting have since been shut down by Facebook.
Contrast that with
what Erin Brodwin reported Tuesday. This week, Facebook
expanded its blood-donation tool to the entire US, an expansion from
a few cities earlier this year. The tool pings people asking them to donate
during times of shortages.
It'll be curious to
see the impact of the tool, and we'll of course be keeping tabs on the tech
giant's healthcare ambition.
With that, I'll leave
you to your weekends. Thoughts? Tips about any primary care IPOs? Questions I
should ask at HLTH?
You can find me at
lramsey@businessinsider.com, and you can reach the whole team at
healthcare@businessinsider.com.
- Lydia
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