InnovationRx: General Catalyst’s New Healthcare Fund; Plus: Covid Boosts Diabetes Risk

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Hemant Taneja, Managing Companion, Common Catalyst

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Last week, we mentioned how the digital well being panorama has modified when it comes to enterprise backing, which is down 40% year-over-year for the primary half of 2022. Present market situations are seeing layoffs from the likes of digital care firm Ro, major care unicorn Carbon Well being and medical billing processor Cedar. That’s as a result of issues over lack of financing are driving firms to drag again on expansive progress in favor of specializing in profitability and consolidating operations.

This financing pullback is just not a fear for enterprise funding agency Common Catalyst, nevertheless, which simply launched its second Healthcare Assurance Fund in lower than two years. The Fund closed with $670 million, and managing accomplice Hemant Taneja thinks the present state of the market could be a bonus for its investments. That’s as a result of, he says, a downturn like this “brings much more rigor to firm constructing and self-discipline that lots of people had type of forgotten.”

What Is Marburg? What You Want To Know About The Lethal Virus Detected In Ghana

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Ghana confirmed the nation’s first outbreak of the lethal Marburg virus on Sunday, inserting it and neighboring international locations on excessive alert as specialists scramble to include the extremely infectious Ebola-like illness for which there is no such thing as a permitted vaccine or remedy. Right here’s what you need to know in regards to the outbreak. Learn extra right here.

Offers Of The Week

Liquid Biopsy: Delfi Diagnostics has raised a $225 million series B round led by DFJ Development to increase improvement of its liquid biopsy checks for lung and different cancers.

Antibody Therapies: BigHat Biosciences, which develops antibody therapies utilizing artificial biology, introduced that it raised a $75 million series B round to scale its platform and transfer its pipeline in direction of scientific trials.

Self-Insured Plans: JPMorgan Chase’s enterprise arm Morgan Well being introduced a $30 million investment in Centivo, which gives well being plans to self-insured employers centered round accountable care organizations.

RNA Concentrating on: Biotechnology firm CAMP4 Therapeutics announced it has raised a $100 million series B round led by Enavate Sciences. The funding is geared in direction of supporting the development of the corporate’s drug candidates, which goal regulatory RNAs to deal with illness.

Noteworthy

Elevance Well being, previously referred to as Anthem, reported second quarter revenues of $38.6 billion, giving it almost $1.7 billion in earnings.

Polling reveals that extra Individuals are pushing again in relation to incorrect medical payments, however that one of many greatest challenges for them is a lack of awareness how healthcare billing and insurance coverage work. .

Because the U.S. Supreme Courtroom overruled Roe v Wade final month, arthritis sufferers haven’t been in a position to fill their prescriptions for Methotrexate, a drug additionally used to deal with ectopic being pregnant. Now most cancers docs are fearful that their sufferers, who additionally use the drug, could be subsequent to lose entry

Jynneos, the one vaccine particularly permitted to forestall monkeypox, has begun being distributed to excessive danger populations however provides are scarce, main some public well being officers to think about using just one dose as a substitute of the advisable two.

Coronavirus Updates

British researchers have discovered that persons are extra more likely to develop diabetes and heart problems after a Covid-19 an infection. The findings, primarily based on examinations of over 428,000 medical data, were published on Tuesday in PLOS Drugs, discovered that individuals with Covid-19 had 81% extra diabetes diagnoses within the first 4 weeks after an infection than can be typical. That quantity declined over time however Covid-19 sufferers have been nonetheless 27% extra more likely to develop the illness 12 weeks after an infection. The illness was additionally related to a six-fold enhance in cardiovascular points, together with irregular heartbeats and clots within the lungs. The excellent news is that these dangers didn’t look like everlasting. The chance of a cardiovascular problem started to say no about 5 weeks after an infection, and principally returned to baseline ranges after a couple of yr.

With due to Forbes fellow Ariyana Griffin for her contributions to this text!

BA.5 Is Driving A Wave Of Covid Infections, However Not Deaths—Right here’s Why Consultants Say We Ought to Nonetheless Be Cautious

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The evasive BA.5 omicron variant is driving up Covid circumstances and hospitalizations because it spreads quickly throughout the US—however regardless of deaths remaining decrease in comparison with earlier waves, specialists inform Forbes there are nonetheless loads of causes to stay cautious and warn Individuals in opposition to letting their guard down too quickly. Learn extra right here.

Different Coronavirus Information

Over a 3rd of U.S. counties are experiencing excessive ranges of transmission and hospitalization, placing them in Covid-19 “pink” zone because of the new omicron BA.5 variant, in accordance with the CDC.

Due to excessive ranges of Covid-19 transmission, the CDC nonetheless encourages vacationers to put on a masks as they transfer in regards to the nation.

Though the CDC is warning individuals to put on a masks whereas touring because of the new wave of Covid circumstances, the company stated it is going to not monitor how cruise strains implement Covid-19 protocols.

A CDC advisory committee advisable using Novavax’s Covid-19 vaccine for adults, one week after it obtained emergency authorization from the Meals and Drug Administration.