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RADP / Pulse Ghana  >  BI  >  Tech

Dispensed: Oscar's first moves in Medicare Advantage, uBiome's new board members, and Novartis' CEO's commitment to wearing jeans

Lydia Ramsey

Hello,

uBiome Toilet Paper 1
uBiome Toilet Paper 1

Welcome to a warm-weather edition of Dispensed, in which I am already plotting how I can spend as little time in the heat as possible this weekend.

Before we jump in, I wanted to first let you all know that our colleague Erin Brodwin is getting married this weekend, and we couldn't be more excited for her! If you see her sometime in the next few months be sure to bring her cake and say congrats!

Are you new to our newsletter ? You can sign up for Dispensed here.

Anyway, back to business. First up, a few updates on uBiome. If you recall, last week the company laid off half of its staff including the lab director, which meant the company had to stop running its only test. Well, eight days later, the same lab director has been brought back on, and uBiome told customers that the tests are back to running.

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Alsothe company has hired two new board members , one a retired bankruptcy lawyer, the other a professional with a background in restructuring. It'll be curious to see where the company goes from here, now that it has new management, a new board, and half the staff.

Just catching up on uBiome? You can find more of our coverage of the troubled startup here .

Elsewhere, Oscar Health revealed where it plans to set up Medicare Advantage plans in 2020 . It's starting with NYC through a partnership with Bronx-based Montefiore, as well as partnerships with doctor groups and hospitals in the Houston area.

Folks took to Twitter with some interesting reactions to the news, so I thought I'd share some of them here and here .

Emma Court took a look at the early work Sanofi's recently appointed Chief Digital Officer Ameet Nathwani is working on.

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  • French drugmaker Sanofi recently appointed Chief Medical Officer Ameet Nathwani as its chief digital officer.
  • The pharma industry is increasingly hiring chief digital officers as it seeks to make better use of technologies like artificial intelligence in its business.
  • But Nathwani says that the pharmaceutical industry also needs to be on high alert around issues of bias, privacy, and cybersecurity, "because this black box scenario isn't going to be sustainable."
  • Nathwani told Business Insider Sanofi has developed policies as part of that, including establishing oversight of the tech and putting checks in place.

Emma also spoke with Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan after the company presented earnings on Thursday. Among the things they discussed: Narashimhan's commitment to wearing jeans in the office. (see photo)

Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan
Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan Novartis
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  • Vas Narasimhan took the reins at Novartis early last year and has pushed to transform the Swiss drug giant into a cutting-edge, tech-savvy company.
  • And it's been working, Narasimhan told Business Insider in a Thursday interview, pointing to strong second-quarter financial results reported that day.
  • Culture has been a big push at Novartis , which the Swiss drug giant tracks via tech platforms and plenty of data.
  • "I'd like to believe over time we'll keep showing that culture drives performance and culture drives innovation," Narasimhan said. "And the cultural transformation of Novartis will keep us at the cutting edge for years to come."

When it comes to Novartis' strategy, (in particular its potential acquisitions going forward), one sentence in particular in Emma's conversation with Narasimhan stuck out: "I aspire for us to target on the order of 5% of our market cap in M&A, focused in either building therapeutic area depth or building out new technology platforms."

Elsewhere in conversation with BI, Emma and I had some more dispatches from our conversation with GV.

Something to keep an eye out for going into the end of July the Livongo IPO is upon us. On Monday, the company updated its IPO filing to say that it's seeking to raise more than $200 million in its initial public offering. It's looking for a valuation of $2.1 billion to $2.4 billion. Here's a look at the investors who stand to benefit the most from the digital health company going public.

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I'll leave you with one more great read, from one of our reporters on the video team here. Benji Jones took a look at the cost of being transgender in the US . As you might imagine, there are a lot of hidden costs, especially when it comes to medical procedures. Watch more of the story here.

That's all for this week! In the meantime, send thoughts, tips, and tricks to surviving a heat wave to the healthcare team at healthcare@businessinsider.com. You can reach me directly at lramsey@businessinsider.com.

- Lydia

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Lydia Ramsey

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