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Mental health startup Cerebral said it would stop prescribing controlled substances like Adderall and Ritalin to treat ADHD for new patients on Wednesday. It's the latest indication that the “Move fast and break things” mentality of Silicon Valley doesn’t translate well into the highly regulated healthcare industry. The news comes a week after an ex-executive filed a lawsuit alleging he was fired in retaliation for speaking up about unethical business practices at the $4.8 billion startup, including the company’s practice of overprescribing stimulants in order to retain patients. In a press release, cofounder and CEO Kyle Robertson said the “pause” on part of the company’s ADHD services came in response to a review of its clinical quality and safety processes. “Based on recent feedback from stakeholders, it is clear that this has become a distraction from our focus to democratize access to mental health care services, provide treatment for more patients and add service lines for new conditions,” Robertson said in a statement. Cerebral has denied all the allegations in the lawsuit as “untrue.”
Earlier this week the Wall Street Journal reported that Truepill, an online pharmacy that fulfills orders for Cerebral, would temporarily halt prescriptions for controlled stimulants written by Cerebral providers. The Journal and Bloomberg had previously reported on concerns from employees about the ADHD prescribing practices at the company. Insider reported Wednesday the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has been interviewing former Cerebral employees regarding clinician licenses and rules around prescribing controlled substances, which Forbes has not independently confirmed.
In addition to the pause on stimulant prescribing, Robertson said the company completed an internal review of its marketing and advertising practices on social media. In January, Instagram pulled Cerebral advertisements around ADHD and eating disorders that violated its policies following inquiries from Forbes. More than 30 ads showed video imagery of a young woman engaging in eating disorder behaviors. Instagram’s parent company, Meta, specifically prohibits ads that “generate negative self-perception in order to promote health-related products.” At the time, Cerebral did not respond when asked for comment. “We recognize that we have made mistakes when it comes to our TikTok, Facebook and Instagram advertising in the past,” Robertson wrote in the memo.
James McIlroy believes the microbes in human feces hold the key to new therapeutics for a wide range of diseases. The 29-year-old founder and CEO of Scotland-based EnteroBiotix, which has raised $22.6 million to date, is improving upon fecal transplantation. Today, that process is an invasive procedure that moves bacteria from a healthy patient to the gut of someone who’s sick, and requires a colonoscopy to transfer material from the donor to the patient. EnteroBiotix is working to make the procedure easier and less invasive through use of a capsule. McIlroy is just one of the many entrepreneurs and scientists on this year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe Healthcare and Science list. The Covid-19 pandemic has not slowed down the race to change the world from these up-and-coming researchers, innovators and business leaders. Read more here.
Digital Biopsies: Imagene AI, which is developing machine learning to use biomarkers to detect cancer, announced Monday that it has raised $3 million in seed funding in a round led by Blumberg Capital and also a $18.5 million series A round led by Larry Ellison, Dr. David Agus and Eyal Gura.
Life Sciences Bonanza: Catalio Capital Management has raised $381 million for its third life sciences venture fund to invest in biotech companies from seed to IPO. The firm’s first fund raised $15 million and its second fund $100 million since it was founded in 2020. Five portfolio companies went public in the last year, including Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Compass Pathways and ATAI Life Sciences.
Sleep Apnea Pill: Cambridge-based biotech company Apnimed announced Wednesday that it raised a $62.5 million series C round led by Sectoral Asset Management. The funding will be used to initiate phase 3 clinical trials for its drug candidate AD109, which is an oral pill used for sleep apnea, which, if successful, would let sufferers of the condition ditch their cumbersome CPAP machines.
Biogen CEO Michel Vounatsos will step down following the company’s struggles with its Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm. Even though the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services placed strict limitations on reimbursement of Aduhelm, the agency’s director said restrictions on accelerated approval drugs will be “very rare.”
Americans favor legislation that would legalize abortion nationwide by a nearly 20-point margin, new poll finds.
The U.S. healthcare system is facing supply-chain shortages that dwarf the problems experienced in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, driven by component scarcities, backlogged ports, transportation glitches and lockdowns in China.
CVS Health tallied more than $2 billion in quarterly profits thanks to a boost in health plan membership through its Aetna subsidiary. The company also promoted Dr. Sree Chaguturu to be its top physician, as CVS puts more emphasis on the importance of primary care.
Pfizer reported its first-quarter earnings Tuesday, which showed the pharmaceutical giant pulled in over $25 billion in revenue. Much of that was driven by the Covid vaccine it co-developed with BioNTech, which saw $13.2 billion in sales in the first quarter. The company’s Covid antiviral, Paxlovid, saw $1.5 billion in sales. Pfizer expects its revenues for the year to be somewhere between $98 billion and $102 billion. Of that total, it expects $32 billion to come from sales of its Covid vaccine and $22 billion to come from sales of Paxlovid. “I am very proud of our performance this quarter, both from a financial perspective and from the standpoint of trying to be a force for good in the world,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement. The stock’s price closed at $49.29 on Tuesday, a gain of nearly 2%, and continued to climb Wednesday, closing at $49.66.
Covid vaccine maker Moderna posted its first-quarter earnings Wednesday morning. The company reported higher-than-expected revenue and profits in the first quarter. Moderna’s quarterly revenue came in at more than $6 billion, much higher than the $4.6 billion expected by Wall Street analysts, $5.9 billion of which were sales of its Covid vaccine. The company predicts $21 billion in vaccine sales for all of 2022, and expects to receive regulatory approval for a redesigned vaccine that targets the omicron variant by this summer. The company’s stock price rose 5.8% to over $155 per share, though overall its shares are still down about 38% on the year.
Associated Press/Ted S Warren
Legislators in a number of states have recently pushed legislation to promote ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine—two ineffective and potentially dangerous treatments for Covid-19—and protect doctors who prescribe the drugs to coronavirus patients. Read more here.
Severe Covid cases may cause cognitive impairment equivalent to aging 20 years and losing 10 IQ points, according to a new study that adds to a growing body of evidence that coronavirus infections can lead to long-term cognitive and mental health issues.
One unintended impact of the Covid-19 pandemic was that it has disrupted resources and attention away from tuberculosis, a disease that continues to impact much of the world.
Recent research describes how the omicron variant’s structural properties has enabled it to escape being affected by many monoclonal antibody treatments.
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The gene-edited pig heart given to a dying patient was infected with a pig virus (MIT Technology Review)
Gates Foundation CEO has ‘zero expectation’ that Melinda French Gates will step down as co-chair after divorce (STAT)
Critics challenge data showing key lipids can curb inflammation (Science)