POC Partnership Improves Relevant In-Office Content
PatientPoint, a known leader in physician engagement solutions, and Everyday Health, parent of a number of authoritative digital health education mediums, have teamed up to offer educational, customized content through an integrated communication platform offered in 12 distinct specialties to nearly 80,000 healthcare providers nationwide. PatientPoint will now be displaying Everyday Health content on engagement solutions in physician offices nationwide.
Both brands are on a mission to provide interactive content that will ultimately replace fear and anxiety with curiosity and confidence. EverydayHealth.com consumer health and wellness content will be featured on PatientPoint digital waiting room screens and interactive exam room screens, placing fun and “snackable” healthcare news, interactive quizzes/polls/assessments, infographics, and tips right in front of patients at their point of care. Additionally, breaking medical news from Everyday Health’s MedPage Today will be featured on digital PatientPoint screens in physician back offices.
“Our passion and commitment at PatientPoint is to help alleviate the anxiety that we know can accompany a conversation with a healthcare provider, especially in these unprecedented times,” PatientPoint Founder and CEO Mike Collette said in a statement. “By offering Everyday Health’s calming, confidence-inspiring, and medically accurate content on our best-in-class engagement platform, we are continuing to lead the way in transforming the point-of-care experience.”
GSK Signs Major Deal with Samsung Biologics
Looking to beef up its biologics production, GSK made a $231 million deal with the South Korean contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) to make biologic products for the upcoming eight years. Initially, they will be producing lupus drug Benlysta, which is expected to be ready for commercial supply by 2022. The success of Shingles vaccine Shingrix has led production to bottleneck, leading GSK to move the vaccine’s production to a new, in-house facility coming in 2024. Though the company has been lagging behind others, for example Merck, in biologics, it does have more candidates in its pipeline. Currently, its anti-BCMA antibody-drug conjugate belantamab mafodotin was granted a breakthrough therapy designation by the FDA for myeloma.
FCB Health Launches YuzuYello
The healthcare network announced that its new specialty group, YuzuYello, will be transforming patient journeys by creating positive and empathetic experiences that radically improve patient outlooks and business outcomes. YuzuYello, a name meant to signify the warmth and brightness FCB Health believes are integral to successful patient experiences and outcomes, offers service design, program development, contact center training, predictive behavior analytics, content strategy, and experiential touchpoint creation, among other services.
The new group’s mission spans from building multi-touchpoint programs to offering tips on telemedicine, among other things, in order to provide patients with the best support. “There are increased expectations around a patient’s engagement with a healthcare brand to mirror those of retail experiences, creating an opportunity for ongoing data-driven, personalized, and relevant communications,” FCB Health Network President and CEO Dana Maiman said in a statement. “Today, COVID-19 has heightened that already largely unmet need. Now more than ever, services have to be able to predict and deliver against patient needs that are continuously evolving, and we are committed to helping our clients exceed their patients’ expectations.”
DeepIntent Creates First of its Kind Advertising Marketplace
The marketing technology company has launched a Healthcare Marketplace, the first data-rich, and privacy-safe digital environment where healthcare advertisers, publishers, and data providers can collaborate.
“The industry is moving towards first-party data, direct inventory, and rigorous privacy regulation, signaling big changes to the way healthcare marketing operates,” DeepIntent CEO, Chris Paquette, explained in a statement. “Our Healthcare Marketplace lets buyers [advertisers] and sellers [publishers] integrate and collaborate on campaigns directly within a privacy-safe environment. It’s a superior and sustainable solution that improves campaign performance while enabling the economics healthcare publishers need.”
Publisher’s benefit from DeepIntent’s network of 200+ healthcare brands, bringing them data and demand that help engage their healthcare professional user-base with relevant advertising. Healthcare advertisers can trade directly with publishers and buy across the open exchange. The platform does not allow movement of audience data, segments, and real-time bidding (RTB) ad requests outside its platform, assuring data privacy.
Medisafe and Everyday Health Partnership Provides Coronavirus Updates to Patients
Medisafe, a digital therapeutics company providing medication management solutions for patients, is updating its digital companion to include Everyday Health’s patient education content, including new resources specifically focused on coronavirus updates, education, and tips. Medisafe’s digital companion already provides users personalized support to manage medications throughout their unique journeys on treatment. When the company checked in with users, they overwhelmingly requested coronavirus information. Seeking out Everyday Health’s help, the companies developed a COVID-19 resource center within Medisafe providing coronavirus updates, resources, and condition-specific content.
“In addition to requesting updated content, since the coronavirus outbreak began, 47% of Medisafe users reported missing scheduled doctors’ appointments,” said Omri Shor, Chief Executive Officer, Medisafe. “This means the traditional care model is defunct, leaving gaps in meaningful conversations and information. This is a role that digital companions can fill, personalizing patient interactions with relevant and timely information.”
WuXi Biologics Moves to the U.S.
The Chinese biologic giant sealed a construction deal of $60 million for a new manufacturing facility in Boston, MA. The company plans to employ 150 people by 2022, when the plant becomes operational. This facility will handle both clinical and small-volume commercial production and contain an early-stage bioprocess development lab. This move comes shortly after the started construction of WuXi’s Ireland facility, which the company says would produce $150 million worth of vaccines a year for 20 years as part of a $3 billion deal with an unnamed partner.
New Company Tackles Lack of Child Cancer Drugs
Day One Biopharmaceuticals is launching with the mission to develop new cancer treatments for kids, who see much less advancements in therapies than adults. While the FDA has approved more than 200 products for adult cancers in the past 20 years, only 10 have been approved specifically for children with cancer in the past 30 years. With $60 million dollars in funding from Canaan Partners, Access Biotechnology, and Atlas Venture, the company plans to develop new cancer treatments for kids starting with a RAF inhibitor from Sunesis Pharma that was previously licensed by Takeda.
Day One is developing it as DAY101, a targeted treatment for children with brain cancer. While a large subset of pediatric tumors is driven by BRAF wild-type fusion, the drug also shows promise in treating adults. “As we consider the development program, there is a huge unmet need in relapsed pediatric brain tumors, but also the opportunity to extend that to adult patients,” Samuel Blackman, MD, Co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Day One, told FierceBiotech.
The company plans to tackle pediatric gaps in care first, mentioning that they’re often left behind by drug developers. Antiquated thinking leads many pharma researchers to believe that children can’t handle cancer drugs, that pediatric clinical trials are too difficult to run, and when an indication doesn’t work for the wider adult population, it is not worth pursuing even if it shows promise in children. Day One will continue to search for assets to bolster this area of development.
Honoring Ashfield’s Late Jack Thorne III
“We were deeply saddened to hear of the death of Jack Thorne, Founder of Alliance Healthcare Information and former Ashfield employee,” says Liam Logue, EVP, Global Corporate Development, UDG Healthcare. “Alliance was Ashfield Healthcare’s first U.S. acquisition, and became the foundation on which Ashfield built its North American healthcare call center business.”
Jack founded Alliance in 1995 and was a pioneer in developing the company as a specialist in tele-detailing for the pharmaceutical sector. Jack’s vision was ahead of its time by using technology to provide innovative solutions to the pharmaceutical industry for communications to healthcare practices and patients. Entering the new millennium, Alliance grew to be a preeminent call center service provider serving leading healthcare companies nationwide. Ashfield’s medical information solutions business and remote patient support service offering was developed off the platform Jack forged and used as a template to create contact centers in multiple countries internationally.
“Jack’s enthusiasm, energy, and drive was essential to Ashfield in the early days of establishing U.S. operations,” Logue adds. “His deep understanding of the U.S. healthcare market and his wisdom in guiding the ship, was invaluable as we started our voyage in building one of the leading healthcare commercialization service partners globally. But above all Jack was a true gentleman and we were very fortunate to enjoy his humor and friendship.”
MediFind Expands into the Industry
Having served as a private-label, exclusive healthcare hub for a top 10 pharma company the past 10 years, MediFind has now emerged in the public arena with a mission to connect all parts of the healthcare ecosystem to improve the quality and timeliness of appropriate treatment. The MediFindPro platform allows life sciences and healthcare innovators to better connect with experts, patients and their caregivers, and providers. While MediFind will be helping patients find experts for their condition, advice about second opinions, and new treatment advances, MediFindPro will help professionals find scientific experts, translators, patient influencers, connectors to hidden segments in their therapeutic areas, and trending topics in their areas of expertise. MediFindPro provides access to the insight, data, and activity powering MediFind to help healthcare innovators enhance engagement efforts with Medical Affairs leaders, sharpen targeting, and improve digital marketing investments. This powerful tool, backed on 20 years of experience in pharmaceuticals, ultimately helps professionals better understand the patient journey for improved outcomes.
