Friday Five: Top 5 healthcare business news items from the MCOL Weekend edition

Every business day, MCOL posts feature stories making news on the business of health care. Here are five we think are particularly important for this week:

‘Pharma Bro’ Shkreli Is In Prison, But Daraprim’s Price Is Still High 

It was 2015 when Martin Shkreli, then CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals and the notorious “pharma bro,” jacked up the cost of the lifesaving drug Daraprim by 5,000 percent. Overnight, its price tag skyrocketed from $13.50 a pill to $750.

Kaiser Health News

Friday, May 4, 2018

Health Insurers Had Their Best Quarter in Years, Despite the Flu

U.S. health insurers just posted their best financial results in years, shrugging off worries that the worst flu season in recent history would hurt profits.

Bloomberg

Thursday, May 3, 2018

CVS ‘Moving Forward’ With Aetna Deal, Profit Tops Estimates

CVS ‘Moving Forward’ With Aetna Deal, Profit Tops Estimates CVS Health Corp. said it’s making “good progress” on getting regulatory approval for its $68 billion deal to buy health insurer Aetna Inc. -- one of two megamergers in the health-care industry that are under antitrust scrutiny.

Bloomberg

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

HHS Secretary Alex Azar to Supreme Court: Time to rule on Medicare case that affects $4 billion

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review an appeals court case won by numerous hospitals over disproportionate share hospital payments.

Healthcare Finance News

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Bill Gates got President Trump fired up about a universal flu vaccine

Bill Gates was talking to President Trump in the Oval Office last month when the conversation turned to the notion of a universal flu vaccine — probably, as Gates recalled in an interview, “the longest conversation about universal flu vaccine that the president’s ever had.”

Stat News

Monday, April 30, 2018

These and more weekly news items on the business of healthcare are featured in the MCOL Weekend edition, along with the MCOL Tidbits, and more, for MCOL Premium level members.