Health systems and physician practices are flocking to AI-powered medical scribes at an unprecedented pace to combat clinician burnout, Erin Brodwin wrote first on Axios Pro.Why it matters: Notoriously technophobic hospitals are jumping to adopt tools from Big Tech companies and Silicon Valley startups alike. Investors have flooded the zone, withAI scribes raising $800 million in 2024.Unlike electronic health records, whose implementation can take years, AI scribes can move from pilot to final stage in months, industry leaders say.State of play: Most health systems are only using or testing the transcription tools in one or two practice areas, the most popular being primary care.That’s largely because the tools aren’t capable of handling the nuances and intricacies of other fields, such as surgery or psychiatry, the way human providers can.”The AI scribe doesn’t really get the essence of some of the mental health exam,” said Debbie Aizenberg, executive director of UC Davis Medical Group.Case in point: One area the tools don’t currently help is pre-chart planning — or supporting providers as they hand off patients from one caregiver to another by summarizing the notes ahead of time.Another area of potential improvement is customization to align with a provider’s writing style — concise versus verbose — or way of thinking.from STAT:February 4, 2025Check out STAT+Sponsored By By Elaine ChenNational Biotech ReporterGood morning. Today, the Senate Finance Committee will vote on whether to advance RFK Jr.’s nomination for a vote on the Senate floor. Stay tuned for that. In the meantime, let’s get into the rest of the biotech news of the day.The need-to-know this morningCheck out Pfizer earnings here, and Regeneron Pharma earnings here.earningsMerck’s 2025 guidance hit by Gardasil pause in China Merck shares fell sharply in pre-market trading this morning after forecasting 2025 revenue in the range of $64.1-$65.6 billion — lower than analysts’ consensus sales forecast of $67 billion, as tabulated by Visible Alpha.The pharma giant’s 2025 sales guidance reflects a decision to “temporarily pause” shipments of its HPV vaccine Gardasil to China, starting this month through “at least mid year” in order to draw down excess inventory, Merck said.Gardasil is Merck’s second largest product behind the cancer drug Keytruda, but “macroeconomic factors,” including a broader China crackdown on corruption has hit Merck hard since last summer. Sales of Gardasil in the fourth quarter were $1.6 billion, down 17% from the same quarter in 2023.politicsWho is the man who could soon lead CMS? Amid the hearings and news surrounding RFK Jr.’s nomination to lead HHS, there’s been much less commotion around Mehmet Oz, President Trump’s nominee to run CMS. Though some consumer advocacy groups have called Oz unqualified for the role, his Senate confirmation is generally viewed on Capitol Hill as all but assured.So who is the man who could soon lead CMS? My colleague Tara Bannow brings us an in-depth profile of the surgeon turned TV host.Oz has lately kept a low profile and hasn’t given any clues about his plans for the agency he’ll likely run. But what is clear is that, like most Republicans, he’s all in on privatized Medicare — he once called for Medicare Advantage For All.He also has financial ties that could complicate his position. This past August, Oz’s YouTube channel featured a video urging viewers to buy private Medicare plans from his insurance agency sponsor, a company accused of misleading older adults and making repeated, unsolicited phone calls. And as of 2022, Oz owned hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock in major insurers he’d oversee in his government role.Read more.politicsFact-checking claims about senators’ pharma tiesAnd to bring up RFK Jr. again — last week, he accused Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren of being bought and paid for by Big Pharma. But it’s actually not true that those lawmakers have received tons of money from pharma companies, my colleagues Lev Facher and Rachel Cohrs Zhang report.RFK Jr.’s supporters are using data from the website OpenSecrets to back up these claims. But there’s a nuance to this data. OpenSecrets measures corporate donations by combining PAC spending with any contribution of $200 or more from any company employee. In other words: If an entry-level human resources officer at a pharmaceutical company wrote Sanders or Warren even a modest check, the website would count that sum toward the company’s total giving, no differently than a check written by the company’s PAC.Read more.gene editingFDA OKs first xenotransplantation trial to startUnited Therapeutics said the FDA has allowed it to begin the first clinical trial testing whether organs from gene-edited pigs could provide a viable option for patients in dire need of a transplant.Over the last three years, United and a rival company, eGenesis, have transplanted genetically modified pig hearts or kidneys into several patients, but those procedures were done through compassionate use waivers from the FDA that allow doctors to treat individual patients with no viable alternatives. Those patients were already near death and died soon after the xenotransplants.United’s new trial will focus on patients in need of kidney transplants. Researchers will first dose six patients with end-stage renal disease, and once those patients have all been followed for at least 12 weeks, United plans to expand its trial to up to 50 patients — enough, it hopes, to then file for FDA approval.Read more from STAT’s Jason Mast.Artificial intelligenceDeepSeek and Chinese biotech, OpenAI and deep researchA little-known Chinese company called DeepSeek caused a stir in technology circles by releasing artificial intelligence models that rival those of U.S.-based competitors and were developed at a fraction of their cost. The move highlights China’s interest in the cutting edge tech, including around drug development. In a new story, Brian Yang speaks with executives at XTalPi and other companies about the competition overseas. “There are more Chinese scientists in AI now than non-Chinese scientists.” said Alex Zhavoronkov, the CEO of Insilico, which has operations in the U.S., China, and Hong Kong.Not to be outdone, OpenAI over the weekend announced a new product, called deep research, that crawls the web and produces sourced research documents on-demand. The company writes that deep research is “built for people who do intensive knowledge work in areas like finance, science, policy, and engineering and need thorough, precise, and reliable research.” The product is currently only available to people with a “pro” ChatGPT account. I haven’t shelled out $200 to try it out, but I might! What science should I have it research to test its potential?
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By Elaine ChenNational Biotech ReporterGood morning. Today, the Senate Finance Committee will vote on whether to advance RFK Jr.’s nomination for a vote on the Senate floor. Stay tuned for that. In the meantime, let’s get into the rest of the biotech news of the day.The need-to-know this morningCheck out Pfizer earnings here, and Regeneron Pharma earnings here.earningsMerck’s 2025 guidance hit by Gardasil pause in China Merck shares fell sharply in pre-market trading this morning after forecasting 2025 revenue in the range of $64.1-$65.6 billion — lower than analysts’ consensus sales forecast of $67 billion, as tabulated by Visible Alpha.The pharma giant’s 2025 sales guidance reflects a decision to “temporarily pause” shipments of its HPV vaccine Gardasil to China, starting this month through “at least mid year” in order to draw down excess inventory, Merck said.Gardasil is Merck’s second largest product behind the cancer drug Keytruda, but “macroeconomic factors,” including a broader China crackdown on corruption has hit Merck hard since last summer. Sales of Gardasil in the fourth quarter were $1.6 billion, down 17% from the same quarter in 2023.
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