Issue 11, November 4, 2021
America faces daunting and complex healthcare challenges that include and go beyond the current pandemic. In myriad ways, innovative healthcare companies are developing solutions to improve access to care, battle disease, strengthen population health, and meet the needs of underserved communities. This newsletter will offer examples of Healthcare Leadership Council members answering the call.
IN THE NEWS
The reported congressional agreement on changes to Medicare's drug pricing structure creates a disturbing precedent that will do little to benefit patients but will discourage the capital investment that leads to breakthrough treatments and therapies. ON THE BLOG The Parallel Roads of Representation and Access
Representation in clinical trials is vital for the creation of therapies and medications that are effective for all races and ethnicities.
UPCOMING EVENTS HLC Webinar:
November 10, 2021 2:00 p.m. ET
A panel of healthcare industry trailblazers, all recent recipients of the Healthcare Leadership Council's Redefining American Healthcare Award, will discuss how their programs were created to assist underserved populations. They will highlight the positive changes brought to their communities and offer lessons learned from their experiences for those working to create similar initiatives. Register here.
Medicare Today Town Hall
November 17, 2021
Register here.
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CONTACT US Healthcare Leadership Council 750 9th St. NW Suite 500 Washington, DC 20001
Vizient Initiative Succeeding in Preventing Drug Shortages
Vizient, a leading healthcare performance improvement company, launched a program in 2020, to protect against shortages of essential medications in the event of supply chain disruptions. That initiative, the Novaplus Enhanced Supply Program, has brought 100 million additional units of essential medications, many of them used to treat life-threatening illnesses, to the supply chain.
This program has already proven critical during the COVID-19 pandemic when demand for the sedative propofol, used to treat COVID patients on ventilators, spiked over 270 percent in the spring of 2020. The Vizient program enabled 676,000 units of the sedative to enter the market to meet that demand.
Dan Kistner, group senior vice president, pharmacy solutions for Vizient said, "The impact of 100 million additional units of onshore inventory cannot be understated, especially considering the current challenges of the nation's supply chain. Patients can't survive without certain life-saving medicines, and hospitals and pharmaceutical suppliers are coming together under this program to protect them from potential supply chain disruptions."
Cleveland Clinic Launches First-Of-Its-Kind Breast Cancer Vaccine Study
Cleveland Clinic researchers have begun a novel study for a vaccine aimed at eventually preventing triple-negative breast cancer, the most aggressive and lethal form of cancer. Vincent Tuohy, Ph.D., staff immunologist at Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute is the primary inventor of the vaccine, which he called "a potential new way to control breast cancer."
The Phase I trial will determine the maximum tolerated dose of the vaccine in patients with early-stage triple-negative breast cancer and characterize and optimize the body's immune response. Triple-negative breast cancer does not have biological characteristics that typically respond to hormonal or targeted therapies. This type of cancer accounts for a disproportionately high percentage of breast cancer deaths and is twice as likely to afflict African-American women.
Thomas Budd, M.D. of Cleveland Clinic's Taussic Cancer Institute said, "Long term, we are hoping that this can be a true preventive vaccine that would be administered to healthy women to prevent them from developing triple-negative breast cancer, the form of breast cancer for which we have the least effective treatments."
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