Optum Labs Research Collaborative Strengthens Collective Resource Base Through Addition of Five Leading Organizations

From UnitedHealth Group:

Optum Labs Research Collaborative Strengthens Collective Resource Base Through Addition of Five Leading Organizations

• Addition of leading academic institutions and life sciences companies advances Optum Labs’ mission to improve health care delivery and patient outcomes
• A total of 20 organizations now actively collaborating on groundbreaking health care research initiatives

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Jan. 14, 2015) — 

Optum Labs, the collaborative research and innovation center co-founded by Optum and Mayo Clinic, announced the addition of five new collaborators committed to improving the quality and value of patient care:

• The Brown University School of Public Health
• Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
• MIT Sloan School of Management 
• Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation
• ResMed

“Our 20 diverse collaborators provide unique insights and perspectives to the growing number of research studies under way,” said Paul Bleicher, M.D., Ph.D., CEO of Optum Labs.  “These additional organizations bring a new level of depth and breadth to Optum Labs’ ability to make continued progress in collaborative research that enhances patient care.”

Launched in 2013, Optum Labs is the first open, collaborative research and innovation center designed to accelerate improvements in patient care and patient value. Its resources include a robust, de-identified health information database capable of linking both clinical and administrative claims information. Optum Labs brings together a community of health care organizations dedicated to improving patient care by sharing information assets, technologies, knowledge, tools and scientific expertise. Research is linked to the clinical environment through prototyping and testing in Optum and partners’ care settings, with a goal of achieving knowledge that improves health care delivery and patient outcomes.

Optum Labs participants have access to information resources, proprietary analytical tools and scientific expertise to help drive the discovery of new applications, testing of new care pathways and other opportunities to drive innovation in wellness and care delivery. 

About Optum LabsOptum Labs was established through a partnership between Optum, a leading information and technology-enabled health services business, and Mayo Clinic, a nonprofit worldwide leader in medical care, research, and education, as an open center for research and innovation. AARP, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization with a membership of more than 37 million individuals, joined the collaborative as Founding Consumer Advocate Organization in late 2013. Optum Labs brings together a community of partners dedicated to improving patient care by sharing information assets, technologies, knowledge tools, and scientific expertise. Research partners bring diverse perspectives to shared problems, and address questions that reflect patient care needs. Partners have access to in-depth and expansive de-identified clinical and claims data in an environment of innovative thinking and collaboration. Optum Labs is based in Cambridge, Mass. For more information, visitwww.optum.com/optumlabs, and follow Optum Labs on Twitter, @OptumLabs.

  Tags: Optum, Press Release, Innovation

Obamacare 2.0 open enrollment kicks off - Nov. 15, 2014

Wow...it seems healthcare.gov actually works this time.

Obamacare 2.0 opened for enrollment early Saturday morning with less fanfare and fewer glitches than a year ago. I was able to easily create an account and saw very few reports online of any problems signing in. Last year, the site crashed almost immediately.

Obamacare 2.0 open enrollment kicks off - Nov. 15, 2014

From GE:

GE Healthcare and Takeda Join Forces to Develop Therapeutic Drugs to Target Liver Diseases

November 11, 2014

  inShare11 

 

• Worldwide trends of aging populations and less healthy lifestyle habits, are contributing to the rise of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) 1
• More than 100 million people are estimated to be suffering from NAFLD (15% to 20% of the populations of advanced industrial nations) 2
• This alliance is key to enabling the early development of therapeutic drugs through the use of a minimally invasive diagnostic technology

Chalfont St. Giles, U.K., and Osaka, Japan, November 11, 2014 – GE Healthcare and Takeda Pharmaceutical Company announced that they have entered into an alliance agreement for research and development in the field of hepatic fibrosis, a key factor in the diagnosis and treatment of liver diseases.  This announcement coincides with AASLD, the 65th Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, held from 7-11 November in Boston, MA, USA.

Liver disease has almost no visible symptoms, and its progress is characterized by a hardening of the tissues due to fibrosis accompanying the inflammation of the liver and a worsening of symptoms due to cirrhosis. Amid such worldwide trends of recent years as the aging population and less healthy lifestyle habits, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has emerged as a type of metabolic syndrome.

Over the past couple of decades, NAFLD and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) have become the number one cause of liver disease in developed countries.1 The prevalence of NAFLD has doubled during the last 20 years, whereas the prevalence of other chronic liver diseases has remained stable or even decreased.  More recent data confirm that NAFLD and NASH play an equally important role in developing regions like the Middle East, Far East, Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America.2  Early diagnosis of hepatic fibrosis as well as the development of drugs to control the progression of liver disease has become important issues. 

According to the alliance agreement, GE Healthcare will provide Takeda with its diagnostic imaging technology for use to generate a liver stiffness map as part of the research and development work Takeda is conducting on liver diseases.  By optimizing the strengths of both companies in the alliance, the collaborative effort aims to help develop therapeutic drugs as well as new diagnostic technologies for liver diseases.

Currently, the diagnosis of hepatic fibrosis is most commonly conducted by a liver biopsy, in which a needle is inserted through the skin into the liver, a sample of which is then removed for measurement. With MR elastography commercialized by GE Healthcare, in use in the United States since 2009 and in Japan since 2012, it has become possible to measure the relative stiffness of liver tissues in a non-invasive manner. It is expected that this kind of GE Healthcare diagnostic technology will contribute to Takeda's efforts to develop innovative medicines.

“It gives me great pleasure to have been able to build this alliance with GE Healthcare to develop therapeutic drugs to treat liver diseases,” said Tadataka Yamada, Chief Medical & Scientific Officer at Takeda. “This alliance will assist efforts to develop new therapeutic options that ease the burden on the patient. Moving forward, we will continue to put the patient first and incorporate a wide range of innovations into the field of drug discovery.”

“It is extremely gratifying to me that, through this collaboration, our technologies will be of use in the development of treatments for the liver diseases that are of particular importance not just in Asia, but worldwide,” said Akihiko Kumagai, Chairman of GE Healthcare Japan with overall responsibility for liver disease programs. “We have been focusing efforts on developing technologies to help provide solutions for liver cancer. As one location in our global research and development network, Japan, whose strategy is to create solutions for an aging population, has been a driving force behind these efforts. Innovations by GE will continue to contribute to the health of people all around the world.”

# # #

Notes to the Editor:

About the agreement

Details about the terms of the agreement including financial stipulations are not being disclosed. The contract pertains to an alliance involving diagnoses in the development of therapeutic drugs for liver disease.

About MR elastography

MR elastography is a technology in which MRI is used to generate images depicting the elasticity of the body’s internal tissues based on pulses administered externally. The main characteristic of the technology is its ability to distinguish and differentiate by color the relative stiffness of tissue. Measurement data acquired from the region of interest (ROI) defined for an image reflect the relative stiffness (elasticity) of the liver. Clinically, the technology holds promise for potentially aiding in the assessment of liver disease amid the uptrend in liver disease accompanying the ongoing aging trend in Japan's population. For more details:http://www3.gehealthcare.com/en/products/categories/magnetic_resonance_imaging/pediatric_imaging/mr_touch

About GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services to meet the demand for increased access, enhanced quality and more affordable healthcare around the world.  GE (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter - great people and technologies taking on tough challenges. From medical imaging, software & IT, patient monitoring and diagnostics to drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies and performance improvement solutions, GE Healthcare helps medical professionals deliver great healthcare to their patients.

About Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited

Located in Osaka, Japan, Takeda is a research-based global company with its main focus on pharmaceuticals. As the largest pharmaceutical company in Japan and one of the global leaders of the industry, Takeda is committed to strive towards better health for people worldwide through leading innovation in medicine. Additional information about Takeda is available through its corporate website,www.takeda.com.

Media Contacts

Will Spiers
Global PR Director
GE Healthcare
+44 (0) 1494 545 278/ +44 (0) 7971 276757
william.spiers@ge.com

GE Healthcare Japan Corp.

Communications Department

Phone: +81-120-202-02

Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited

Corporate Communications Department (PR)

Phone: +81-3-3278-2037

----------------------------------------

1 http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/hepatic_and_biliary_disorders/fibrosis_and_cirrhosis/hepatic_fibrosis.html 

2http://www.worldgastroenterology.org/assets/export/userfiles/2012_NASH%20and%20NAFLD_Final_long.pd

Reach for the Stars Town Hall replay - YouTube

Video (34:36)



Reach for the Stars Town Hall replay - YouTube

GE Healthcare IT Showcases its Latest Innovations at HIMSS Singapore

Press release:

18 September 2012

GE Healthcare IT Showcases its Latest Innovations at HIMSS Singapore

• Integrated Products Give Comprehensive End to End Radiology Workflow Solution
• Accessibility is Key Theme of Innovations, with Access at the Touch of a Button
• Broad Portfolio Features Radiology, Cardiology, Perinatal, High Acuity Care and Service

SINGAPORE – 17 Sep 2012 – GE Healthcare IT, a division of General Electric Company, will be exhibiting regional firsts among its latest range of IT solutions at this year’s HIMSS AsiaPac12 Conference and Exhibition, from 17-19 September at the Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, on stand #527. Additionally, a full slate of Company experts will be featured as part of the AsiaPac12 conference speaker series.

At the expo, GE Healthcare IT will demonstrate how its broad portfolio is helping to fulfill the needs of its customers, in particular supporting the aim of providing patients with access to high quality healthcare in a cost effective and efficient way.

“The face of healthcare is changing and we are entering a time of ‘collaborative care’ which is a patient-driven, outcomes-driven method of delivering healthcare,” said Mitchell Silong, General Manager, GE Healthcare IT, Asia Pacific. “IT helps make this possible by linking together information from across the healthcare delivery system (inpatient, ambulatory, and home-based) to generate new insights that contribute to improved patient outcomes.”

A key theme running through GE Healthcare IT’s latest innovations is accessibility. Clinicians want to access all types of patient data at the touch of a button from anywhere at any time. In particular, they want to improve work flow and be able to share information and collaborate with other specialists to make clinical decisions more quickly.

“Our IT solutions connect data from across departments, the hospital enterprise and the region to provide a comprehensive view of the patient, and have been developed to give clinicians access to the right, quality information precisely when they need it,” continued Mr. Silong. “This is particularly significant in ASEAN where we are addressing the need for care in remote areas through tele-radiology. We believe moving data, rather than moving the patent is the most efficient way to allow access to the best care available, specifically for rural areas.”

Highlights of the company’s broad portfolio of technologies on display on the GE Healthcare IT stand include:

Radiology
• The GE Centricity* Radiology Information System (RIS), offering the latest generation of community-wide radiology workflow sharing capabilities
• A Web based PACS viewer for global reading across enterprises which is deeply integrated with RIS through a single user interface
• A four-level Vendor Neutral Archive which allows patient records from across different hospitals, to be consolidated and stored using industry standards
• A Clinical Patient Information Viewer which provides access and viewing of patient histories to multi-disciplinary teams throughout the patient’s health community
• Centricity Radiology Mobile Access (CRMA) allows clinicians and radiologists to quickly find images and reports through the AccessNow app, on their mobile device - iPhone, iPod, Touch, android Touch.

High Acuity Care
• The Centricity Perioperative software is highly adaptable management software to streamline workflow and help enhance patient care before, during and after surgery

Cardiology
• Launching for the first time in Asia, Centricity Cardiology Enterprise is a tightly interfaced cardiovascular IT solution that includes both CVIS (Cardiovascular Information System) and CVPACS (Cardiovascular Picture Archiving and Communications System) functionality, providing clinicians full access to a single comprehensive, web-based patient record.

Centricity Perinatal
• A clinical information system that integrates documentation and fetal surveillance to help clinicians deliver the best care to every mother and baby. From labor & delivery to the nursery or neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), the centricity perinatal software interfaces with multiple devices and systems to optimize ease of use and workflows.

GE Healthcare IT CMIO Mark Dente will participate in a panel discussion and presentation in the HIT X.O track. Dr. Dente’s presentation focuses on the shift in healthcare technologies and how the influx of Healthcare IT is impacting each person in a definite way. He’ll deliver his presentation on 18 September from 1400hr – 1430hr and twice on 19 September, from 1015 – 1045 and 1435 – 1520.

GE Healthcare IT Senior Engineer Chris Lindop is scheduled to present in the Interoperability Theater on Next Generation PACS and how it’s impacted by new and emerging global standards. Mr. Lindop is presenting twice on 18 September, 1130 – 1200 and 1630 – 1700, and again on 19 September from 1315-1345.

“In partnership with our Asia Pacific customers, GE Healthcare IT is constantly working to introduce workflow and connectivity solutions to meet their evolving requirements,” said Mr. Silong. “The range of solutions on display at HIMSS AsiaPac12 illustrates the breadth and depth of what we have to offer to help clinicians deliver better quality care for more patients at a lower cost.”

Ends

*Registered trademark of General Electric Company

NOTES TO EDITORS

About GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our broad expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, performance improvement and performance solutions services help our customers to deliver better care to more people around the world at a lower cost. In addition, we partner with healthcare leaders, striving to leverage the global policy change necessary to implement a successful shift to sustainable healthcare systems.

Our “healthymagination” vision for the future invites the world to join us on our journey as we continuously develop innovations focused on reducing costs, increasing access and improving quality around the world. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employees are committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com

For our latest news, please visit http://newsroom.gehealthcare.com

Advocate Health Care and GE Healthcare Join to Further Reduce Patient CT Radiation Dose

Press release:

06 September 2012

Advocate Health Care and GE Healthcare Join to Further Reduce Patient CT Radiation Dose

 

Oak Brook , Ill. — September 6, 2012 — Advocate Health Care, one of the nation's top health systems and the largest integrated health care system in the state of Illinois, and GE Healthcare, a national leader in low dose, high performance imaging, today announced a joint effort to help further reduce radiation dose in Computed Tomography (CT). The goal is to optimize care for patients needing imaging procedures and reduce radiation where possible without adversely impacting image quality. It’s one of the first announcements of the GE Blueprint for low dose, a comprehensive campaign in which GE Healthcare is working alongside leading U.S. health systems to further reduce radiation dose in CT imaging. Leaders from Advocate and GE Healthcare unveiled the Advocate-based GE Blueprint for low dose today during an event at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital.

“Advocate Health Care is committed to delivering the best health outcomes for our patients,” said John Anastos, D.O., chairman of radiology at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital. “By providing the best-in-class diagnostic capabilities, and leveraging advanced technologies to capture the highest-quality CT images, we ensure all of our patients receive the lowest possible radiation dose in each and every procedure.”

Advocate’s radiation dose reduction program includes a plan to install the GE DoseWatch software on all its diagnostic and radiation therapy CT scanners. The technology allows for precise management of dose data. Advocate will also participate in the American College of Radiology (ACR) Dose Index Registry (DIR). The national database allows CT facilities to compare their dose levels to other CT facilities across the country.

Additionally, Advocate will hold an annual radiation dose symposium designed to educate associates on the latest in CT technology, clinical protocols and best practices for radiation dose reduction. A CT Steering Committee will oversee and monitor the program’s effectiveness.

CT imaging is a critical tool in helping physicians diagnose disease and has positively impacted millions of lives. Historically, physicians have had to balance the desires for high image quality and low radiation dose levels in CT. Through ongoing collaboration with healthcare leaders including Advocate, GE is changing the equation in diagnostic imaging. Launched in June 2012, GE Blueprint offers a comprehensive approach based on an assessment of a health care provider’s technology, people and processes and helps identify breakthrough imaging technologies, system-specific solutions and processes, and comprehensive imaging “blueprints” to help providers achieve low-dose, high-definition diagnostic capabilities. Additionally, solutions such as DoseWatch*, a first-of-its-kind management tool, will further enable Advocate Health Care and other providers to measure, track and optimize patient radiation dose over time.

“GE Healthcare has long collaborated with healthcare providers as they work to continuously reduce radiation dose in CT imaging,” said Steve Gray, vice president and general manager for Computed Tomography at GE Healthcare. “Building upon our announcement last November to invest more than $800 million in the development of low-dose technologies over 15 years, GE Blueprint will help hospitals optimize imaging departments systemically and significantly.”

Leveraging a team of “Low Dose Architects,” GE Blueprint helps Advocate and other hospital systems assess their dose management programs, and collaborates on recommendations for end-to-end dose management, including staff education, process improvements, equipment assessments and CT technologies that can enable low-dose, high-definition imaging.

For more information, please visit www.gehealthcare.com/GEBlueprint.

* Trademark of General Electric Company

ABOUT ADVOCATE HEALTH CARE
Advocate Health Care, named among the nation’s top health systems, is the largest health system in Illinois and one of the largest health care providers in the Midwest. Advocate operates more than 250 sites of care, including 10 acute care hospitals, two integrated children’s hospitals, five Level I trauma centers (the state’s highest designation in trauma care), two Level II trauma centers, one of the area’s largest home health care companies and one of the region’s largest medical groups. Advocate Health Care trains more primary care physicians and residents at its four teaching hospitals than any other health system in the state. As a not-for-profit, mission-based health system affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Church of Christ, Advocate contributed $571 million in charitable care and services to communities across Chicagoland and Central Illinois in 2011.

ABOUT GE HEALTHCARE
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our broad expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, performance improvement and performance solutions services help our customers to deliver better care to more people around the world at a lower cost. In addition, we partner with healthcare leaders, striving to leverage the global policy change necessary to implement a successful shift to sustainable healthcare systems.

Our “healthymagination” vision for the future invites the world to join us on our journey as we continuously develop innovations focused on reducing costs, increasing access and improving quality around the world. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employees are committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com.

For our latest news, please visit http://newsroom.gehealthcare.com.

GE Healthcare launches modular biopharmaceutical factory, KUBio

Press release:

04 September 2012

GE Healthcare launches modular biopharmaceutical factory, KUBio

 

Innovative approach will save biopharmaceutical manufacturers time and money

Chalfont St Giles, UK – 4 September 2012 – GE Healthcare, the healthcare business of GE (NYSE: GE), today introduced KUBio^TM, an innovative off-the-shelf, modular factory designed to save manufacturers of biopharmaceuticals both time and money. KUBio’s pre-made modules, which are assembled at a customer’s chosen site to make a fully functional ready-to-run bioprocessing facility, are significantly faster to install than constructing a traditional factory. The modules are equipped with GE Healthcare’s world-class technologies for the start-to-finish manufacture of biopharmaceuticals.

Worldwide demand for biopharmaceuticals - such as antibodies for the treatment of cancer and rheumatoid arthritis, as well as the new generation of innovative vaccines - is increasing dramatically, driven by the global ageing population, rising obesity levels and the global effort to reduce the incidence of vaccine preventable diseases. KUBio will help manufacturers to respond to local healthcare needs and bring these potentially life-saving treatments to market more quickly.

KUBio is a fully functional off-the-shelf bioprocessing facility specifically designed to meet cGMP requirements while optimizing manufacturing flexibility and productivity. The 1200m² facility is pre-fabricated and delivered with a complete ready-to-use production line, based on GE Healthcare’s Ready-to-Process^TM single-use technologies. With a total planning, delivery and construction time of 14-18 months, compared to the traditional 24 -36 months, both time-to-market and level of capital investment are significantly reduced. The first modular facilities to be introduced will be configured for the manufacture of monoclonal antibodies. GE Healthcare also plans to introduce modules for the manufacture of other biopharmaceuticals.

“KUBio is a totally new approach to the manufacture of biopharmaceuticals, bringing our customers a greatly simplified way to build their production capacity,” said Olivier Loeillot, General Manager of Enterprise Solutions, GE Healthcare Life Sciences. “With KUBio our customers will be able to cut months off the typical construction time, and greatly streamline the whole construction process. We’re already seeing interest from a wide range of customers, from governments wanting to develop in-country manufacturing capability right through to pharmaceutical companies wanting to expand production capacity in new locations. KUBio is an industry game-changer that will help them do just that.”

The introduction of KUBio expands GE Healthcare’s broad offering of world-class tools, technologies and services for the biopharmaceutical manufacturing industry, allowing customers to benefit from a wide range of solutions that can be tailored to meet specific needs, from pilot to commercial scale. GE Healthcare’s start-to-finish technologies and services include Fast Trak training, PAA cell culture media, ReadyToProcess single use technologies, specialist purification media and Xcellerex biomanufacturing systems. KUBio aligns with GE’s healthymagination initiative which focuses on reducing cost, increasing access and improving quality in healthcare.

To see a video of KUBio click here

About GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our broad expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, performance improvement and performance solutions services help our customers to deliver better care to more people around the world at a lower cost. In addition, we partner with healthcare leaders, striving to leverage the global policy change necessary to implement a successful shift to sustainable healthcare systems.

Our “healthymagination” vision for the future invites the world to join us on our journey as we continuously develop innovations focused on reducing costs, increasing access and improving quality around the world. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employees are committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries.  For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com.

For our latest news, please visithttp://newsroom.gehealthcare.com/http://newsroom.gehealthcare.com

GE healthymagination Fund Joins Leading Investor OrbiMed in $20 Million Series B Financing Round for Ornim, Inc.

Press release:

21 August 2012

GE healthymagination Fund Joins Leading Investor OrbiMed in $20 Million Series B Financing Round for Ornim, Inc.

 

MILWAUKEE & HERZLIYA & LOD, Israel--21 August 2012-- GE (NYSE: GE), together with OrbiMed Israel and Ornim, Inc., announced today a $20 million investment in Ornim, Inc., a developer of the CerOx™ monitor that non-invasively monitors blood flow and oxygen saturation in brain and muscle tissue.

OrbiMed is a leading investment firm dedicated to building world-class biopharmaceutical and medical technology companies. The investment in Ornim, Inc., is being made through OrbiMed Israel Partners Limited Partnership, OrbiMed's investment fund in Israel, which focuses on Israeli life science investments.

GE’s investment is being made through the GE healthymagination Fund, an equity fund that makes investments in highly promising healthcare technology companies and is jointly managed by GE Capital and GE Healthcare, GE’s financial services and healthcare divisions, respectively. In addition to their financial investment, Ornim and GE Healthcare will be exploring development of potential strategic relationship as part of a broader collaboration.

Maintaining adequate blood flow and oxygenation are primary clinical goals for critical care patients. However, today, a full measurement is only achievable using multiple, often invasive devices. There is a strong clinical need to provide accurate, multi-parameter, continuous monitoring of blood flow and oxygenation in the brain that is both non-invasive and cost-effective.

By using near-infrared spectroscopy combined with ultrasound waves, Ornim’s CerOx is a United States Food & Drug Administration (FDA)-cleared device that enables clinicians to monitor two critical parameters in adult patients: regional hemoglobin oxygen saturation in the brain or in a region of skeletal muscle tissue beneath the CerOx sensor and microcirculation blood flow in tissue. It is also the only device that does so in tandem.

The investment was made as part of a Series B financing round that was led by OrbiMed and that also included Agate Medical Investment LP’s Agate-MAC Fund. The financing will be used for further development, clinical studies, international marketing and commercialization of Ornim’s CerOx monitor. The financial terms of the investment were not disclosed.

“The decision to invest in Ornim was based on the growing realization that there is a crucial need to monitor vital organs (such as the brain) during a variety of medical procedures,” said Dr. Nissim Darvish, Senior Managing Director of OrbiMed. “The uniqueness of Ornim’s technology results from its ability to monitor in real time oxygen saturation in brain tissue, along with microcirculation blood flow. The potential market of this technology is very large, and the current solutions are not adequate. This potential, along with a very professional and experienced team, could allow the company to become a world leader in its field.”

Ornim also announced today the appointment of Mr. Israel Schreiber as the company’s new CEO. Mr. Schreiber has more than 20 years of managerial experience in the medical device industry both in Israel and in the United States. He served as the CEO of Itamar Medical and, most recently, as the CEO of ITGI Medical.

“The investment announced today will enable Ornim to accelerate product development and promote the introduction of the CerOx™ monitor to the international market,” said Schreiber. “The relationship with GE, a world leader in patient monitoring, alongside OrbiMed, one of the largest healthcare venture capital fund managers, provides important benefits, including an in-depth understanding of the market as well as vast operational and marketing experience.”

The investment also is aligned with GE Healthcare’s expanding focus on patient monitoring solutions that can improve healthcare globally, as well as GE’s broader healthymagination initiative, which focuses on reducing cost, increasing patient access and improving quality in healthcare.

“Ornim’s technology is not only innovative but it presents great promise to better monitor patients in a critical care setting, providing additional information to aid clinicians in the care of their patients,” said Thierry Leclercq, General Manager, GE Healthcare Systems Life Care Solutions.

"Ornim is Agate-MAC’s first investment in an Israeli subsidiary,” said Agate-MAC Fund Managing Partner Michel Habib. “We chose to invest because Ornim Medical has developed a market-changing technology that will dramatically improve the ability of the intensivist to monitor the brain condition of patients in critical care procedures, non-invasively.”

Ornim plans to launch the CerOx™ monitor – which also has received CE marking – in the U.S. and European markets within the next 18 months.

About Ornim, Inc.

Ornim, Inc., through its fully owned subsidiary Ornim Medical Ltd., is bringing to market the CerOx™ monitor, both FDA-cleared and CE marked device that, using near infrared light and ultrasound waves, continuously, non-invasively and in tandem, monitors two critical parameters in adult patients: regional hemoglobin oxygen saturation in the brain or in regions of skeletal muscle tissue beneath the sensor and microcirculation blood flow in tissue. It is the only solution that offers measurement of this combination. Ornim anticipates that the combined measurement of oxygen saturation and blood flow will become essential during every medical procedure done under general anesthesia, for monitoring brain-injured patients, and during resuscitation. The CerOx monitor is designed for use in a variety of clinical settings including the operating room and the intensive care unit.

Ornim Medical, based in Lod, Israel, was founded in 2004 by Dr. Revital Shechter and Dr. Michal Balberg and is a fully owned subsidiary of Ornim, Inc., a Delaware Corporation. Mr. Israel Schreiber is Ornim Medical’s new CEO. Dr. Shechter is the company’s president and VP of R&D. Dr. Balberg is the company’s chief technology officer and Dr. Moshe Kamar is the company’s VP of medical affairs. Its proprietary technology is protected by 5 issued United States patents and numerous worldwide patent applications.www.ornim.com

About OrbiMed

OrbiMed is a leading investment firm dedicated exclusively to the life sciences sector, with approximately $6 billion in assets under management. OrbiMed invests across the entire spectrum of pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies on a worldwide basis. Investments are made through venture capital funds, public equity funds, and other investment vehicles.

Since inception of its venture capital activities in 1993, OrbiMed has partnered with over 100 companies across a wide range of therapeutic categories and stages of development. OrbiMed’s investment team includes over 40 experienced investment professionals with offices in New York City, Tel Aviv, San Francisco, Shanghai and Mumbai. Recently OrbiMed launched OrbiMed Israel Partners Limited Partnership, a $222 million fund dedicated to Israeli life science investments. As the largest investment firm dedicated to the healthcare sector by net assets under management, OrbiMed seeks to be a capital provider of choice, bringing the global resources required to be an exceptional long term partner for building world-class biopharmaceutical and medical technology companies. www.OrbiMed.com.

About Agate Medical Investments LP

Agate Medical Investments LP is a group of funds founded by Dani Naveh, specialized in providing growth capital to mature Medtech companies. Agate, as one of Israel's leading healthcare investors, has established a leading position in the healthcare VC industry, resulting in quality deal-flow and investor partnerships. Since its formation in late 2007, Agate I has invested in 9 promising companies. Agate II was established in February 2012, for Korea-Israel MedTech investments, under partnership in the MAC fund.www.agate-invest.com

About the GE healthymagination Fund

The GE healthymagination Fund is part of GE’s $6 billion healthymagination initiative, a global commitment to deliver better healthcare to more people at lower cost. The Fund targets three broad areas for investment: Broad-based diagnostics, Healthcare Information Technology, and Life Sciences. The Fund draws on capabilities from across GE Healthcare, GE Capital and GE Global Research, and has a global footprint. For further information about the fund, visit www.healthymaginationfund.com.

About GE Capital

GE Capital offers consumers and businesses around the globe an array of financial products and services. For more information, visitwww.gecapital.com or follow company news via Twitter (@GECapital).

About GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our broad expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, performance improvement and performance solutions services help our customers to deliver better care to more people around the world at a lower cost. In addition, we partner with healthcare leaders, striving to leverage the global policy change necessary to implement a successful shift to sustainable healthcare systems.

Our “healthymagination” vision for the future invites the world to join us on our journey as we continuously develop innovations focused on reducing costs, increasing access and improving quality around the world. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employees are committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com.

Investors in Health Care Seem to Bet on Incumbent

The following is an excerpt from an article in 

The New York Times
Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Investors in Health Care Seem to Bet on Incumbent

By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN

Who is going to win the presidential election?

You might want to ask Mark T. Bertolini. He just bet $5.7 billion on President Obama.

Mr. Bertolini is the chief executive of Aetna, which on Monday agreed to acquire Coventry Health Care, a huge provider of Medicare and Medicaid programs. His $5.7 billion bet makes a lot of sense if you believe that the Affordable Care Act - otherwise known as Obamacare - will not be repealed.

Mitt Romney has pledged to repeal the act "on my first day if elected," so any gamble that Obamacare stays intact could be fairly described as a wager that President Obama will remain in office.

At a time when so many in the business community appear to be supporting Mr. Romney, it is telling that some businessmen and investors expect a different result - and are wagering more than rhetoric; they are staking their wallet on it.

It may be counterintuitive, but with the Standard & Poor's 500 up 9.5 percent in the last three months and the stock market over all at its highest point since the financial crisis, there is an argument to be made that investors writ large may be helping the incumbent to win. Intrade, an online market that allows investors to bet on political outcomes and other world events, shows that President Obama is favored to win, 57.3 percent to 42 percent.

For more, visit www.nytimes.com.

HCA, Giant Hospital Chain, Creates a Windfall for Private Equity

The following is an excerpt from an article in 

The New York Times
Wednesday, August 15, 2012

HCA, Giant Hospital Chain, Creates a Windfall for Private Equity

By JULIE CRESWELL and REED ABELSON

During the Great Recession, when many hospitals across the country were nearly brought to their knees by growing numbers of uninsured patients, one hospital system not only survived — it thrived.

In fact, profits at the health care industry giant HCA, which controls 163 hospitals from New Hampshire to California, have soared, far outpacing those of most of its competitors.

The big winners have been three private equity firms — including Bain Capital, co-founded by Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate — that bought HCA in late 2006.

HCA’s robust profit growth has raised the value of the firms’ holdings to nearly three and a half times their initial investment in the $33 billion deal.

The financial performance has been so impressive that HCA has become a model for the industry. Its success inspired 35 buyouts of hospitals or chains of facilities in the last two and a half years by private equity firms eager to repeat that windfall.

HCA’s emergence as a powerful leader in the hospital industry is all the more remarkable because only a decade ago the company was badly shaken by a wide-ranging Medicare fraud investigation that it eventually settled for more than $1.7 billion.

Among the secrets to HCA’s success: It figured out how to get more revenue from private insurance companies, patients and Medicare by billing much more aggressively for its services than ever before; it found ways to reduce emergency room overcrowding and expenses; and it experimented with new ways to reduce the cost of its medical staff, a move that sometimes led to conflicts with doctors and nurses over concerns about patient care.

In late 2008, for instance, HCA changed the billing codes it assigned to sick and injured patients who came into the emergency rooms. Almost overnight, the numbers of patients who HCA said needed more care, which would be paid for at significantly higher levels by Medicare, surged.

HCA, which had lagged the industry for those high-paying categories, jumped ahead of its competitors and was reimbursed accordingly. The change, which HCA’s executives said better reflected the service being provided, increased operating earnings by nearly $100 million in the first quarter of 2009.

To some, HCA successfully pushed the envelope in its interpretation of existing Medicare rules. “If HCA can do it, why can’t we?” asked a hospital consulting firm, the Advisory Board Company, in a presentation to its clients.

In one instance, HCA executives said a private insurer, which it declined to name, questioned the new billing system, forcing it to return some of the money it had collected.

The hospital giant also adopted a policy meant to address an issue that bedevils hospitals nationwide — reducing costs and overcrowding in its emergency rooms. For years, the hospital emergency room has been used by the uninsured as a de facto doctor’s office — a place for even the most minor of ailments. But emergency care is expensive and has become increasingly burdensome to hospitals in the last decade because of the rising number of uninsured patients.

HCA decided not to treat patients who came in with nonurgent conditions, like a cold or the flu or even a sprained wrist, unless those patients paid in advance. In a recent statement, HCA said that of the six million patients treated in its emergency rooms last year, 80,000, or about 1.3 percent, “ chose to seek alternative care options.”

“Many E.R.’s in America, particularly in densely populated urban areas where most HCA-affiliated facilities are located, have adopted a variety of systems to determine whether a patient in fact needs emergency care,” the statement said. “About half our hospitals have done so. Typically, our affiliated hospitals have two caregivers — usually a triage nurse and a physician — make that determination. It should be noted that other non-HCA affiliated hospitals are using similar processes to address E.R. issues.”

As HCA’s profits and influence grew, strains arose with doctors and nurses over whether the chain’s pursuit of profit may have, at times, come at the expense of patient care.

HCA had put in place a flexible staffing system that allowed it to estimate the number of patients it would have each day in its hospitals and alter the number of nurses it needed accordingly.

Several nurses interviewed said they were concerned that the system sometimes had led to inadequate staffing in important areas like critical care. In one measure of adequate staffing — the prevalence of bedsores in patients bedridden for long periods of time — HCA clearly struggled. Some of its hospitals fended off lawsuits over the problem in recent years, and were admonished by regulators over staffing issues more than once.

For more, visit www.nytimes.com.