#18 SVB’s healthtech cemetery 🪦
#18 SVB’s healthtech cemetery 🪦
Also: Ozempic is backkkk, TV drug ads & calendar intercourses.
Rise and shine healthcare lovers. Today’s newsletter is 500 words long, or a 2 minute read.
Think about it 💡
🏦 Ouch. We mentioned before in passing the teensy funding shortage that has plagued the healthcare sector for a bit now. In the wake of SVB's historic collapse and its parent company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, that crunch is about to get a wee tighter. According to SVB's Q4 financial data, 12% of the bank's $173 billion in deposits came from life sciences and healthcare - which is quite a lot of 💰. While the FDIC has pledged to compensate all of SVB's depositors, investors and advisors are suggesting portfolio companies brace for impact - and the drought ahead.
💊 They may take my screen time but not my diabetes meds. Update on another ongoing saga: Ozempic, Novo Nordisk's best-selling diabetes drug, is finally back on U.S. shelves after months of shortages. In February, the company had cautioned about supply constraints on the drug this year, with sales reaching $8.56 billion in 2022. The recent surge in demand for Ozempic has been partly fueled by prescriptions for non-diabetic patients - in particular people seeking to lose weight (not the approved indication for the drug), a trend popularised by social media (which trend isn’t).
Bad ads 📺
💵 Pharma companies spent $7 billion on advertising last year in the U.S., with most of that handsome budget going to TV ads. Yet people seem to hate TV ads for drugs. Many reasons for this: overbearing amounts, unbearable and terrifying enumerations of side effects, untimely advertising for erectile dysfunction meds during family movie time...
💡But are these ads really that bad? A recent article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) concluded that in 2020, more money was spent on ads for drugs with less added benefit. Eric Topol even tweeted a fairly straightforward conclusion:
🤷♀️ Some draw other conclusions, arguing that the literature on D2C advertising suggests that it actually increases patient-doctor engagement, use of valuable medications, adherence to treatment, and productivity.
So the answer is, we don't really know.
Neat News 🗞️
👩 New investments in Iron Health, Tia and Kindbody mark continued momentum in women's health. Neat.
🧠 Cognito Therapeutics raised $73M Series B to advance neurotechnology platform for Alzheimer's disease. Super neat.
💸 Jonathan Bush's Zus Health scored $40M and announced partnership with Elation Health. Very neat.
Clean Content 🧼
🏅 Meet the 10 most innovative healthcare companies in 2023, and not one more.
💼 Five trends driving purchasing decisions in Healthcare IT.
😶🌫️ Can AI treat mental illness? That is the (complicated) question.
This is what you came for 🍑
🗓️ New research suggests swapping spur of the moment carnal bliss for timely calendar sync isn’t a terrible idea. A recent study published in The Journal of Sex Research found that even though participants do not absolutely abhor the idea of spontaneous intercourse, there turns out to be no difference in their reported satisfaction - whether said intercourse was planned or unplanned. Send out your invites.
Byeeee,