She found Forbes face down in the street in August 2023, two weeks before he had planned to move away from the empty storefronts, boarded-up houses, and poverty that make this one of the most troubled places in the nation.

Naketra Guy thought about how her son overcame losing his father at age 4 and was the glue of the family. She called him “humble” and “respectful,” a leader in the community and on the football field, where he shined.

Yet he could not outrun the grim statistics of his hometown. Bogalusa posts some of the worst health outcomes and poverty in Louisiana, a state that routinely ranks among the worst nationally in both. And Bogalusa has endured another indicator of poor public health: high levels of gun violence.

Since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, gun violence has shattered any sense of peace or progress here. Louisiana suffers the nation’s second-highest firearm death rate — and Bogalusa, a predominantly Black community with 10,000 residents, has seen dozens of shootings and a violent crime rate approaching twice the national average.

A nearby team refused to play football at Bogalusa High School in fall 2022, citing safety concerns.

Bogalusa’s mayor, Tyrin Truong, was elected in 2022 at age 23 on his promises to fix entrenched challenges: few youth programs and good jobs, and perpetual crime and blight.

“I ran for mayor because I got sick of seeing our city painted as mini-New Orleans,” he said, “due to the high levels of youth gun violence.”

In January, the Louisiana State Police arrested Truong, accusing him of soliciting a prostitute and participating in a drug trafficking ring that allegedly used illicit proceeds to buy firearms. He has said he is innocent. “I still haven’t been formally arraigned,” he told KFF Health News in late July, “and I haven’t been charged with anything.”

Every year tens of thousands of Americans — one every few minutes — are killed by gun violence on the scale of a public health epidemic.

Many thousands more are left to recover from severe injuries, crushing medical debt, and the mental health toll of losing loved ones.

Most headlines focus on America’s urban centers, but the numbers also reflect the growth of gun violence in places like Bogalusa, a pinprick of a town 75 miles north of New Orleans. In 2020, the gun violence death rate for rural communities was 40% higher than in large metropolitan areas, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Firearms are the No. 1 killer of children in the U.S., and no group suffers more than young Black people. More Black boys and men ages 15 to 24 in 2023 were killed in gun homicides than from the next 15 leading causes of deaths combined. Though overall U.S. homicides dropped sharply after the pandemic ended, adolescent gun deaths climbed even higher in the years after, according to research by Jonathan Jay, an associate professor in the School of Public Health at Boston University.

“It has all the markers of an epidemic. It is a major driver of death and disability,” Jay said. “Gun violence does not get the attention it deserves. It is underrecognized because it disproportionately impacts Black and brown people.”

Rather than bolstering efforts to save lives, federal, state, and local government officials have undermined them. KFF Health News undertook an examination of gun violence since the pandemic, a period when firearm death rates surged. Reporters reviewed government reports and academic research and interviewed dozens of health policy experts, activists, and victims or their relatives. They reviewed corporate earnings reports from gun manufacturers and data on the industry’s donations to politicians.

In polling published in 2023 by KFF, more than half of Americans said they or a family member had been impacted by gun violence such as by seeing a shooting or being threatened, injured, or killed with a gun.

American politicians and regulators have put in place laws and practices that have helped enrich firearm and ammunition manufacturers — which tout $91 billion in economic impact — even as gun violence has terrorized neighborhoods already damaged by white flight, systemic disinvestment, and other forms of racial discrimination.

President Donald Trump championed gun rights on the campaign trail and has received millions from the National Rifle Association, to whose members he promised, “No one will lay a finger on your firearms.” His administration has rolled back efforts under President Joe Biden to address the rise in gun violence.

Emboldened in his second term, Trump is pushing to allow more guns in schools, weaken federal oversight of the gun industry, override state and local gun laws, permit sales without background checks, and cut funding for violence intervention.

Trump ordered the attorney general to review all Biden administration actions that “purport to promote safety but may have impinged on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.”

The Biden administration said “a historic spike in homicides” during the pandemic took its greatest toll on racially segregated and high-poverty neighborhoods.

Black youths in four major cities were 100 times as likely as white ones to experience a firearm assault, research showed. Gun suicides reached an all-time high, and for the first time the firearm suicide rate among older Black teens surpassed that of older white teens.

In Bogalusa, the pandemic gun violence spread fear. Among the victims killed were a 15-year-old attending a birthday party and a 24-year-old nationally known musician. Thirteen people were injured at a memorial for a man who himself had been shot. Residents said neighbors stopped sitting in their yards because of stray bullets.

Researchers say communities like Bogalusa endure a collective trauma that shatters their sense of safety. Two years after Forbes’ death, his mother says that when she leaves home her surviving children worry that she, too, might get shot.

Repercussions from the surge will last years, researchers said: Exposure to shootings increases risk for post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, suicide, depression, substance abuse, and poor school performance for survivors and those who live near them.

“We saw gun violence exposure go up for every group of children except white children, in the cities we studied,” Jay said. “Limits on government funding into gun violence research may stop us from ever knowing exactly why.”

Politics of Pain

The year before Forbes died in Bogalusa, Biden signed into law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, considered the most sweeping firearm legislation in decades.

In a matter of months, Trump has systematically dismantled key provisions.

Efforts to regulate guns have long proven ineffective against the power of political and business interests that fill the streets with weapons. In 2020, the number of guns manufactured annually in the U.S. hit 11.3 million, more than double a decade earlier, according to the federal government. In 2022, the United States had nearly 78,000 licensed gun dealers, more than its combined number of McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, and Subway locations, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy group.

The Biden administration announced in 2021 it would attempt to reduce gun violence by adopting a “zero tolerance” policy toward firearm dealers who committed violations such as failing to run a required background check or selling to someone prohibited from buying a gun.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, which licenses gun dealers, has the authority to enforce laws meant to prevent illegal gun sales. In issuing an executive order, the Trump administration declared that, under Biden, the agency targeted “mom-and-pop shop small businesses who made innocent paperwork errors.”

From October 2010 to February 2022, the agency conducted more than 111,000 inspections, recommending revocation of a dealer’s license only 589 times, about 0.5% of cases, an inspector general’s report said. Even when it cited serious violations, the ATF rarely shut dealers down.

ATF leaders told the inspector general’s office that recommendations for license revocations increased after Biden’s zero-tolerance policy was implemented. In April, the Trump administration repealed it.

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy last year declared firearm violence a public health crisis. Within weeks of Trump’s inauguration, his administration removed the advisory. Of the 15 leading U.S. causes of death, firearm injuries received less research funding from the National Institutes of Health for each person who died than all but poisoning and falls, according to an analysis in 2024 by Brady, an anti-gun violence organization. Trump is trying to cut that funding, too.

Trump’s Department of Justice abruptly cut 373 grants in April for projects worth about $820 million, with a large share from gun violence intervention.

“We are going to lose a generation of community violence prevention folks,” said Volkan Topalli, a gun violence researcher at Georgia State University. “People are going to die, I’m sorry to say, but that is the bleak truth of this.”

Asked about its policies, the White House did not address questions about public health considerations around gun violence.

“Illegal violence of any sort is a crime issue, and President Trump has been clear since Day One that he is committed to Making America Safe Again by empowering law enforcement to uphold law and order,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said.

Trump administration officials “want safer streets and less violence,” Topalli said. “They are hurting their cause.”

Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine professor who directs the violence prevention program at the University of California-Davis, was among the first in the nation to consider guns and violence as a public health issue. He said race plays a significant role in perceptions about gun violence.

“People look at the demographic risk for firearm homicide and depending on the demographics of the people in the audience, I can see the transformation in their faces,” Wintemute said. “It’s like they’re saying, ‘Not my people, not my problem.’”

Eroding Gun Restrictions

Trump’s incursions against public health efforts to contain gun violence are backed by lobbying power.

Firearm industry advocacy groups made millions of dollars in political donations in recent years, mostly to conservative causes and Republican candidates. That includes $1.4 million to Trump, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks campaign finance data.

The assassination of civil rights icon the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. helped lead to the passage of the federal Gun Control Act of 1968, which imposed stricter licensing rules and outlawed the sale of firearms and ammunition to felons.

While it remains the law of the land, over time, federal and state government actions have significantly weakened its protections.

Most states now allow people to carry concealed weapons without a permit or background check, even though research suggests the practice can increase the risk of firearm homicides.

In Louisiana, Democratic former Gov. John Bel Edwards, in office from 2016 to 2024, vetoed a bill that would have allowed people to carry concealed firearms without a permit.

Elected in 2023, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed a law to allow any person over age 18 to conceal-carry without a permit.

The Trump administration has created a task force to implement his executive order to end most gun regulations and which would allow more people with criminal convictions, including for domestic abuse, to own guns.

Figures vary, but some researchers estimate as many as 500 million guns circulate in the U.S. Sales reached record highs during the pandemic and publicly traded firearm and ammunition companies saw profits jump.

Donald Trump Jr. this summer joined the board of GrabAGun, an online gun retailer that went public in July under the stock ticker PEW. In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the company, which markets guns to people ages 18 to 44, cited “gun violence prevention and legislative advocacy organizations that oppose sales of firearms and ammunition” as threats to its sales growth.

Dave Workman, a gun rights advocate with the Second Amendment Foundation, said firearms are not to blame for the surge in pandemic shootings.

“Bad guys are going to do what bad guys are going to do regardless of the law,” Workman said. “Taking away gun rights is not going to reduce crime.”

David Yamane, a Wake Forest University sociology professor and national authority on guns, said the U.S. firearm debate is complex and the industry is often “painted with too broad a brush.”

Most guns will never be used to kill anyone, he said. Americans tend to buy more guns during times of unrest, Yamane added: “It’s part of the American tradition. Guns are seen as a legitimate tool for defending yourself.”

‘A Low Level of Hope’

Once called “the Magic City,” Bogalusa has become a grim symbol of deindustrialization.

Bogalusa emerged as Black people formed their own communities in the time of Jim Crow racial segregation at the turn of the 20th century.

Racism concentrated Black people in neighborhoods that became epicenters of poor health, reflected in high rates of cancer, asthma, chronic stress, preterm births, pregnancy-related complications — and, over recent decades, firearm violence.

Thousands flocked to Bogalusa after the Great Southern Lumber Company built one of the world’s biggest sawmills, establishing Bogalusa as a company town. Racial tensions soon followed.

Members of the local Deacons for Defense and Justice gained national attention in the 1960s for protecting civil rights organizers from the Ku Klux Klan, a hate group that burned houses and churches, terrorizing and killing Black people.

As the mill changed hands over the decades, Bogalusa’s fortunes slid. In the mid-20th century, the population surpassed 20,000, but it is now about half that.

International Paper, a Fortune 500 company based in Tennessee, runs the mill as a containerboard factory, employing about 650 people. In 2021, the state announced incentives for the company that included a $500,000 tax break, saying the move would help bring “prosperity.”

Businesses remain boarded up along the main drag. Houses still bear damage from Hurricane Katrina, and many streets are eerily quiet.

Nearly 1 in 3 people in Bogalusa live in poverty — 2½ times the national average.

Bogalusa’s violent gun crime rate reached 646.1 per 100,000 people in 2022, higher than Louisiana’s and 1.7 times the national one, according to the nonprofit Equal Justice USA, citing FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data.

In many rural towns across the South, “there is a level of desperation that is more apparent” than in other parts of the U.S., said Luke Shaefer, a University of Michigan professor of social justice and public policy.

“They don’t have the same infrastructure to have robust social services. People are like, ‘What are my life chances?’” Shaefer said. “People feel like there is nothing that can be done. There is a low level of hope.”

Missed Opportunities

Mayor Truong lamented the violence in Bogalusa after Forbes was killed, writing on Facebook, “When are we as a community going to come together and decide enough is enough?”

The federal government had offered one path forward.

The Biden administration provided billions of dollars to local governments through the American Rescue Plan Act during the pandemic. Biden urged them to deploy money to community violence intervention programs, shown to reduce homicides by as much as 60%.

A handful of cities seized the opportunity, but most did not. Bogalusa has received $4.25 million in ARPA funds since 2021. None appears to have gone toward violence prevention.

The Louisiana legislative auditor, Michael Waguespack, found that Bogalusa used nearly $500,000 for employee bonuses, which his report said may have violated state law. In some cases, the report says, payments were not tied to work performed.

Bogalusa officials did not respond to a public records request from KFF Health News seeking detailed information about its ARPA money.

Former Mayor Wendy O’Quin-Perrette, who served from 2015 through early 2023, told Waguespack in a June 2024 letter that the city used ARPA money to improve streets and pay the bonuses. “We would not have done it without being sure it was allowed,” she said.

O’Quin-Perrette did not respond to requests for comment.

In a 2023 letter to Waguespack, O’Quin-Perrette’s successor, Truong, wrote that Bogalusa officials didn’t know how the federal money was spent. When he took office, Truong alleged, officials discovered “tens of thousands of dollars of checks and cash” stashed “in various drawers and on desks” in city offices.

Truong defended his stewardship of ARPA funds, saying that about $1 million remained when he assumed office but that the money was needed for more urgent sewer infrastructure repairs. “I wish we could have invested more, invested any money in gun violence prevention efforts,” he said.

In an interview, Truong said the city has been “intentional” about bringing down gun violence, including through a summer jobs program. He pointed to statistics that show homicides decreased from nine in 2022 to two in 2024. “If you keep them busy, they won’t have time to do anything else,” he said.

Asked about his January arrest, Truong said he has political enemies.

“I’m the only Democrat in a very red part of the state, and, you know, I’ve made a lot of changes at City Hall, and that ticks people off,” Truong told KFF Health News. He said that he ended long-standing city contracts with local businesspeople. “When you’re shaking up power structures, you become a target.”

Josie Alexander, a Louisiana-based senior strategist for Equal Justice USA, said city officials missed an opportunity when they didn’t use ARPA funds for gun violence prevention. “The sad thing is people here can now see that money was coming in,” she said. “But it just wasn’t used the way it needed to be.”

‘Too Much Trouble Here’

Truong said the city is still reeling from the pandemic spike in violent crime. He said he was at Bogalusa High School’s homecoming football game in 2022 when one teen shot another. Shots rang out, Truong said, and he grabbed his 3-month-old son and “laid in the bleachers.”

“It’s not a foreign topic to hardly anybody in town, whether you’ve heard the gunshots in the distance, whether you have attended a funeral of somebody who passed due to gun violence,” he said. Many still grapple with trauma.

In December 2022, Khlilia Daniels said, she hosted a birthday party for her teenage niece, praying no one would bring a gun.

The hosts checked guests for weapons, she said.

Yet gunfire erupted, Daniels said. Three teens were shot, including 15-year-old Ronié Taylor, who died, according to police.

“When someone you know is killed, you never forget,” said Daniels, 32, who held Taylor until emergency responders arrived.

Tajdryn Forbes was planning his future when he was killed, likely because of a dispute that started on social media over lyrics in a rap song, Guy said.

In a Facebook post in January, Bogalusa police said they had arrested someone in connection with Forbes’ killing. Authorities had previously announced the arrest of a teen in connection with the homicide.

Forbes had been a high school football standout, like his late father, Charles Forbes Jr., who played semipro. When Forbes scored a touchdown, he would look to the sky to honor his dad.

The school praised Forbes for his senior baseball season in a social media post: “This young man makes a difference on our campus and on the field with his strong character.”

When hopes for a college football scholarship did not pan out, Forbes worked as a deckhand for a marine transportation company. He saved money, looking forward to moving to Slidell, a suburb of New Orleans.

“He would always say, ‘There’s too much trouble here’” in Bogalusa, Guy recalled.

The post Guns, Race, and Profit: The Pain of America’s Other Epidemic appeared first on Medika Life.

Yet here we are again. This time in Minneapolis, two children were killed and seventeen others were wounded during a morning Mass at Annunciation Catholic School. The shooter, a 23-year-old former student, had legally obtained multiple firearms. Investigators called it domestic terrorism and a hate crime. Parents ran toward the church as police rushed in. Teachers hid children in classrooms as gunfire shattered stained-glass windows. Another community left with grief, trauma, and questions.

I once focused my outrage primarily on assault-style rifles. Their power, speed, and lethality have turned too many classrooms into scenes of carnage. But the more we learn, the more it becomes clear: the issue is not just one category of weapon. It is access itself—who can purchase, how quickly, how securely firearms are stored, whether systems exist to intervene when someone signals danger to self or others. It is the absence of a national framework to prevent tragedies before the first shot is fired.

That is why former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, last year declared firearm violence a public health crisis. Like infectious disease or unsafe drinking water, gun violence demands prevention, data, and national standards—not empty moments of silence.

A Fourth-Grade Teacher’s Story

In Minneapolis, a fourth-grade teacher described crouching with her students behind a reading-corner bookshelf as shots rang out across the school courtyard. “We practiced lockdown drills,” she told reporters, “but no one is ready for the real thing. I held kids who were shaking so hard I could feel their teeth chatter.”

She said she kept wondering if her own daughter, in another wing of the building, was safe. When the police finally escorted them out, she saw backpacks, notebooks, and shoes scattered in the hallway like abandoned shells of the morning’s routine. The images will stay with her, as they stay with all who live through these moments—the EMS workers, the clergy, the journalists, the parents.

Stories like hers multiply with each headline. Behind every shooting are children who now sleep with lights on, parents who drive past schools with a pit in their stomach, and teachers who startle at loud noises during lessons. The physical injuries make the evening news; the invisible wounds last far, far longer.

The Public Health Toll on Children

Firearms are now the leading cause of death for American children and adolescents. More than 4,300 young lives are lost each year; more than 17,000 more are injured. Nearly three million children witness gun violence annually or know someone who has. The trauma is cumulative, echoing across classrooms, playgrounds, sports fields, and bedrooms.

Research shows that students exposed to shootings experience higher rates of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress. They miss school more. They struggle academically. Some never fully regain a sense of safety. This is not speculation. There have been so many school shootings over the years that the research is now documented in peer-reviewed studies, public health data, and the lived experiences of families and teachers.

Some argue that mental illness drives the crisis. As someone who has worked in health for decades, I believe access to mental health services is essential—not as an excuse to avoid firearm legislation, but as part of the same continuum of prevention. Other nations face mental health challenges, yet do not endure this level of gun violence. The difference is access. Here in the United States, it remains far too easy for a person in crisis or with violent intent to legally obtain a firearm.

Toward Responsibility and Prevention

Minnesota illustrates both progress and limits. The state expanded background checks to cover private firearm transfers, created a “red flag” law to temporarily remove guns from those deemed dangerous, and increased penalties for illegal sales. Yet even with these measures, the Minneapolis shooter obtained his weapons legally. A patchwork of state laws will never suffice when lives hang in the balance.

We need a national standard for responsible firearm ownership—one that honors Constitutional rights while protecting children. Licensing, universal background checks, and safe-storage requirements should be as unquestioned as seat belts or smoke detectors. Risk-based removal laws must function across state lines with due process but without delay. Community programs proven to prevent shootings, such as anonymous tip lines and school threat assessment teams, need funding and visibility so students and parents know where to turn before tragedy strikes.

Most of all, lawmakers must open their hearts and eyes to the horror.  They must confront what first responders see. I have long argued that Members of Congress should be required to witness, under privacy safeguards, the first responders’ body-camera footage and the aftermath of school shootings. Not to sensationalize grief, but to dissolve the distance between policy debate and reality. Denial rarely survives the sight of a child’s backpack in a hallway where blood still pools.

A Shared Obligation

Public health history offers lessons. We reduced car-crash deaths with seat belts and airbags. We curbed smoking with education, restrictions, and cultural change. We cut drunk-driving fatalities through laws, enforcement, and awareness. None of it was instant. All of it began with the recognition that prevention works when society chooses to act.

Gun violence demands the same choice. Children deserve classrooms where the loudest sound is laughter, not gunfire. Parents deserve to see their kids run from the school doors at day’s end, not into the arms of waiting police officers. Responsible gun owners deserve the clarity and safety that national standards provide, shielding them from theft, misuse, and the consequences of someone else’s negligence.

Two years ago, I asked: If the deaths of small children do not move us to act, what will? After Minneapolis, after Uvalde, after Sandy Hook and Parkland, the question remains. The answer cannot be more vigils, more drills, political speeches, or more hollow condolences. The answer must be prevention, responsibility, and the courage to act before the next siren sounds.

The post If Our Children’s Fear Doesn’t Move Us to Act, What Will? appeared first on Medika Life.

The launch of Roferon-A, alpha interferon marked a watershed moment in medicine: the first biotherapeutic to treat cancer, targeting the rare disease hairy-cell leukemia. I remember the packed press conference at The Pierre Hotel in New York City. Thought leaders like Dr. Jerome Groopman inspired awe. Headlines followed. The world paid attention.

That was decades ago. Since then, the biotech sector has evolved from fragile start-up spirit into a multibillion-dollar force. In the eyes of many, what was once miraculous has become mundane. And yet, the science has only grown more awe-inspiring. So why don’t we talk about it that way anymore?

Have we become numb to the very progress that extends and saves lives?

Biotechnology is arguably one of humanity’s most transformative achievements. From precision cancer immunotherapies to gene editing tools like CRISPR, we’ve leapt across medical milestones that were once the stuff of science fiction. CAR-T cell therapy rewrites the body’s immune system; mRNA platforms taught us how to respond to pandemics in real time; and personalized medicine now tailors treatments to the uniqueness of our DNA.

Despite these triumphs, we now face a paradox: the more frequently we succeed, the less exceptional it seems. Biotech, in its reliability, risks becoming background noise.

The danger here isn’t just perception—political, economic, and moral. When we stop being amazed, we stop advocating. And advocacy is essential, because science doesn’t fund itself.

The Birth of a Movement: BIO’s Role in Advancing Innovation

In the early days of this field, the promise of biotech required more than scientific breakthroughs—it demanded an organized, united voice to advocate for science, policy, funding, and public trust. That’s when the Biotechnology (Industry) Innovation Organization (BIO) emerged, uniting a fledgling industry around a shared mission: to promote innovation and ensure that the fruits of biotech reach the people who need them most.

What began as a coalition of pioneers has evolved into one of the most influential global voices for biotechnology. BIO has helped shape legislation, fostered partnerships, supported startups, and advanced equity in access and clinical trials. It has been a tireless advocate for the idea that science serves people—and that innovation without access is innovation incomplete.

As we reflect on biotech’s journey—from niche science to essential public health engine—BIO’s efforts to engage policymakers, educate the public, and convene global stakeholders at events like the annual BIO International Convention, BIO2025 have played a defining role. It’s a reminder that scientific progress is never just about the petri dish. It’s about ecosystems—coalitions of scientists, communicators, investors, and institutions aligned toward a common good.

The Threat of Institutional Apathy

Innovation doesn’t flourish in a vacuum. It requires funding, partnerships, regulatory foresight, and yes, public interest. Today, with DOGE pinching national budgets and partisanship clouding consensus, Federal funding for research is under threat. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research, faces increasingly skeptical eyes and plummeting appropriations.

In parallel, biotech investors—once exuberant—have become cautious. Valuations are down. IPO windows are narrow. Even promising start-ups are forced to downsize or shutter. This isn’t just an economic cycle. It’s a societal test.

If we stop investing in innovation, diseases that could have been conquered will remain entrenched. Rare conditions will stay rare because they’re unprofitable. And the promise of personalized, preventive care will fade back into abstraction. Let’s take stock.

We’ve made incredible strides in HIV, hepatitis C, certain leukemias, and now we see glimpses of progress in previously unyielding diseases like ALS and pancreatic cancer. In some cases, such as HIV, biologics have helped turn some diseases into manageable conditions. Patients who once faced death sentences now live long, productive lives.

But so much work remains. Alzheimer’s disease continues to challenge us. Autoimmune conditions like lupus and Crohn’s demand better solutions. Pediatric rare diseases—often overlooked—leave families desperate for options. And mental health, despite its growing visibility, remains underfunded and underexplored from a biotherapeutic standpoint.

We can’t stop now. The urgency is not over.

Science Needs Storytellers

One of the most potent forces in advancing biotherapeutics isn’t just the lab bench—it’s the lens through which the public sees that bench. This is where communicators come in.

Media, public relations professionals, and advocacy leaders are not passive observers. We are active players in this ecosystem. When we frame scientific progress as human progress, we drive interest, funding, and talent into the field. When we tell stories that connect molecules to people, we give science a face—and a heartbeat.

In the early days of Roferon-A, calls from a young PR pro would turn out a full-room press conference, launching a wave of national interest. Today, the media landscape is fragmented. Clicks compete with credibility, and sensationalism wins over substance.

That only means our responsibility has grown. We must elevate the authentic voices of scientists, patients and advocates. We must cover biotech stories not just as business news, but as human stories, because they convey the struggle and potential.

Bench to Bedside is a Human Endeavor

Behind every molecular breakthrough is a researcher who missed birthdays to run experiments, a trial participant who volunteered without knowing the outcome, and a caregiver hoping that science can offer one more chance. We cannot allow their efforts to be invisible.

Let us remember that biotherapeutics are not just lab products—they are the embodiment of human hope and courage. Each FDA approval to market is a victory for a company and a patient.

And yet, even as we acknowledge this, we must grapple with another complexity: equity.

Not all communities have equal access to these innovations. Biologics are expensive. Insurance structures are slow to adapt, sometimes even resisting. Global disparities persist. If we believe in the power of biotech, we must also commit to making it accessible, advocating for affordability, inclusive clinical trials and compassionate pricing strategies.

Reclaiming the Wonder

So, where do we go from here?

We start by reawakening awe. As communicators, we must use our platforms to remind the world that biotech is not just another industry—it is a movement, a mission.

We must protect the budgets that sustain research, defend the credibility of science against misinformation, and inspire young minds to enter STEM fields not just for jobs but for the opportunity to change lives.

It starts with how we talk. Let’s use language that evokes possibility. Let’s tell stories that illuminate the patient journey. Let’s spotlight scientists with the same reverence we show to athletes or entertainers.

Biotech Without Borders

The original promise of biotechnology was to break boundaries between disciplines, possibilities, and life and death. That promise is still alive, but it needs guardians.

Now more than ever, biotech needs communicators, policymakers, and citizens who care.

I remember the days when biotech press conferences made front pages. Maybe we’ll never go back to that exact moment. But we can choose to go forward—together—into a future where science is again seen not just as data, but as destiny.

Let’s reclaim the wonder. Let’s continue to give scientists a voice, patients hope, start-up enterprises resources, and policymakers direction.

Because what’s at stake is not just the next miracle drug.  What’s at stake is our collective belief that we can still do miraculous things.

The post Biotech Without Borders: Reclaiming the Wonder of Science in a Distracted Age appeared first on Medika Life.

Government-sponsored, taxpayer-funded research ensures the health of our people and drives the health of our economy. The current policy of cuts and freezes puts both at risk.

For decades, Congress has provided strong, bipartisan support to research programs, not simply to help Americans stay healthy and live longer but to give American researchers, businesses, and other institutions a leg-up. This has meant that costly, labor-intensive scientific research doesn’t have to be completely shouldered through private funding.

It would seem that American businesses and institutions — in particular patient advocacy groups, the ambassadors of communities that benefit most from science that leads to innovations that can sustain and save lives – should want to vigorously defend government-backed research. But in today’s political climate, leaders are taking a “wait and see” approach. While this may appear prudent, now is not the time for complacency.

The old saying, “fail to prepare and you prepare to fail,” couldn’t be more timely. Patient advocates and other leaders need to act now to marshal facts about the essential benefits of government-funded science. They need to develop a strategy to express their expert points of view, identifying which topics they will speak out about and to whom, in order to be ready to assert their influence when the timing is right.

As new policies unfold, voices calling us back to this shared national interest are essential. Patient advocates and business leaders hold tremendous power – and responsibility – to help rally support for essential programs and remind decision makers of what’s really at stake. Here are three considerations, based on many years of guiding clients through successful thought leadership campaigns, that can help leaders plan their words and actions for maximum impact, even as they operate in a “watch and wait” environment.

1. Define What Is at Stake

Publicly funded research has saved many millions of American lives. Since 1969, the U.S. stroke mortality rate has decreased by 70%, largely due to NIH-funded research on treatments and prevention. The American Cancer Society estimates that 3.5 million lives were saved from 1991 to 2019 because of publicly funded advances. These are only two of many examples.

But if these very real impacts – which touch all of us – do not carry enough weight, consider that government subsidized research has also been a powerful driver for American businesses. Every dollar spent by the NIH in research funding in the fiscal year 2024 (FY24) generated $2.56 of economic activity, according to a new report, “NIH’s Role in Sustaining the U.S. Economy.” And those dollars enabled the development and production of penicillin and other life-saving antibiotics, antiretrovirals, Ozempic and other GLP-1s, polio and measles vaccines, and discoveries such as deciphering the human genetic code.

This taxpayer-funded investment has made American drug companies, med-tech, hospitals and biotech global powerhouses. In this way, the U.S. has led the world, both in innovation and economically.

2. Determine the Audience(s) You Want to Reach

If the last few weeks have proven anything, it is that local conversations can have national impact. And, it’s local economies that stand to benefit the most from publicly funded science. These communities and states will also suffer most acutely should funding continue to be withheld from research programs located in their communities.

A new study from the Association of American Universities found that in FY24, the NIH alone awarded $36.94 billion in extramural research funding to researchers in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, funding that supported 407,782 jobs and produced $94.58 billion in new economic activity nationwide.

That is all balanced on a knife edge at the moment. These figures demonstrate that local communities and their lawmakers – state and federal congresspeople and senators – are the natural allies of research programs that depend on federal dollars. Such programs put businesses and people to work in fields ranging from construction and maintenance to food services and research and development.

By acting hyper-locally, targeting the vulnerable communities and representatives who are impacted most by current policy, thought leaders can start to move the country away from self-harm towards a restoration of prosperity and health.

3. Actively Monitor for Opportunity to Assert Leadership

While it’s clear what’s at stake and who stands to benefit or lose the most, evaluating the right time to act is more challenging. What’s becoming more apparent is that, as the impact of cuts and freezes begins to be felt more broadly by patients, employees of local businesses and local communities – then leaders’ words will have more resonance and impact. Thought leadership will have an increasing ability to rally support and change minds.

In many places, this is already beginning to happen. Conducting outreach in those communities at the moment when the administration’s cuts are affecting people’s income and businesses’ bottom lines most acutely, leadership voices can begin to have an impact. Drawing attention to the struggles our neighbors are facing, and calling for action based on people’s experiences, the evident economic impacts, and real public health needs will resonate. Determining the right moment to act will take careful monitoring of economic and health impacts within key communities across America and seizing the right moment.

If advocacy groups want to continue to protect and promote the rights of patients, they must prepare to speak out. If the organizations, health systems and companies of the American health ecosystem that have been blessed with the fruits of publicly funded research want to continue to stay competitive, their leaders must speak out. If the small businesses that rely on their employees’ health and customers’ wallets wish to stay competitive, they, too, must raise their voices. What’s at stake is the health of all Americans and our nation’s world-leading position as the “arsenal of health.”

The time is now for leaders to make their plans. Those who are ready to speak will be thought leaders—and those who do not will not be. American thought leaders must prepare to speak up, loudly and often, to guarantee the future of U.S. leadership and to help America remain healthy—physically and financially.

The post For Leaders, When Is it Time to Speak Out for Science? appeared first on Medika Life.

President Trump’s executive order could result in higher US medicines prices because big data will allow payments to be linked more closely to the real value a medicine delivers.

President Trump’s executive order is short on specifics but Bloomberg says that he will direct the US Trade Representative and the US Department of Commerce to take action on “unreasonable or discriminatory policies that suppress drug prices overseas.” Trump is also asking the Department of Health and Human Services to “facilitate direct drug sales to consumers at lower prices paid abroad.”

Pharmaceutical companies look as if they are charging more in the US than in the rest of the world for medicines protected by patents; sometimes they are not. Recently, I was with a client’s US and European commercial teams. With some trepidation, the UK GM announced the price he had negotiated with NICE, the British pricing authority. It was less than half the US list price but, the US general manager said that it was higher than the average price the company actually received in the US. The difference was skimmed off by what economists call “rent seekers” — companies that add no value but are able to add fees or a mark up. These parasitical pharmacy benefits managers and insurers are politically well connected and it has proved very difficult to cut them out of the US supply chain.

Does the US want medicines priced the way they are in the rest of the world?

The American system, beyond big federal programmes, relies on prices that are set through these one-on-one negotiations with various actors who can permit or block access for patients. In most of the rest of the rich world, medicines prices are set for almost all prescriptions through a system of health technology assessments (HTAs). These HTAs typically rely on some mix of assessing the true incremental value of a new medicine and estimating the savings that it could generate in other parts of the health system.

In the UK, for example, NICE typically considers a medicine cost-effective if its incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) falls between £20,000 and £30,000 per quality-adjusted life year saved (QALY). Interventions below £20,000/QALY are generally approved, while those above £30,000 require additional justification. It may accept ICERs up to £50,000 per QALY for severe conditions such as cancer or neurological illnesses or where it is difficult to measure the benefit exactly. In theory, a QALY equates to one year of life in perfect health. Two years at about 50 percent of perfect health (measured according to criteria such as pain, mobility and self-care) would be one QALY, for example.

Irish agencies require hospitals to consider the broader impact of drug choices on the entire healthcare system, including potential savings from reduced admissions or procedures. Most other countries factor these elements into decisions too. A 2015 study of 15 rich countries concluded that new medicines launched between 1982 and 2015 had saved about five times as much in averted health system costs as they had cost.

If those HTA criteria were applied widely in the US, prices would be much higher than they are in Europe. In the US, life expectancy is growing faster than healthy life expectancy — Americans are sicker for more of their lives than are most people in the world, so the cost of mitigating that poor health will be higher. There is a wealth of information in the International Longevity Centre UK’s Healthy Ageing & Prevention Index. American healthcare costs are much higher than they are anywhere else in the world, so the savings achieved by medicines will be even more impressive.

The real economic benefits of new medicines

What none of the HTA systems yet take into account are the wider societal benefits of prevention and treatment — it is often seen as too complicated. As Professor Rifat Atun and others wrote recently, “an important but often-overlooked mechanism is the benefit of health investments on the broader economy through influences on supply and demand across various other sectors of a country’s economy.”

“Adult immunisation programmes across ten countries and four vaccines showing that [these programmes] offset their costs multiple times through benefits to individuals, the healthcare system, and wider society,” a 2024 paper from the Office of Health Economics reported. “In particular, benefit-cost analysis of the same vaccines showed that adult vaccines can return up to 19 times their initial investment to society, when their significant benefits beyond the healthcare system are monetised,” it concluded

Most health spending is on older people. They, on average, spend more of their income than do younger people so they are disproportionately important drivers of economic growth. They also provide a very large proportion of volunteer hours that enable younger people, especially women, to work more. As experts at Germany’s pioneering WifOR Institute said recently about cancer treatments in Germany, “health investments [are a] driver of economic stability and growth.”

The US is the world’s biggest economy so it realises more benefits from innovative medicines than other countries do. These benefits are getting easier to measure and quantify too: big data means we can track prevention and treatment success and its knock-on impacts throughout the economy more easily month by month.

Obstacles to the executive order

Is this executive order meant to effect change or to distract from other developments? It is too early to say.

Congress may not agree to government taking a role in setting prices outside Medicare and Medicaid, but those still account for about 40 percent of US medicines spending. The Biden Administration initiated negotiation for some medicines for federal programmes and that could probably be extended by executive action.

It is easy to talk about enabling Americans to buy medicines from abroad but that requires the consent of the countries from which they are buying. Canadian or British prices are negotiated based on different health system costs and economic benefits; it is unlikely that foreign governments will want to make it easier for Americans to take advantage of negotiations that do not reflect their own circumstances or choices about healthcare provision and prevention.

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The Return of Most Favoured Nation Pricing

The new order is now essentially a return of “Most Favored Nation” (MFN) pricing, which Trump previously and unsuccessfully implemented in his first term. The structure, conceptually, is straightforward: cap U.S. drug prices at the lowest price of any other peer country. International reference pricing is not new, Trump attempted a similar program in 2020 but was stopped through litigation. In that effort, he focused on the most expensive drugs in Medicare and estimated U.S. taxpayer savings of $85 billion over seven years while providing access to lower-cost drugs. It never got off the ground. However, the concept lived on. However, with Trump back in the Oval Office and empowered by an “America First” mandate, MFN pricing is back in style as official policy. The executive order instructs U.S. health agencies to peg what the country pays for drugs to what prices are in other high-income countries — a major deviation from the status quo, more so because U.S. prices are sometimes three times higher than those in other developed countries.

What is, I think, particularly edgy about this resurgence is Trump’s open admission the rest of the world may have to adjust. “They are going to go up all over the World to equal and bring FAIRNESS TO AMERICA!”, he said of drug prices abroad. This means that if America is paying less, drug companies will be able to raise prices elsewhere as an offset. It will certainly receive lots of scrutiny when it is all done, however, there should be no ambiguity about the priority for the Administration: lower bills at U.S. pharmacies, no matter what the downstream consequences may be. The process will likely target Medicare — lobbyists believe the order will apply to more medicines than were included last year in the Inflation Reduction Act for price negotiation for Medicare. However, we just don’t know. Trump made sweeping promises without detailing any process. The hard work — and legal small print — will be left to health officials who have to figure out how to advance “fair” prices without collapsing the system. It is one thing to proclaim that we won’t pay more for insulin than France or Australia, it is another to turn that into actual practice.

Industry vs. Payers: Who Toasts, Who Dreads?

All of this is not without its dissenters. The drug industry fought back strongly, reliving its now familiar tale that any form of government price interference would be harmful to both innovation and patients. “Government price setting in any form is bad for American patients,” Alex Schriver, spokesman for PhRMA — the powerful lobby for drug makers. One executive said that Trump’s pricing proposal is “the largest, multifaceted existential threat to the industry and U.S. biosciences innovation.” In other words, for Big Pharma, this is not just an adjustment but a threat to their business model of high U.S. margins funding drug research. Wall Street took note. As more of Trump’s plan became clearer, shares of pharma began to tumble globally, with the U.S. pharma heavyweights Pfizer and Merck down approximately 2–4% and European drug makers with shares down over 3% apiece. In Japan, pharmaceutical shares were knocked down over 6%. The market is treating this as a real risk to future profits and potentially the large R&D budgets that depend on those profits.

On the other side of the ledger, payers and insurers are quietly smiling. For them, Trump’s order is essentially a gilt-edged cost cut. If both Medicare and private plans can pay European-level prices for cutting-edge therapies, the savings would be enormous, if the multiple middlemen allow it. Keep in mind that the U.S. spends over $400 billion a year on drugs, it is a tiny proportion of health spending, but still 30% off is a lot of spending power freed up.) For government health programmes, such as Medicare, the potential upside is almost experimental; as earlier mentioned, the MFN demo would have nearly cut Medicare pharmaceutical spending in half! It is hardly surprising that public support for reducing drug prices is a strong position that crosses party lines. Payers see an opportunity to potentially save some money, and patient advocates hope this may yield lower premiums or out-of-pocket costs — the question is, will it? That is less than clear. In theory, insurers could work to give that money back to their customers by also having lower premiums or by expanding coverage. But in practice, the real question is: what percentage of that windfall will be rebated to consumers after claim settlements at the pharmacy counter? The U.S. healthcare system is not exactly known for its rapid generosity. Any premium reductions will likely come slowly and through competitive pressure or regulation. Nevertheless, there is cautious optimism. At a minimum, it is believed that Medicare beneficiaries will see at least some reduction in their Part D premiums or out-of-pocket cost sharing if the government’s costs from expensive drugs come crashing downward.

Global Impact: Who Else Pays?

While President Trump’s executive order may proclaim “America First,” the shocks to the rubble of the global drug market are now outlined. Drug manufacturers do not simply sit tightly with lower revenues — they attempt to “equalise” lower prices by seeking additional money. So what happens if the U.S. says it will only pay what we pay for cancer drugs in the UK or Poland? For the manufacturer, what’s the easiest solution? Raise prices in the UK? Not likely; this would need a further Health Technology Assessment (HTA), which significantly influences drug prices, primarily through the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in England and the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) in Scotland.

In particular, global health advocates are uneasy. Do we create upward price pressure in Europe or other high-income markets as companies seek to recover their U.S. losses? The early signs are indeed for upward price pressure. “This announcement is likely to have an impact on EU–US tariff negotiations… Is the U.S. president about to impose price caps on pharmaceutical imports rather than tariffs?” “If yes, this may have significant implications” for pharma companies and profits in Europe and perhaps elsewhere,” said one market analyst, pointing to possible trade friction if Europe is unwilling to change as well. In reality, European governments might very well push back against major price increases — they will not simply throw open the purse if U.S. policy changes. But pharma negotiators will “definitely” try to squeeze higher reimbursements from any country that has benefitted from significant discounting so far. The power dynamic in price negotiations could change: companies may tell EU health ministries, implicitly, “Pay up, or the consequences of America’s low price deal means we will no longer sell to you at a discount again.” Some even predict drug makers will delay the launches of new medicines, specifically in lower-price countries, to ensure that there is no “cheap” reference pricing that undermines their U.S. price.

This is not unprecedented. In Europe, international reference pricing has already been shown to influence delays in European access to new drugs in lower-income EU members. One study noted that international reference pricing caused about half of all delays in new drug launches in lower-income European countries (about one-year delays on average). In practice, a company might delay the launch of a breakthrough therapy in, say, Poland or Greece, until a higher price has been negotiated in Germany and France so these lower-price markets don’t pull down the global average. Trump’s global price peg could exaggerate these dynamics. If a U.S. reimbursement can be larger by any country offering a lower price, pharma companies will be even more resistant to lower prices. Low-income countries or lower-margin markets could be the hardest hit. They might have inflated prices, or they might simply be deprioritised — fewer affordable options, longer waits for new drugs, or products leaving those markets altogether. As one analysis suggested, manufacturers would be motivated to “reduce or even terminate the discounts they offer other countries”, putting pressure on those countries to pay significantly higher prices. Indeed, Trump’s own policy team has, essentially, recognised this trade-off: their expectation is other countries will, in our case, contribute more, i.e. pay closer to what Americans are paying. Great for the U.S. health dollar; not so great if you are a patient or an insurer in a country that, until now, benefitted from lower costs negotiated on a good-faith basis.

And what of patients in poorer countries? While Trump’s MFN model will likely primarily focus on high-income counterparts (no one would expect the U.S. drug price to be pegged to the lowest price for its product in sub-Saharan Africa, for example), there could still be spillover effects that might affect middle-income countries. Global health organisations fear if pharmaceutical companies cannot segment the market (i.e. more for rich countries and less for poor ones), they will stop doing business entirely in lower-profit markets. The unintended result of a goodwill reform of U.S. costs could be reduced access to innovative medicines in places that could least afford that reduction. As experts have cautioned, linking U.S. prices to other countries can result in “unintended complications, such as delaying drug entry in other countries and raising prices abroad.” Put bluntly, Americans may pay less, but some of that cost may just be shifted onto sick people elsewhere.

Where next on the outlook?

Will this policy be delivered to U.S. citizens? It is certainly possible, especially in the short run. If implemented quickly and thoroughly, Americans might see significant drops in many brand-name drugs — particularly, high-cost treatments for things like cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple other conditions where U.S. prices are considerably higher than in much of the world. But there is no free lunch. Someone pays the costs for drug research and manufacturing, and Trump is betting the rest of the wealthy world will pick up more of the costs so that Americans will have to pay less. Drug companies, not too surprisingly, will be all-out protecting their R&D budgets and profits — whether they do that by litigating (as they did the last time), negotiating harder against the health systems in Europe and Asia, or cutting costs somewhere else in their operations (like R&D, when their revenue estimates go south). The push-pull between the pharmaceutical industry and government will be furious.

For payers (like insurers and government programmes), this is clearly a nice win for them — it could potentially reduce the amount of money they spend. But whether or not American patients are able to see that in their pockets will depend on the details of implementation and ongoing enforcement at all levels. Reduced drug prices may translate into reduced insurance premiums and reduced taxpayer funding (in theory), provided the healthcare system appropriately passes along those savings. There is every chance that the opposite will occur. After all, the U.S. supply chain for drugs is complicated, with all of the middlemen, pharmacy benefit managers, and insurance entities taking their cuts. There would need to be heavy observation to ensure that price reductions at the highest level do not become additional profits for the next tier of entities in the long supply chain.

We will be watching carefully

Trump’s pharmaceutical international pricing order is a high-stakes experiment to reform drug pricing and challenge the pharmaceutical sector’s price-setting practices. It is also a step toward reclaiming some balance back to U.S. payers. It is also possible that, if implemented appropriately, it could mean that American patients have greater access to cutting-edge medicines at affordable prices if it can bring down what Americans pay for the same pills cheaper abroad. That is a relief many have been waiting for. It also exports the issue.

The neutral, critical reality is this: Someone pays for innovation. As is always the case with Trump, he talks a big game, but the end result remains to be seen. For now, Americans have been promised lower drug bills. The world will be waiting for the bill.

FINN Partners will be watching this develop and continue to analyse the situation.

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Pharmaceuticals have been spared so far from the growing trade war between the United States and many other nations. But that run of fortune may soon be coming to an end as President Trump said recently that the United States will announce a “major” tariff on pharmaceutical imports “very shortly.” While we do not know what the delay in implementing other tariffs means for the threatened tariffs on pharmaceuticals — those on automobiles, for example, are going ahead as planned — the implications of tariffs on pharmaceuticals could have a dramatic impact on multiple areas throughout the US and global healthcare ecosystem.

Tariffs on medicines will, of course, increase prices for US patients. But, as with many other aspects of the fast-moving trade war, this one is likely to have unintended consequences as well. We think that companies should prepare now with an eye to mitigating problems and be prepared to communicate the ramifications of tariffs on health-related areas to diverse audiences, from regulators and policymakers to health providers and patients.

The most likely knock-on effect is on patents and other intellectual property (IP). The US has traditionally protected IP belonging to American companies and the global IP system by threatening trade retaliation against countries that do not respect IP. Those threats may now ring a bit hollow, especially among the countries most well-positioned to capitalize on erratic US policies on biopharma IP.

China

The semi-official Global Times reported on April 9 that China might consider “investigating the intellectual property benefits of US companies operating in China.” China has responded robustly to tariffs of 145% on most of its exports to the US. Vice-President J.D Vance’s characterisation of Chinese as “peasants” may complicate trade negotiations, making it very difficult for the Chinese government to seek conciliation instead of escalation.

As our colleagues have already pointed out, China sees a vast opportunity in the US’s exit from global health. China’s thriving biotech and life sciences sector wants to do more to supply South Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Its COVID vaccines were deployed across the world, but China is positioning its vaccines industry to meet routine and pandemic needs.

The 14th Five-Year Plan (2021–2025) explicitly prioritised biotechnology as a strategic sector for national development, aiming to position the country as a global leader in the bioeconomy by 2035. The Healthy China 2030 and Made in China 2025 initiatives have prioritised development of medical R&D and manufacturing, both in small molecules and biologicals. The government uses subsidies, financial incentives, public-private partnerships, and talent recruitment programmes to foster biotech innovation. High-tech science parks and innovation hubs have been established in regions such as Shanghai and Shenzhen to strengthen industrial capabilities. China is particularly focusing on synthetic biology, gene editing, stem cell research, brain science, and regenerative medicine.

There is an obvious synergy here. China may well relax IP protections for US-based companies, while maintaining its strengthened domestic IP regimen. At its most basic, this would allow Chinese producers to export biosimilars and generic copies of small molecules still protected by patents in the US and EU. Probably more significant would be the shortcuts it might allow Chinese developers in producing new therapeutics and vaccines that build on established American discoveries.

India

In 2022, almost half of US generic medicines came from India. New tariffs could dramatically affect the affordability of medicines within the USA.

India is, for now, not responding to tariffs of 26% on most of its other exports and is putting its hopes on a bilateral trade agreement (BTA) to be concluded by the third quarter of 2025. It may happen, but because presidential authority to conclude trade agreements has expired, the agreement would require Congressional approval and that is usually a fraught process. Absent a BTA, India will look for leverage and, to encourage a BTA’s progress, it may seek to apply pressure in the meantime. In this, India’s government has an advantage: it can leave action to India’s sophisticated civil society sector and the country’s activist courts.

India has long been on the US Priority Watch List for intellectual property (IP) protection and enforcement because of rumbling disputes over administrative and legislative issues. However, India’s generics industry has largely been forced to respect IP on medicines since the early years of this century. That could change without any provocative action by India’s government.

India has recently taken steps to expedite the approval of new treatments based on registration by stringent regulatory authorities such as the EMA and the FDA. Based on these approvals, ordinary Indians can import medicines for personal use. This probably has an untested implication for patents.

India’s Supreme Court has long held that a patent can only be valid in India if the patent holder is “working the patent” in the country; practically this means that a medicine discoverer has to have taken some reasonable steps to make its treatments accessible to Indian patients. The slow pace of approvals in India — and the option of submitting for approval later than in other countries — has meant that developers could control application of this doctrine in the past. Courts might now say that there are few good reasons for a delay in availability in the country and that failure to provide access in these circumstances could invalidate a patent.

India’s government can honestly say that it is powerless to control the courts and fairly helpless to resist activism around patents — look, for example, at the scholarship and training on India’s ever-excellent SpicyIP website. A new trade agreement with the US, when applied fully, could reinforce IP protection but, in its absence, the government can say with some justification that it would have trouble getting any new legislation on pharma IP through the two chambers of Parliament.

As with China, a more subtle threat may come from India’s emerging R&D-based vaccines and medicines industry. The job of developers is much easier if they can use the trade secrets of established rivals.

Ireland

The pharmaceutical industry may have some relief because it holds so much of its intellectual property in Ireland. This is a very sore point for the Trump Administration, but could mitigate the danger from any future moves by China, India and other countries to “investigate US intellectual property benefits”: no-one wants a trade war with the EU as well as the US.

Ireland has, however, been a laggardly partner to the pharma industry. It has been slow to adopt the EU’s United Patent Court (because doing so requires a referendum in Ireland). More seriously, it is one of the slowest countries in Europe to grant access to new medicines. This does not create a legal hazard for patent holders but it does weaken the country’s moral and public relations case, especially because Ireland’s delays are partly the result of policies that favour inefficient national generic producers.

Impact of IP threats

Weakening intellectual property may offer short-term improvements in access, but has many long-term risks.

Generics from India, in particular, are associated with much higher risks to patients than medicines produced in Europe, Israel, Jordan or North America. We don’t yet know enough about generics from China.

It is intellectual property that powers innovation. Developing new drugs is a high-risk, costly endeavour, often requiring billions of dollars and over a decade of research. Strong IP protections, such as patents, allow companies to recoup these investments by granting them exclusive rights to market their products for a defined period. This exclusivity ensures that innovators can profit from their discoveries without immediate competition from generics or imitators. Strong IP frameworks also encourage partnerships between pharmaceutical companies, universities, and research institutions and enable the sharing of expertise and resources, accelerating the development of new treatments while safeguarding proprietary knowledge.

What can companies do?

The evolving global trade outlook is changing by the day, and sometimes by the hour, so it is important to have one or more internal task forces with public affairs experts and consultants in China, India and Latin American markets with some similar dynamics — Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, in particular. Having an internal and an external perspective with clear lines of communication with expert advisors is very important in our current trade climate because different people know different things in fast-changing scenarios. There needs to be a different task force in Ireland, a country that will likely come under unaccustomed scrutiny.

Access planning may be the best mitigation for many of the risks. It is important in India for obvious reasons. It may be important in other countries as part of a response for moves by generic producers elsewhere.

Communication with policymakers and influencers matters more than ever. Policy responses will happen in a far more condensed time frame than they usually do. Having open channels may make all the difference, as well as having a tested protocol in place that allows companies to rapidly distinguish and mitigate misinformation before it influences policy direction. There are many consultancies and advisers with expertise, but it is important to include ones who have worked on intellectual property as well as trade.

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According to a Commonwealth Fund report, the US ranks last among high-income countries in healthcare access, efficiency, and equity. Our health system has vast potential and can achieve Moonshot-like outcomes, but it still struggles to address people’s day-to-day needs.

The world’s largest health ecosystem comprises five fundamental stakeholders — patients, payers, product innovators, policymakers, and providers. And while they should work in harmony, they remain primarily disconnected, operating in silos with financial performance as the measure of success. With the fear of economic failure nipping its leaders’ heels, the system prioritizes fiscal responsibility over patients’ healthy longevity. It leads to a “sick-are” over healthcare strategic mindset.

A System Disconnected

While medicine is a “team-support,” the health industry positions its sectors like boxers — each pitted against the other. The concept of a fragmented health system is not new. Nearly 20 years ago, Dr. Alain C. Enthoven, a renowned health economist, argued that the US health sector suffered from a fundamental lack of coordination and misaligned incentives, leading to inefficiencies that primarily burden patients.

In her book Fragmented, Ilana Yurkiewicz, MD, illustrates the real-world consequences of this disconnect. Patients often find themselves bouncing between specialists dedicated to one piece of their patient’s anatomy, grappling with conflicting medical advice, and navigating a bureaucratic maze that often results in disparate, delayed, or denied care.

Economic pressures fueling consolidations and layoffs have led major players to go slow on much-needed ambitious health information initiatives. The much-heralded digital transformation, which promises AI-driven operational efficiency, seamless data exchange, and improved patient outcomes, remains unrealized.

Meanwhile, patients are finding themselves trapped in a complex, hard-to-navigate medical maze where medical records are often inaccessible, treatment plans are inconsistent, payer decisions feel opaque, and pricing remains elusive. The effect is profoundly dehumanizing.

The Patient is Out of the Picture

Financial pressures outweigh the fundamental goal of healing, and the loss of patient focus and a significant decline in empathy remain the system’s most glaring obstacles. This absurd reality is captured in a satirical moment from Yes Minister, where a lawmaker appointed by the UK Prime Minister visits an award-winning hospital — shockingly operating without patients. While comedic, the scene reflects an all-too-real aspect of modern health systems. Administrative structures, insurance approvals, and reimbursement models dictate operations, often sidelining the very individuals who seek care and healing.

As economic priorities continue to reshape industry, hospitals that once promised solutions struggle to sustain themselves, leaving patients increasingly marginalized. While improving patient outcomes should be the central focus of government policymakers, they too often become secondary considerations.

As the US Congress considers budget decisions, cutting Medicaid state subsidies does not mean economically struggling patients will be denied urgent care. Instead, when they seek treatment in the ER, hospitals will absorb the cost. This shifts the financial burden, further straining healthcare systems already operating on razor-thin margins.

Doctor Burnout: Primary Symptom of a Broken System

Physicians enter medicine purpose-centered with a desire to heal, yet the system relentlessly applies administrative and financial pressures that shift their attention elsewhere. Many doctors experience burnout, driven by excessive paperwork, prior authorization hurdles, and unrealistic patient quotas. According to a Mayo Clinic Proceedings study, nearly 63% of physicians report signs of burnout, including emotional exhaustion and depersonalization.

Designed to streamline care, electronic medical records (EMRs) are still a significant source of frustration. Physicians spend hours dealing with complex interfaces rather than engaging with patients. The demand to see more patients in less time — dictated by billing and reimbursement structures — further erodes the doctor-patient relationship, leading to dissatisfaction on both sides.

A 2023 survey by the Primary Care Collaborative and the Larry A. Green Center found that 62% of primary care physicians report not having enough time to adequately meet patients’ needs, which impacts treatment and preventive care discussions.

This dissatisfaction manifests as a breakdown in communication. While effective dialogue between providers and patients across specialties and within the broader health ecosystem is essential for treatment and prevention, patients and physicians struggle to find time to connect.

Burnout is not simply a professional hurdle; it’s a crisis that directly affects patient outcomes. Overworked, exhausted doctors are likelier to make errors, experience lower job satisfaction, and even leave the profession altogether. If the system fails to address professional despair and its causes, the shortage of health professionals will only worsen, limiting access and compromising care.

The Business of Health Over the Health of People

While business considerations shouldn’t take precedence over people, the financial structures underpinning the health sector drive decision-making that deemphasizes people’s health. The silos within the health ecosystem exacerbate this issue, preventing a shared understanding of economic and operational realities, limiting coordinated action and shifting the focus away from the patient.

Insurers prioritize cost control without recognizing the pressures this places on providers. Pharmaceutical companies innovate without fully considering how reimbursement models shape prescribing behaviors. Policymakers create regulations with a limited understanding of their clinical innovation impact. This lack of cross-sector awareness perpetuates fragmentation and inefficiency, and patients ultimately pay the price.

Digital health companies, once hailed as the future of care efficiency and effectiveness, are struggling with financial sustainability, forcing many to pivot or shut down entirely. Biopharmaceutical companies triage drug development pipelines, looking for future medicines with a high probability of regulatory success rather than encouraging research that may fail but illuminate a pathway to even more significant discoveries. Again, it is the patient who pays the price.

The Cost of Failing to Invest in Care and Caring

There is enough blame to go around, and we must stop looking for a convenient villain. If we attack one piece of the ecosystem rather than look at the totality of our problem, we will fail to make meaningful changes.

We can’t throw our health system out and start from scratch; we must find a way to work within and through it effectively. The primary lever that will drive reform of the health system and improve its functioning is bringing everything back into empathetic focus, with the patient at the center of care. Whether we are payers, product innovators, policymakers or providers, we must ask if our actions are built on a foundation of empathy — from heartfelt “care.” First and foremost, we must cooperate in the service of the patient.

The health sector is an industry, but it must be more than that. At its core, it should recognize that we are always people — only sometimes patients. Yet, financial pressures have overtaken its fundamental purpose: healing. This system-wide disconnect erodes trust, drives up costs, and leaves too many without the care they need. Until the key players in the health ecosystem realign around a unified, patient-centered mission, fragmentation will persist, outcomes will fall short, and lives will remain at risk. The stakes are too high to accept anything less.

Unless we build on a foundation based on “how would I feel” empathy, our system will not be built to last. It will be structured to fail.

The post Business of Health: When Patients Become Secondary to the System appeared first on Medika Life.

In this exclusive conversation, I join Hal Wolf, President and CEO of HIMSS, to explore HIMSS’s evolving role in fostering collaboration between hospitals, startups, and policymakers. With the health-ecosystem landscape tracking the early days of a new administration, uncertainties remain—ranging from regulatory shifts to funding allocations. Yet, as Wolf underscores, HIMSS remains steadfast in advancing health equity, supporting digital transformation, and offering actionable strategies that improve care delivery.

This conversation occurs between ViVE in Nashville and HIMSS in Las Vegas—two health gatherings that bring innovators, policymakers, and industry leaders together. While ViVE spotlights digital health startups, investment trends, and edgy sparks, HIMSS serves as the broader convening ground for professionals shaping the future of health information and technology. HIMSS is where the work happens—the “Davos” of health information.

Wolf outlines key issues such as integrating artificial intelligence in hospital systems, the role of primary care in driving better patient outcomes, and how organizations must balance innovation with financial realities. At HIMSS, essential dialogue between established institutions and emerging disruptors has never been more crucial.

Join us as we delve into the forces shaping the health system’s future—where technology, policy, and leadership converge to improve patient outcomes and system-wide efficiency.

Medika Life Editor Gil Bashe: In examining hospital systems, we focus on how information flows within our industry and who has access to it. We still have a lot to learn. These are the first few weeks of the new administration, and we don’t know how things will unfold, how the Senate Committees will approach these discussions, or how actions will be implemented. Will we rely on Executive Orders? If that’s the case, we know where to focus our attention. You’re a remarkable ambassador for the discipline and the sector, and certainly for HIMSS, a professional association, trade association, and global NGO.

People come to HIMSS with tremendous optimism, hoping to gain insights that will make them more effective. I prefer to focus on current developments and HIMSS priorities rather than just reacting to them; that’s a different conversation. I’ll also note that the administration’s conversation around health access, cost, and priorities is still in motion.

HIMSS CEO Hal Wolf: We don’t know enough to discuss new policies and their potential outcomes. One challenge will be securing funding. While we know things will be different, we don’t know where the policies will land. Still, we know that HIMSS is dedicated to its vision and mission statements as they fundamentally relate to realizing the full health potential of every human everywhere.

We are dedicated to health equity and will stay dedicated to it. Our collaboration with governments and NGOs worldwide and our fundamental principles will not change, nor should they! We’ll work with our principles within the context of whatever comes out of the White House.

We worked well with the previous Trump administration and collaborated effectively with ONC and HHS on various initiatives. We look forward to advancing the HIMSS mission within the established parameters.

Bashe: HIMSS is far more than an annual mammoth gathering; it’s a professional society that covers the full spectrum of health information and technology – from cybersecurity to economics to professional development and government policies. Unlike other popular meetings that primarily focus on networking, HIMSS is where professionals from around the globe come to set objectives, strategies, and operational priorities. It’s 30,000 feet and 3,000 in scope.

Wolf: This morning at 6:00 a.m., I had an interesting conversation with the CEO of a successful start-up that is getting distribution now and beginning to roll. At HIMSS, we see the merging of different worlds.

We have our core population, core members of the health ecosystem– hospitals, clinics, health operations, nurse practitioners, CMIOS, CIOS, physician leaders, and administrators. This group represents a significant portion of the HIMSS membership, which includes over 120,000 members.  

On the other hand, we have the entire global app ecosystem that drives innovation and introduces new ideas. As you know, many of these ideas and innovations are driven by personal experiences. A family member encountered a situation, and they tried to solve it. Or have worked in the industry, identified a gap, and pursued it.

They often have a long list of improvements to address, and, often, they aren’t performing well financially. Their reimbursement processes are a little murky, and this uncertainty might increase in 2025.

How much time do they have to integrate innovations that don’t directly impact their outcomes, quality, access or bottom line? Because everything’s being looked at in that piece.

We need to understand that the situation changes as the market evolves. What is the critical point where innovation intersects with standard operating procedures, and what does it look like? How can information from one area influence the other? We must determine how to identify the good and the bad and how to present them to the market.

What happens at the global conference? What happens in chapter meetings? What happens in the papers that are submitted? What happens in the insights? Much of this depends on how these elements connect.

Bashe: Many diverse health information communities come together yearly at HIMSS. You have consistently made this gathering relevant. This year, a new startup section called Emerge addresses a critical need within the HIMSS community. You just started with the story about a startup enterprise. Could you share some important and innovative aspects that will be highlighted at this year’s gathering?

Wolf: That’s a pressing question, so I’ll divide it into multiple parts because it’s challenging.

We’re part of the industry, so let’s return to your original premises to find the answer. You mentioned “competing,” which refers to people competing against each other. However, you also have specific points of interest to consider.

The benefit engine can determine how much money you’ll receive in reimbursement for a particular service. However, if you’re on the insurance or payer side, the configuration may depend on whether it’s for North America or a Ministry of Health. Here, the goal is to anticipate the costs incurred in treating a patient. This perspective aligns with an actuarial professional trying to understand and guide the process forward.

I’ve observed hospital systems are starting to integrate AI functionalities, but currently, only 5 to 7% are using it effectively, from an operational standpoint,

For example, when someone walks to the front desk and says their right arm is hurting, the staff collects the information by typing it into a form. They ask a couple of questions, such as “Who’s your primary care doctor? Who’s your insurance company? Are you on managed care? Is this new? What other ailments do you have? What other prescriptions do you have?” They must ask those questions if they don’t have that information readily available. That data feeds into new algorithms on the AI side.

In the background, AI analyzes the information and makes predictive models about how long this person would be in the hospital, what resources they will consume, and how much revenue it will generate. It’s occurring in the background, without the front desk staff being aware of AI’s calculations; meanwhile, the administrator is beginning to recognize the impact of these advancements. The inbound process begins with appropriate testing, questioning, and, if necessary, into a bed.

Meanwhile, the hospital administrator or the system managing the situation assesses the resources the patient will need, whether they will need a specialist and whether the specialist will be available when needed. By the time an exam takes place, they can inform the patient about what to expect in the next 24 to 48 hours, whether they will be staying at the hospital or going home. This preparation and communication represent the positive aspects of the process.  

The dark side is that the hospital engine in the background might say, “We’re not going to get a lot of money out of this. This is not a good use of our beds/time. If we maximize profits, we should send this person on and see what the next person will bring because our algorithm told us that five people would come in with congestive heart failure, and we do make money on that.”

The person writing this down may never realize what is happening; they won’t know that the system will indicate that the hospital is full, even though there might be capacity. Instead, they will tell the person to go down the street to Acme Community Hospital, which can take care of them, explaining that their system lacks resources. That is a dark coin flip to what could happen.

Bashe: Many hospital networks are acquiring primary care practices as feeder systems in their facilities. For example, if a patient is told, “You need to do a cardiac stress test. Do you have a cardiologist?” and they respond with “No?” the primary care provider can then say, “Why don’t you let me arrange that for you.” The primary care satellite site is closing the loop on a fragmented system. While the hospital system benefits economically from the service, patients benefit, and the primary care satellite site serves as a conduit for care.

I’m always thinking about the benefits of technology in enhancing the hospital and primary care systems. Imagine a doctor saying, “You know, you’ll have many questions. I will be here to help you frame your thinking around those questions. Our system has an LLM model. Let’s call it Dr. Hal. You can ask Dr. Hal every question regarding your congestive heart failure or prostate cancer. Dr. Hal is the composite wisdom of all the experts in our system and is here to address your questions.”

The creative aspect of our discipline, combined with information, is becoming a superpower. We use data to guide our supply chain resourcing and leverage information to promptly provide patients with confidence and comfort. We ensure greater access to accurate information vetted by the system, so patients do not depend solely on Dr. Google.

Wolf: The actual value of AI is knowledge management. It allows a very broad and capable synthesis of vast amounts of data and information that no human can keep up with. For example, in the 1970s, clinicians had access to three to four journals, where editors picked what was important enough to be published. These journals had to be printed and mailed out, resulting in about 400 peer-reviewed articles per year reaching healthcare professionals. If you read one a day, you could keep up. Today, more than 10,000 articles will be published this year alone. All that information, knowledge management, and sharing will occur collaboratively, and there is no way for anyone to synthesize all that.

AI plays a crucial role in operational and clinical decision support by turning information into knowledge, with recommendations that lead to changes in operations, suggestions, and care.

In clinical care, pharmacy, or whatever path you’re on, these recommendations are communicated back to physicians with an explanation of why they are a recommendation and the source of that information.

I think part of the maturity that we’re seeing, and you’ll see at HIMSS 2025, is the evolution of AI since our session three years ago. Back then, we held a session titled, “What is AI, and what does it mean?” The panel discussed its potential application in healthcare, and at that time, chat had just been introduced, and people were starting to look at it. Some people were on stage calling for a six-month hiatus before we allowed anything to go forward.

Last year, we saw glimpses of initial uses of AI being deployed operationally, albeit only in a few hospital systems. But it was beginning to happen, and we knew that AI was in the background of devices or operational considerations. Where would the benefit engines come from? The algorithms were starting to be built, and we had a particular point of looking out for biases. We started talking about biases within AI and realized that no matter what you do, there will always be some biases. It’s unavoidable. What was the source information for AI, and how do I ensure I utilize it to the best of my ability?

You’ll see the presentation of how people are using it on a scale. What are examples of its success, and what are some of its limitations? Numerous applications are set to emerge. You’re going to see them on the floor, where people are using components of AI in the background to produce better products that are more efficient and can guide operations as well as at-home care, and all those pieces are being brought forward. The common link between it and your point is on the information side of the house. How good is the starting information, and how broad does it go? Where is the opportunity from a linking standpoint?

To achieve this, a private-public partnership is essential. If you’re looking at algorithms and information that utilize global data that gets turned into global information, it has an impact. Most healthcare systems around the globe are publicly held. They’re not privately held. The United States is an aberration due to its vast amounts of privately held institutions versus publicly held ones.

Bashe:  Are you seeing more of that regarding the technology being used proactively?

Wolf: Yes, and that’s a good thing. We’ve always wanted to see that proper reimbursement takes place and proper services rendered. Many things in a system can get missed, but not an overwhelming amount.  If hospital systems perform well, they typically operate on a 2 percent to three percent margin, but many run at a loss, making proper reimbursements difficult. Large actuarial departments played a key role in the past, with various organizations providing revenue support, which was a huge thing even 15 years ago. However, over time, those efforts began to converge.

The real opportunity lies beneath the surface. It must coincide with an understanding of the care that was delivered. Right next to that benefit realization is the value proposition. What was the quality of what was rendered? Was the care appropriately given? Did we miss something in the diagnosis?

Bashe: One of the things that I worry about is not New York City or Los Angeles. Medical centers such as Mount Sinai, NYU Langone, Weil-Cornell, Columbia Presbyterian, and Memorial Sloan Kettering, much like their counterparts in Boston, Chicago, and the Bay area, provide excellent care. However, in rural America, someone can live three hours from a tertiary care center.

Your approach of using information to improve the care of almost 29 percent of the US population applies, I think, to other nations where people live far from centers of excellence. What are your thoughts about devices, wearables, remote patient monitoring and information, and protecting the information from your standpoint?

Wolf:  Wearables and home monitoring have transformed patient engagement, making health data more immediate and actionable. It’s fascinating. My wife and I compare our Oura daily. How did you sleep? How’s your heart rhythm? We’re finding the features and working through them. She lives anonymously. We are very engaged in our health. How far did we walk? What was our heart rate? Let’s do the 6-minute walk today and see. Were you snoring last night?

All of that is going on, and that’s an engagement level. The information flows from me to my ring, and then my ring says, do you want to share it with Apple? I said yes, and my wife said no; she didn’t want it to flow to another company. Apple will know how well I sleep – I don’t worry about it. If they want to dive into it, there is a profile about me and my general health. They could also derive that from the stuff I buy and the credit card information. That’s always been the case.

If you remember, back in the 1980s, we were already using demographic data with Donnelly overlays. I worked for Time Warner in the early 1990s when Time magazines were delivered to your door. The Time magazine that arrived at your next-door neighbor was different from yours—not the content, but the cover and the ads in the back. You may have gotten an ad for a sports car, and your neighbor may have gotten one for a minivan.

It was specifically designed based on the Donnelly reports, which provided insights about the household. We’re starting to shape recommendations at the personal level of the care an individual should receive.

Why wouldn’t a physician or a clinician want every piece of information on this Oura ring to be included in a patient’s profile? This information would help complete the picture needed to utilize sophisticated knowledge management systems, tapping into tens of thousands of research papers and combining that data with the person’s unique health details. The richer that information becomes, the more accurate it becomes, the more mistakes it makes, the more positively it helps the next person.

Bashe: Often, when I speak to doctors and nurses in the health system, we talk about the Electronic Medical Record (EMR). They’re candid: “We have an EMR system—it’s not perfect, we know that, and it’s getting better and better.” Yet, they often say, “Did you read that patient’s EMR data?” and then they’ll say, “I don’t have time to read the EMR.” While best practices come from committees, you play a unique role as an advisor to corporations. You’re the sounding board for major corporations, whether AWS, Epic, Microsoft, or Oracle. I’m sure they will listen to you because you’re the voice of the global community.

Wolf: We don’t have a dog in the race against them as a competitor.

Bashe: As a not-for-profit society that operates at a global NGO level, when you look at your role and the challenges you face, how does HIMSS address constant sector transformation? HIMSS and its members are constantly evolving because you represent applied information. The system is getting more interesting and more creative.

Look at the challenges that HIMSS owns and represents and your mission, which is obviously to improve access to care. As the organization’s leader, you’re clear and committed to this role, but you’ve seen difficulties implementing cultural or systemic changes.

What’s your guidance for the community? Please don’t take out a ruler and slap people on their hands. You’re obviously about supporting the system’s evolution, making it better. Can you share insights on how you’re filtering down best practices within this evolving landscape? How do you reflect on these challenges that arise and guide systems to understand that care is delivered to the front lines and is not always in hospitals? It’s specialists or primary care—physicians in their little offices worldwide.

Wolf: This is precisely what we discuss daily at HIMSS, and it’s central to our global work. Let’s walk through our view of the ecosystem and how we influence what you just related to because it’s our core.

Hospital systems – or, more importantly, governments worldwide – including our own, recognize their fundamental responsibility to care for their populations. Let’s set the United States aside for a second.

Ministries of Health in countries around the world are accountable for the well-being of their citizens. We’ll talk about citizens for a minute. The people living within their country want a healthy population, which improves the economy. They’re smart enough to know that a healthier population, or one cared for, efficiently reduces the constant increase in costs within healthcare systems. No one is looking to save money; instead, the goal is to slow the escalating costs of healthcare systems, which seem to rise every year.  

Information is the driver behind everything, but to your point, the combination of people, processes, and technology shapes the outcome. Technology is rarely an issue here; the challenge lies in implementing and changing culture. The pandemic forced a significant global cultural change, and while it may seem that it’s deeply in our rear-view mirror, its impact is still felt. Telemedicine, the idea of using information, and the idea of remote care to alleviate the pressures on the front line became a standard feature, and people recognize that.

We see the impact in our relationships with organizations like the WHO in Europe. Take Romania, for example, where we just signed an agreement to help them develop a strategic plan to deliver digital health transformation. HIMSS is focused on four major points.

1. First is digital health transformation.
2. Second is the deployment and utilization of AI as a tool.
3. Third is cyber security to protect that information and ensure that it works for the betterment of their ecosystem with less hassle.
4. Fourth is workforce development, which trains people to understand these tools before they can utilize them to their fullest extent.

Those are our four main areas. When we think about digital health transformation, we start with the HIMSS maturity models from five to seven years ago.

Back then, our maturity models were a checklist of technology. Do you have that technology? Are you wired? That used to be the baseline, what we now consider table stakes. It’s not table stakes anymore.

We’ve transformed our maturity models to reflect quality, access, correctness, and fundamental value. How are you using the information? How does it improve the flow?

From an IT standpoint, we began looking at our maturity models like a stack. It starts with the information layer. What does the infrastructure look like? How is it laid out? How does your data need to be laid out? Where does the electronic medical record go on top of that? How do those two pieces feed into each other? How do you utilize the radiology and the pictures that are in there? How does that flow? What’s your analytical layer? How does this work?

Where are you getting your information, and how are you handling your analytics? How does that tie itself back into the infrastructure? How does that information flow from your reporting back into your EMR and the data layer? How does that data layer tie in when discussing the imaging ecosystem? What’s your continuity of care, the CCMM? How does it flow across the board to ensure you’re not dropping a patient?

We’ve created a stack of maturity models that form the foundation of how information flows from the patient across hospitals, clinics, and homes, wherever the case is provided, to ensure you can keep up with them. And we present these maturity models not just as a technology checklist. Anyone can do that—it’s not meaningless—but anyone can do that. The true focus is on how you use these technologies.

How do you ensure that the relationship between the patient and pharmacy utilization, as well as the benefit realization, is maintained? And how does all this tie together?

Whether it’s community service, a hospital system, or a home, what we’ve created in those stacks is a blueprint that any hospital system, country, or large-scale region can use to identify the technology needed and deploy it for its maximum benefit. 

People do assessments in hospital systems. For HIMSS members in the United States, these assessments are part of the membership, allowing them unlimited access to evaluate their systems. They can conduct these assessments online, check their status, and aim for levels 6 and 7, which is when all those benefits kick in. That’s when we do our validations.

We also do white papers, thought leadership, and HIMSS events, panels and educational programs. More than 300 academic programs are coming up at HIMSS in 2025, with more than 150 offering CE credits.

But these experiences are all based on the output, what worked, and what didn’t work. As you know, learning from others’ mistakes is just as valuable as learning from their successes. Some of the most impactful lessons come from those who try something, fail, and then fix it.

That’s where HIMSS and advisory services come in. We’re presenting the aggregated global knowledge of what’s working and what isn’t.

Most ecosystems don’t work the same way the United States does because most don’t have the same amount of money invested in it. We draw from many healthcare systems- from the U.S., to Romania, Italy, Germany, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia. We learn from all these countries, bring it together in our membership, and figure out what we have learned. How does it impact the models? We do these reviews in a constant session. That’s how we make the society work.

Bashe: It’s a brilliant use of human capital and composite wisdom. As we’re gearing toward the end of our conversation, I wanted to ask you about the Emerge Innovation Experience– this is a first-time gathering, but the concept of start-ups at HIMSS is nothing new. What’s different now is that you’ve recognized that start-ups are a unique culture with unique needs. You’ve assembled a cohort of leaders dedicated to helping these start-ups succeed. What are your expectations from Emerge?

Wolf: First, I’m very interested in the outcome of Emerge. This is the first time that we’re going to try to bring that mesh point I mentioned earlier, where innovations meet operations. They’ve chosen some excellent examples of what can come forward. I think it’s got the right practicality and innovative forethought. From what I’ve heard from people involved in it and talking to people on the committee, I’ve listened to everything from “Wow! This is fantastic and very innovative!” to “It could have been stronger.”

If I talk to heavy innovator startups, they reply that it doesn’t go far enough and could be really “wow.” Meanwhile, those focused on operations often reply that it’s “really pushing the edge.” What that tells me is that it’s in the right mesh point.

What I’m curious to see is how it is received. Many smart people have been working on it, focusing on what will have the biggest impact on operations and be ready for prime time tomorrow, especially in areas like AI utilization and operational impact. What is one step beyond? We also have an incubator ecosystem there.

The Emerge Innovation Experience will be unique, and I look forward to that outcome.

Bashe: I always value your candor.

Wolf: Sometimes, I can get criticized for it, but I believe in absolute transparency. The beautiful part about thought leadership is that we share these thoughts, which makes HIMSS thrive. Transparency is a strength in a positive society. If we’re not transparent with each other, we can’t advance. My grandfather taught me a long time ago that the three most essential phrases in business are “I don’t know, I’ll find out, and I’ll get back to you.” “I don’t know” is critically important.

What’s beautiful about healthcare is that you learn something new every day. It’s impossible to be in the health sector without learning something new every day unless you don’t ask a single question, read nothing, or stay in a room and shut the door.  

Just today, I learned something about HIMSS. I didn’t know because I was asking about a process. A question was raised, and I followed the thread through the organization and found one I’d never seen before, which was exciting.

I appreciate the philosophical and real questions you’re asking. We’re excited about HIMSS 2025 and the learning opportunities it will offer. It’s also about the big picture of what’s happening globally. We call it the Global Conference because it brings together Ministries of Health and NGOs worldwide. It all comes together. This is our largest membership meeting, and we’re thrilled that there’s at least a 35% increase in people signing up for HIMSS membership compared to last year.

Bashe: I’ll be attending this year. As always, thank you for the in-depth exchange. *****

In this insightful conversation, Hal Wolf, President and CEO of HIMSS, explores the critical forces shaping the sector’s future. As industry and governments navigate a rapidly evolving policy landscape under a new administration’s eyes, hospital systems, startups and policymakers must adapt to changing regulations, funding challenges, and digital transformation. Wolf highlights HIMSS’ role as a global leader in uniting a diverse ecosystem to advance health equity, interoperability, and patient-centered care.

A key theme of the discussion is how data and AI are transforming payer, provider and product innovation operations – how information can improve people’s lives. Wolf explains how AI-driven predictive models are integrated to optimize patient care and resource allocation. However, he also warns of ethical concerns—such as the potential for financial-driven decision-making that could prioritize revenue over patient needs. HIMSS plays a vital role in ensuring there is a balance between digital health innovation aligns with quality care and equitable access.

As digital tools, AI, and large language models (LLMs) become more integrated into healthcare, Wolf and Bashe discuss how these advancements can empower providers and patient-enhancing decision-making, improving operational efficiency and offering trusted, system-vetted health information.

As HIMSS prepares for its annual global conference, Wolf emphasizes its role in shaping industry priorities. HIMSS is not just an event; it’s a society that defines strategies, policies, and innovations that drive the future of health. With an expanding ecosystem of startups and industry veterans, HIMSS remains a pivotal force in bridging technology, policy and patient care.

The post The Future of Health Information and Innovation: A Conversation with HIMSS CEO Hal Wolf appeared first on Medika Life.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and ambient clinical documentation are changing the way providers interact with Electronic Health Records (EHRs), making systems more intuitive and less time-consuming. Patient engagement is evolving beyond portals—smart hospital rooms, real-time educational content, and automated service requests are setting a new standard for the inpatient experience. Meanwhile, interoperability is no longer an aspiration but an expectation, with FHIR-driven solutions streamlining payer-provider interactions and cutting down on inefficiencies.

Among the standout companies leading these transformations are CereCore, Kinetik, MRO, Vibe Health by eVideon, Reveleer, Rhapsody, Tegria, and Turquoise Health. Each brings a unique approach to solving the health ecosystem’s most challenging problems. Here’s why they should be on your radar.

CereCore: Bridging IT and Clinical Excellence

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) have long been a source of frustration for most clinicians. However, CereCore is turning the tide by integrating ambient-voice technology, enhancing platform capabilities, and fostering clinical-IT collaboration. As a long-time sponsor of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), CereCore recognizes that embedding clinicians and data analysts within IT support teams improves EHR usability and liberates resources for adopting new technologies.

With expertise spanning Epic, Oracle Health (Cerner), and MEDITECH systems, CereCore assists health providers in navigating complex system challenges. Their managed IT services encompass help desks, cybersecurity support, revenue cycle management, and cloud transitions. This practical, provider-informed approach aligns seamlessly with ViVE 2025 emphasis on optimizing data insights and fostering collaborative provider-vendor relationships to drive superior patient outcomes. CereCore philosophy underscores the belief that true partnerships are pivotal to long-term clinician satisfaction.

Kinetik: Transforming Medicaid Transportation for Better Access and Lower Costs

Kinetik is transforming non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) for Medicaid patients by addressing the need for reliable access to health services. Recognizing that transportation barriers often lead to missed appointments and adverse health outcomes, Kinetik developed an advanced digital platform that connects patients with transportation providers. The integration ensures timely and dependable rides, enhancing patient adherence to medical schedules and improving overall health.

The Kinetik platform streamlines operations and reduces administrative costs associated with NEMT services by automating traditional manual processes. This efficiency leads to cost savings for health systems and taxpayers alike. Moreover, the platform’s real-time data capabilities allow for better tracking and using transportation resources, ensuring that services are effective and economical. This approach allows for setting a new standard in Medicaid patient care, demonstrating that technological advancements can drive cost efficiency and patient outcomes.

MRO: Revolutionizing Payer-Provider Dynamics

Administrative bottlenecks and strained communications have often characterized the payer-provider relationship. MRO is transforming this dynamic by leveraging HL7’s Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standards and private exchanges to streamline information sharing.

In collaboration with CHRISTUS Health Systems, MRO demonstrated how automation reduces administrative burdens associated with prior authorizations, reimbursements, and quality reporting for both payers and providers. By minimizing unnecessary back-and-forth, MRO is paving the way for smoother, more efficient collaborations between these critical healthcare stakeholders.

Vibe Health by eVideon: Redefining Patient Engagement

The design of hospital rooms is evolving, with technology playing a significant role in enhancing patient care and communication. Vibe Health by eVideon offers a platform that integrates smart TVs, digital whiteboards, bedside tablets, and digital door signs to elevate patient engagement and streamline nursing workflows.

By interfacing with EHRs and other hospital systems, Vibe Health provides real-time patient data, schedules, and educational content, ensuring patients remain informed without adding to the staff’s workload. This integration modernizes existing facilities, reduces administrative tasks, automates service requests, and minimizes interruptions. Features such as video chat and in-room surveys empower patients to share feedback directly, enabling hospitals to respond promptly and effectively.

Reveleer: Driving Value-Based Care with Intelligent Automation

Among the more transformative forces shaping health today is value-based care—a shift that demands new payment models and a new way of managing data, quality, and risk. Enter Reveleer, a company redefining how healthcare organizations optimize performance and outcomes in this evolving landscape.

Value-based care isn’t about shifting payment structures; it’s about delivering better patient outcomes with greater efficiency. Reveleer is at the forefront of this transformation, equipping providers and health plans with an AI-powered platform that streamlines retrieval, clinical intelligence, risk adjustment, quality improvement, and member management. By unifying these traditionally fragmented processes, Reveleer accelerates productivity and ensures success in high-priority initiatives.

“As value-based care gains momentum, we (vendors) must meet providers where they are—whether that means integrating natively into their EMR or delivering insights as provider worksheets for visits,” says Anthony Polizzi, Senior Director – Solution Architecture of Reveleer. “Without fostering engagement at the point of care, we cannot drive meaningful change in our healthcare system.”

Reveleer rapid growth—serving U.S. and Puerto Rico organizations—underscores the increasing demand for intelligent automation to support the shift toward value-based models.

Rhapsody: Seeking to Solve the Health Interoperability Dilemma

The health sector’s shift toward AI-driven solutions, predictive analytics, and automated workflows depends on one critical factor: access to quality patient data. However, interoperability remains a mega challenge, with disparate EHR systems, revenue cycle management (RCM) platforms, and clinical data sources making it difficult for digital health innovators to scale.

Enter Rhapsody, a digital health enablement platform designed to streamline secure data exchange, normalize disparate data sources, and accelerate the onboarding of healthcare organizations onto new technologies. Used by health AI companies, health systems, and innovators such as Geisinger and Great Lakes Medical Imaging, Rhapsody enables near-seamless integration of EHRs, claims data, genomics, social determinants of health (SDOH), and clinical trial information into next-generation applications. The feedback among its customer base is enthusiastic.

“Because we chose Rhapsody, we could quickly launch this clinical trial and automate an otherwise manually intensive workflow,” said Mike Hawn, SVP of Data Services & Product Solutions for BioIntelliSense.

During ViVE, Rhapsody demonstrated how its secure API-driven solutions help AI-driven health companies with onboard data 50% faster, reduce infrastructure costs, and support high-quality AI model development—making interoperability a competitive advantage, not a roadblock.

Tegria: Transforming Health Through Strategic Partnerships

Tegria is a global healthcare consulting and services powerhouse that partners with provider and payer organizations to drive transformative change. Its mission is to deliver customized, end-to-end solutions that accelerate growth, enhance experiences, foster collaboration, and create a more accessible, efficient, and integrated healthcare system.

With a global team of more than 1,500 professionals, Tegria is a catalyst for change for its more than 650 clients across North America and Europe. It was founded by Providence, one of the largest not-for-profit health systems in the United States.

As Tye Cook, Senior Executive Director of Access Transformation, says, “Many healthcare leaders recognize patient access as a rallying cry to improve patient and provider experience. In today’s healthcare environment, leaders who fail to prioritize access will miss a critical opportunity to align their workforce to the needs of their organization and the communities they serve.”

ViVE 2025 is more than a showcase of emerging health technologies—it’s a testament to how innovation reshapes the sector’s landscape. These companies are proving that digital transformation isn’t a buzzword; it’s in motion. By tackling interoperability gaps, streamlining provider workflows, enhancing patient engagement, and advocating value-based care, they set new standards for what’s possible.

Turquoise Health: Bringing Transparency to Pricing

Health pricing has been a black box for too long, leaving patients, providers, and payers navigating a system with complexity and uncertainty. Turquoise Health, led by Chris Severn, CEO and Founder., is changing that by making actual price transparency a reality. Their platform aggregates and standardizes hospital and payer rates, giving providers and patients transparent, upfront pricing for services—ushering in a new era of simplified, consumer-friendly healthcare transactions.

Leveraging data made available through Federal price transparency regulations to provide clear and accessible pricing information, such as the Hospital Price Transparency Final Rule, which mandates hospitals publish a machine-readable file (MRF) containing standard charges for all items and services. This file must be easily accessible on the hospital’s website and updated annually. Additionally, hospitals are required to provide prices for 300 shoppable services or offer a patient estimate tool.

Another significant regulation is the Transparency in Coverage Final Rule, which requires health insurers to disclose pricing information, increasing access to cost data. Turquoise Health is showcasing how price transparency can drive competition, reduce costs, and empower patients to make informed decisions about their care. With more hospitals and insurers adopting its Clear Contracts platform, the company is accelerating toward negotiated, transparent, and value-driven care models. In an industry where cost opacity has long been the norm, Turquoise Health proves that clarity isn’t just possible—it’s inevitable.

The Future of Health is Happening Right Now

These companies—all present at ViVE 2025—should be on your radar screens. Follow them and see how they evolve. There are many more to track and we will!

According to digital health leader, recently appointed Chief Growth Officer at Doceree, Ritesh Patel: “I have been attending ViVE for three years, and this year, we are finally seeing some of the digital health companies taking the lead and establishing themselves in the market—companies like  Hippocratic.ai, Andor Health  Abridge and Care.ai.  I look forward to seeing who makes the list next year.”

The future of healthcare isn’t waiting—it’s being built right now. The organizations leading the charge at ViVE 2025 are the answer to industry challenges and define the next era of patient-centered, technology-driven care. The only question left is: Who’s ready to embrace the possibilities? Let’s see what ViVE 2026 in Los Angeles has in store.

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