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Stephanie Papes Strong took the opposite approach to most founders building companies during the coronavirus-fueled telehealth boom. Her startup Boulder Care doesn’t rely on internet ads and cash-pay customers. Instead, Strong, an alum of the Forbes 30 Under 30 Healthcare list, sought out one of the toughest possible markets: helping low-income people with addiction disorders get access to treatment.
Boulder Care currently offers virtual addiction treatment for opioid and alcohol use disorder, as well as co-occurring conditions, in three states: Oregon, Washington and Ohio. Around 11,000 patients in the program get access to peer recovery specialists, clinicians and medication-assisted treatment, like buprenorphine. With $35 million in Series C funding led by Advance Venture Partners announced Wednesday, Strong hopes to be in 10 states by 2026. “We like to go into states that have large rural populations, where we can pretty immediately help expand access to care for people who have no other in-person treatment facilities,” she said.
Boulder Care contracts with Medicaid managed care insurers, including Elevance Health, UnitedHealth Community Plan and Centene, and gets paid based on outcomes, meaning how many patients the company is able to initially engage and then keep in treatment. Nationally around 20% of opioid use disorder patients are still in treatment after six months, but around 70 to 80% of Boulder Care patients hit the six month mark, said Strong. She will continue to take a slow and steady approach to growth. “Fifty million people have substance use disorder, and people are dying of opioid use disorder every day,” said Strong. “I carry that responsibility with the fact that we need to scale with quality and to be very high touch with every patient we serve.”
AI More Likely To Wrongly Indicate Breast Cancer In Black Women
An FDA-approved AI algorithm was more likely to wrongly indicate the presence of breast cancer in Black women compared to White, Hispanic and Asian women, according to a new study. The research published in the journal Radiology looked retrospectively at the results from almost 5,000 mammogram screenings performed at Duke University Medical Center between 2016 and 2019.
Read more here.
Pipeline & Deal Updates
AI: Sanofi announced that it’s entered into a collaboration with OpenAI and Formation Bio to build AI-powered software tools for drug discovery.
(AI)PO: Tempus AI, a company that uses AI to personalize lab test results, has filed for an IPO. In 2023, its tech was used by 7,000 doctors and the company said it generated more than $530 million in revenue.
ALS: The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health launched a public-private partnership to identify biomarkers and other assessments that can lead to earlier diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and potentially identify new drug targets for the disease.
CAR-T: The FDA has approved Bristol Myers Squibb’s Breyanzi, a CAR-T cell therapy, for the treatment of relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma.
Antibody Discovery: U.K.-based startup LabGenius raised a $44.6 million series B round led by M Ventures to further develop its machine learning platform for drug discovery and advance its antibody therapeutic pipeline.
Digital Therapeutics: Click Therapeutics acquired the obesity and cardiometabolic assets of Better Therapeutics, as it looks for opportunities to develop products alongside popular weight loss and diabetes medications. The acquisition includes an FDA-authorized digital therapeutic for type 2 diabetes. The sale price was not disclosed.
Primary Care: Centivo, a startup that designs health plans centered around primary care, has acquired virtual primary care provider Eden Health. The sale price was not disclosed.
Immunology: AltruBio raised a $225 million Series B led by BVF Partners LP as the biotech startup advances Phase 2 clinical trials for its immune checkpoint enhancer for ulcerative colitis.
Hims & Hers Stock Hits 3-Year High After Announcing $199 Weight-Loss Alternative To Wegovy
Shares of Hims, known for providing cheap and generic alternatives to popular brand-name drugs, have nearly doubled in price since the start of the year hitting $18.60 after the company announced a weight-loss treatment starting at $199 a month that will compete with Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Ozempic.
Read more here.
Other Healthcare News
Nestlé is launching a frozen food brand specifically aimed at people taking GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy in a bid to offset potential sales losses.
The CDC is warning of a potential “global threat” after more people have become infected with a deadlier strain of the mpox virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo over the last year.
Teens who use cannabis have a significantly higher risk of developing a psychotic disorder compared to those who don’t, according to new study.
Nevada is one step closer to having abortion on the ballot this election.
New coronavirus variants dubbed “FLiRT” are circulating the world and growing dominant in the U.S., and some experts worry they may cause a summer surge.
Across Forbes
Why Boeing Needs A New Plane — Soon
Why Enterprise Is One Of The World’s Best Private Companies
You’re Buying So Much From Temu And Shein The Air Cargo Industry Can’t Keep Up
What Else We are Reading
The Disease Detectives Trying to Keep the World Safe From Bird Flu (The New York Times)
Marshall Allen, a Tenacious Health Care Journalist, Dies at 52 (ProPublica)
The only tribal medical school in the U.S. graduates its first Native American doctors (STAT)
