Hello,
Healthcare reporterClarrie Feinstein here, writing the weekly newsletter whileLydia Ramsey continues her wonderful travels for her honeymoon! We’re definitely starting to miss her in the office.
Even though the holiday weekend is just around the corner, and New York City is feeling a little more quiet than usual (hard to believe, but it’s true!) we still have lots of important healthcare stories from the last week to share with you all.
The top story I want to highlight came from Lydia andEmma Court, who gave us the inside scoop on how a birth-control-pill delivery startup sparked a feud with CVS on Twitter.
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The inside story of how a tiny startup and a controversial Twitter doctor sparked viral internet outrage against CVS
One of The Pill Club’s “care packages.”Courtesy The Pill Club
They found a trending story on Twitter whenviral backlash erupted against CVS. The social media conversation framed CVS as a massive corporation bent on obstructing women’s access to contraception. But after some digging, Emma and Lydia found that the startup, Pill Club,engineered the campaign with the help of a marketing firm and a controversial physician.Read the full story here.
Emma also interviewed Halle Tecco, the cofounder of the venture capital firm Rock Health. They discussed her personal reason for starting a women’s-health-focused startup. The startup,Natalist, is first offering a subscription bundle for women who are seeking to get pregnant. The idea came out of Tecco’s experiences trying to get pregnant. The story is poignant and well worth a read. Check it out:
The woman who founded top health-tech VC Rock Health is now launching her first startup, and it shows that a long-neglected market is heating up
The marijuana breathalyzer.Hound Labs
Our stellar west coast reporter,Erin Brodwin, gave us an inside look at a new marijuana breathalyzer (this is not a drill). The device is still in early stages of development, but the goal is to be able tell to tell if people are too high to drive or work.
The startup behind the world’s first marijuana breathalyzer just raised a fresh $30 million and offered a glimpse at how the device works
And this week, I spoke with theCEO of the new pharmacy startup Zipdrug, which is creating its own network of pharmacies to deliver prescription drugs to seniors in the US. We walk you through how the new startup operates and discuss how the startup will break into a competitive market, with big players like CVS Health already offering similar services.
A startup working with 200 pharmacies is trying to break into the hypercompetitive drug-delivery business and give elderly Americans cheaper medications
But the team didn’t stop there!
- Emma talked to theCMO of digital-health company Rally Health about its creative strategy to promote the business and services, which includes pop-up events and working with celebs like Katie Couric.Read all about it here.
- On a more serious note, Erin looked at a report investigating more than 200 cases of lung disease which have been tied to vaping.Read the story here.
- Earlier this week I looked at a study which showed the prices oftreatments for multiple sclerosis quadrupled over the last decade. Read the full articlehere.
As you can see the healthcare team has been busy as ever. And we’re not going to lie, we’re excited for a little break with the upcoming holiday weekend. I’ll be heading back home to Canada, seeing some friends in Montreal!
From the healthcare team, we hope everyone has a relaxing Labor Day weekend. We’ll be back reporting bright and early on Tuesday…not wearing white, we promise.
As always, you can reach us with tips at [email protected].
Thanks for reading.
-Clarrie
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