Cigna has officially sold its Medicare Advantage, prescription drug, and Medigap businesses — along with its CareAllies provider enablement unit — to Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC) for $3.7 billion. This expands HCSC’s reach to 26.5 million members and significantly increases its Medicare Advantage footprint. The deal enables Cigna to exit the financially pressured Medicare market and refocus on employer-sponsored insurance and health services through Evernorth. Despite criticism over the sale’s valuation, Cigna sees the divestiture as a strategic move toward leaner operations and improved earnings in 2025.
Author: Abhay Panchal
The ASCOLT trial, a landmark international Phase 3 study led by clinician-scientists in Singapore, investigated aspirin’s role in preventing colorectal cancer recurrence after surgery and chemotherapy. While the trial did not find a statistically significant improvement in disease-free survival across all patients, it revealed a consistent trend toward improved survival, especially in certain subgroups.
Johnson & Johnson announced FDA approval for TREMFYA® (guselkumab) as a treatment for adults with moderately to severely active Crohn’s disease (CD), making it the first IL-23 inhibitor to offer both intravenous (IV) and subcutaneous (SC) induction options. Backed by robust Phase 3 data from GRAVITI and GALAXI studies, TREMFYA® demonstrated significant clinical and endoscopic remission rates, outperforming STELARA® across pooled endoscopic endpoints. This milestone marks TREMFYA®’s fourth U.S. indication and brings greater flexibility to patients with chronic immune-mediated diseases.
Atul Gupta, Wharton assistant professor of health care management, discusses the growing involvement of private equity in the health care sector, its benefits and risks, and the regulatory challenges surrounding transparency and ownership structures.
The updated guidance from the US Multi-Society Task Force on Colorectal Cancer marks a significant shift toward more personalized, patient-centered bowel preparation for colonoscopy. The new recommendations emphasize improved patient education, allow for lower-volume and same-day prep regimens in select patients, and offer more flexible dietary restrictions based on individual risk. Critically, the task force now recommends tracking bowel prep adequacy at both provider and unit levels, raising the benchmark from 85% to 90%. Experts say these timely updates could improve patient adherence, satisfaction, and ultimately, colorectal cancer prevention outcomes.
In his insightful article, Spencer Dorn, MD, explores how nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician associates (PAs) are reshaping American healthcare amid a persistent physician shortage. While training differences remain stark, research shows that NPs and PAs often provide comparable care in structured clinical scenarios. Dorn argues it’s time to move beyond the “who’s better” debate and focus instead on how to best deploy all clinicians to meet rising care demands. With AI on the horizon and a sicker, aging population, the future of medicine will require teamwork, adaptability, and a rethinking of roles across the board.
The article discusses the growing movement to deprescribe GLP-1 therapy for obesity due to cost concerns — but warns this is a shortsighted approach. Backed by robust clinical evidence, it argues that obesity is a chronic, relapsing condition and that discontinuing GLP-1s often leads to weight regain and worsened health outcomes. The real question, it concludes, isn’t whether we can afford to continue treatment — it’s whether we can afford not to.
The American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) issued no formal recommendation on the use of AI-assisted colonoscopy (CADe) in adults, citing very low certainty of evidence regarding critical long-term outcomes such as colorectal cancer (CRC) incidence, mortality, and post-colonoscopy CRC. The guideline highlights the need for future research in diverse populations and settings, particularly regarding detection of clinically significant polyps, cost-effectiveness, patient preferences, and real-world outcomes, with plans to update the recommendation as evidence evolves.
ClostraBio, a biotech startup originating from the University of Chicago, has secured nearly $4 million in new financing. This investment aims to advance the company’s novel probiotic designed to restore compromised intestinal function.Founded in 2016, ClostraBio has now raised over $10 million in total funding. The company’s research focuses on developing therapies to alleviate the effects of food allergies and conditions like ulcerative colitis
In this segment of the RX Review, Drs. Brian Jacobson and Joseph Anderson highlight real-world barriers to implementing the updated USMSTF bowel prep guidance. While the recommendations are more patient-centered, challenges persist — such as early morning procedures requiring inconvenient wake times for split-dose prep and inconsistent reporting of prep quality by providers.