Stargate is no longer just Gen X’s second-favorite Kurt Russell sci-fi movie (after The Thing, of course)—now it’s an initiative from some of the country’s largest tech companies that aims to develop the next generation of artificial intelligence (AI).

The Stargate AI infrastructure project, which President Trump announced in a press conference the day after taking office, is a collaboration between OpenAI and Oracle that has funding from Japanese company Softbank and United Arab Emirates-based investment firm MGX. The partners’ stated goal is to invest $500 billion over the next four years to build out the country’s AI infrastructure.

During the Jan. 21 press conference, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Oracle co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison claimed Stargate would revolutionize healthcare by doing everything from curing cancer and heart disease to making personalized cancer vaccines in just 48 hours.

Though developing that technology may be feasible, experts told Healthcare Brew that applying it is likely, for now, more “fi” than “sci.”

Keep reading here.—MA

In great news for investors, a new study found that major healthcare companies have paid out $2.6 trillion to shareholders over the past 20 years in the form of dividends and share buybacks, and those payments are increasing. Bad news for patients: Some of that money could’ve been spent on, well, healthcare.

The study, published Feb. 10 in JAMA, found that publicly traded S&P 500 healthcare companies paid shareholders a total of $170.2 billion in 2022, up 315% from payouts of just $54 billion in 2001.

On average, these companies spent 95% of their net income on shareholder payouts, and healthcare facilities, healthcare distributors, and pharmaceutical companies paid shareholders more money than their net income.

Big pharma has netted the most money for shareholders by far. The 19 publicly traded pharmaceutical companies in the study paid out $1.2 trillion to shareholders—45.7% of the total amount paid by 92 healthcare companies from 2001 to 2022.

The study’s authors, a group of Yale University researchers, wrote that these findings have “critical implications.” Money spent on shareholders is money not reinvested into patients, they argued.

Keep reading here.—CC

The second Trump administration has made eliminating federal funding for organizations that provide gender-affirming care for transgender teens a priority, leaving some clinics’ futures uncertain.

On Jan. 28, Trump signed an executive order prohibiting organizations that receive federal research or education grants from providing gender-affirming surgery, hormones, or puberty blockers to people under 19. A judge temporarily paused that order on Feb. 13 following a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and others.

Across the US, over two dozen states already have their own restrictions on gender-affirming care for transgender adolescents. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is expected to rule in early spring or summer on the constitutionality of banning treatments for trans youth.

“Even if ultimately the president’s actions are struck down, in the meantime, they’re just going to cause all kinds of waves of disruption,” Elana Redfield, federal policy director at the Williams Institute, a sexual orientation and gender identity law and policy think tank, told Healthcare Brew.

Keep reading here.—CC