About 44% of global healthcare and life sciences companies that use generative AI have added AI agents to the mix, according to a survey released Oct. 16.

The survey, conducted by Google Cloud and global insights and strategy firm National Research Group, polled 605 leaders of global healthcare and life sciences companies from April to June to see how they use AI—in particular, AI agents—and what return on investment (ROI) they’re seeing. 

Healthcare most commonly uses AI agents for tech support (53%), followed by security operations and cybersecurity (49%), then productivity and research (46%), the poll found.

Agents represent a new frontier because, as opposed to traditional large language models that take commands, they can autonomously work together to complete a task, Aashima Gupta, Google Cloud’s global director of healthcare strategy and solutions, said during a virtual roundtable on Oct. 14.

“This multi-agent framework is the evolution [of AI],” Gupta said.

The latest development in the AI revolution appears to be agents.—CC

Move over, Walgreens—there’s a new retail pharmacy going through financial troubles.

CVS Health announced last week it would close 16 of its older adult-focused primary care provider Oak Street Health locations by the end of February due to “elevated medical costs” and changes to CMS’s risk adjustment model and “payer dynamics,” CVS spokesperson Amy Thibault told us in an emailed statement.

CVS will still operate 230 Oak Street Health sites across 27 states. Aetna acquired Oak Street Health for roughly $10.6 billion in May 2023, when it had 169 centers across 21 states.

This comes following September news that CVS subsidiary Omnicare, which offers pharmacy services to long-term care facilities, had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and was ordered to pay approximately $949 million in penalties.

And in October last year, rumors circulated that CVS might split up its pharmacy division from its insurance arm, Aetna, after its CVS Health CEO and President Karen Lynch stepped down following continued financial troubles.

But one expert told us this doesn’t spell doom for the retailer.—NO

Mary Kellerman, 12, who lived in a Chicago suburb, awoke on the morning of Sept. 29, 1982, with a sore throat and runny nose, so her parents told her to take a Tylenol. Her father, Dennis Kellerman, heard her go into the bathroom, and then he heard something drop.

“So I opened the bathroom door, and my little girl was on the floor unconscious,” he told the Chicago Tribune. “She was still in her pajamas.” Mary died that morning.

It turned out that the Tylenol had been laced with cyanide. In the next few days, six more people in the Chicago area would die from using the product.

As the FBI, the US Attorney’s office, and Chicago-area police investigated leads, executives at Johnson & Johnson, which made Tylenol under its McNeil division, scrambled to respond. At the time, Tylenol commanded a 37% share of the analgesic market.

Keep reading on Retail Brew.—AAN

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