Injectable diabetes medications have gained newfound popularity as weight loss solutions—with prescriptions for some drugs up over 2,000% since 2019—and drugmakers have struggled to keep pace with the skyrocketing demand.

For months, shortages of GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonist) medications have made it hard for patients with diabetes to access certain doses of Wegovy, Ozempic, and Mounjaro. The shortages have additionally forced some physicians to reconsider who should get priority when it comes to GLP-1 prescriptions.

“The provider community, of which I’m a part, really needs to take responsibility for the prescriptions that we’re writing, and make sure that the patients most in need are getting their medication,” virtual-first healthcare provider Omada Health Chief Medical Officer Carolyn Jasik told Healthcare Brew.

Those most-in-need patients, Jasik said, are the people already on the medication—particularly those with Type 2 diabetes—who could start to experience side effects (increased blood sugar levels, withdrawal symptoms, and/or loss of glycemic control) if their prescriptions were abruptly discontinued.

Rajesh Aggarwal, a GI surgeon and founder and CEO of Twenty30 Health, agreed that “the worst thing you can do is stop” a patient’s medication.

“There’s no easy answer to this,” he said. “Are we going to start rationing [based on] if you’ve got a higher [body mass index] or you’ve got diabetes? That’s not how we deliver healthcare in this country.”

There have been shortages of Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro—a tirzepatide injection—since December 2022. Intermittent backorders for higher doses were expected to continue through the end of July of this year, while backorders for one lower dose of 10 milligrams (mg) were expected through September, according to the FDA. Various doses of Lilly’s Trulicity (dulaglutide) remain available despite the drug also being in shortage since late 2022.

Keep reading here.—SY

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Shannon at [email protected]. For completely confidential conversations, ask Shannon for her number on Signal.

From HAL to Skynet, AI gets a bad rap. With its fast rise, buzzy headlines, and seemingly limitless potential, it’s hard to know if AI will help us or upend us. A pressing question on many employees’ minds: Will AI take my job?

MIT researchers offer a picture of the future of AI in the workplace. Read Tech Brew’s explanation of what artificial intelligence is capable of, what its probable use cases are, and the implications for your job. Hint: Predictions might be more complex and hopeful than you might expect. Read or listen here.

The first half of 2023 marked the start of a new era for digital health funding, according to a report from digital health strategy group and venture fund Rock Health.

The “new normal” is characterized by fewer deals, smaller deal sizes, and fewer investors, Rock Health found. And if funding in the second half of the year continues at its current pace, 2023 will be the lowest digital health funding year since 2019, according to the report, authored primarily by research associates Mihir Somaiya and Madelyn Knowles.

By the numbers

In the first half of 2023:

• Digital health startups raised $6.1 billion in 244 deals. The average deal size was $24.8 million.
• In Q1, startups raised $3.5 billion in 131 deals, and $2.5 billion over 113 deals in Q2.
• 555 investors were involved in fundraises, compared to 775 in the first half of 2022 and 832 in the first half of 2021. Of those investors, 71% had previously invested in digital health.
• There were roughly 12 digital health startup acquisitions per month, compared to 15 monthly in 2022 and 14 each month for the past five years.

The lack of dollars flowing to companies is already reverberating: Some startups are closing down. Pear Therapeutics filed for bankruptcy in April and sold its assets to four buyers in May. Other digital health startups—SimpleHealth, The Pill Club, Hurdle, and Quil Health—also closed in the first half of 2023.

Mega money. There may be fewer investors overall, but those still investing in digital health are putting a lot of money down, according to Rock Health.

There were 12 so-called mega deals in the first half of 2023, which made up 37% of the total funding for the six months.

Keep reading here.—MA

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Maia at [email protected]. For completely confidential conversations, ask Maia for her number on Signal.

On Fridays, we schedule our rounds with Healthcare Brew readers. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to introduce yourself.

This week’s Making Rounds spotlights Heather Lyons-Burney, a clinical associate professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Pharmacy. She also heads the board of My Neighbor’s Charitable Pharmacy in Branson, Missouri, which treats uninsured, low-income customers. Lyons-Burney discussed the pharmacy’s origins, its business model, and the most fulfilling part of her job.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What’s My Neighbor’s Charitable Pharmacy?

My Neighbor’s Charitable Pharmacy opened in February 2023, and it was born out of a charitable clinic called Faith Community Health Clinic that I helped open in 2010. I was a founding board member, and we recognized that people who were under-resourced had trouble accessing healthcare. We provided access to medications within our clinic, but we recognized that was really limited to those people that could come to our clinic.

By working with our state legislature and our pharmacy board, we were able to create a special class of pharmacy called a charitable pharmacy class designation. There was never a charitable pharmacy designation in Missouri before, and with it, we are now open to anyone in the community who qualifies.

What qualifications must patients meet?

Patients need to have a household income of less than 300% of the federal poverty level and no prescription insurance. We are strictly a model that’s run by donors, supporters, and grants. Patients pay a $10 monthly membership fee, and with that they gain access to anything that our pharmacy is able to provide, such as pharmacist assistance with disease management and education, and medical supplies like diabetes monitors and blood pressure cuffs.

Keep reading here.—MA