Yahoo Finance's Healthcare Checkup: From Ozempic to AI, how healthcare is changing
The health industry is plagued with many stumbling blocks these days, from new and controversial tech like AI to ever-increasing costs and an opaque health delivery system. Yahoo Finance LIVE tackled all that and more in a weeklong series — Nov. 13-17 — focused on various aspects of the healthcare industry. We heard from industry leaders, Wall Street analysts, and experts about some of the biggest topics of 2023.
Here are some of the highlights:
Weight loss and diabetes drugs have been the talk of the year, boosting the bottom lines of Novo Nordisk (NVO) and Eli Lilly (LLY). But there were other hot stocks and trends. Bank of America (BAC) senior analyst Geoff Meacham joined to discuss:
Artificial intelligence is impacting a number of sectors due to the buzz around generative AI, but it isn't new in the health space. Drug development and imaging are just two places where it has been used for years. But is an industry notoriously still reliant on the fax machine ready to embrace AI? Dr. Geeta Nayyar, former Salesforce (CRM) chief medical officer, helped answer that:
Misinformation and disinformation have played a key role in the loss of trust that scientists and clinicians contend with daily today. (Remember the loss of lives during the pandemic?) Google (GOOG) and YouTube are trying to do something about it, by helping elevate credible sources. Google's chief clinical officer Michael Howell and YouTube's director of health, Dr. Garth Graham, joined for a special discussion on the effort:
Clean air: The pandemic taught us a lot about how air circulation can impact our health. Businesses have been upgrading their offices to ensure more "defensive" buildings, but more is yet to be done. From wildfires to the climate crisis, there are a number of key concerns that can be addressed by better filters and upgrades to buildings like schools and small businesses. Joseph G. Allen, director of Harvard's Healthy Buildings Program, explained it all:
Amazon's health strategy is finally starting to come together. But how much more it can grow is anybody's guess. The company just celebrated three years of Amazon Pharmacy, and boasts the company's automatic coupons have helped patients save $9 million since launching in August. Amazon's (AMZN) chief medical officer Dr. Vin Gupta joined us to share more insights:
Anjalee Khemlani is the senior health reporter at Yahoo Finance, covering all things pharma, insurance, care services, digital health, PBMs, and health policy and politics. Follow Anjalee on all social media platforms @AnjKhem.
