Morning Headlines 6/21/16

Should digital health be regulated like air travel?

AMA CEO James Madara, MD doubles down on his “snake oil” analogy, reiterating that “That bluntness was by design” and citing a recent Commonwealth Fund study that looked at 1,000 healthcare apps for patients and concluded that only a minority were likely to be useful to patients.

First Human Test of CRISPR Proposed

Doctors at the University of Pennsylvania are seeking approval to use CRISPR gene editing technology on humans for the first time. The researchers seeking approval are working on a therapy in which immune cells are removed from the patient, edited to target myeloma, melanoma, and sarcomas, and then re-infused into the bloodstream.

Health Insurer Hoped to Disrupt the Industry, but Struggles in State Marketplaces

The New York Times profiles Oscar Health, a tech-focused health insurance startup that has raised $727 million in funding, but has yet to establish a profitable business model in the hyper-competitive ACA marketplaces.

Supercomputers Join the Fight Against Cancer

In an article published by Medium, US Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz pledges to support the Cancer Moonshot project with supercomputers owned by the Department of Energy’s 17 national laboratories.