Meet the MIT professor who thinks he’s found biotech’s ‘holy grail’

Hello,

Welcome to Insider Healthcare. I'm healthcare editor Leah Rosenbaum, and today in healthcare news:

• A finance whiz thinks he may have solved biotech's clinical trial problem;
• Take a look at the presentation a concierge emergency-care startup used to raise $30 million;
• At least 75 lawmakers bought and sold COVID-related stocks during the pandemic. 

If you're new to this newsletter, sign up here. Comments, tips? Email me at [email protected] or tweet @leah_rosenbaum. Let's get to it…

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More than 90% of drug trials fail every year. A finance expert wants to help pharma predict when it will happen.

• MIT's Andrew Lo is known for studying Wall Street, but he's turned his attention to biotech.
• He wants to predict which drugs will fail clinical trials so money and patients' time can be saved.
• But experts say his tech needs more work and that getting it wrong may cause harm.

Dive in>>

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See the 14-slide presentation a members-only concierge emergency-care startup used to raise $30 million in Series A funding

• Sollis Health is a membership-based concierge emergency-care startup in New York.
• It announced its Series A round led by Torch Capital and Denali Growth Partners on Tuesday.
• It wants to add more clinics in existing cities and open new offices in San Francisco next year.

Read on>>

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As the pandemic raged, at least 75 lawmakers bought and sold stock in companies that make COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and tests

• At least 75 federal lawmakers held shares of Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, or Pfizer in 2020.
• Lawmakers' holding stock in these companies has prompted ethical concerns.
• Several other lawmakers traded shares of companies with a direct stake in the pandemic.

Check it out>>

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More stories we're reading:

• Omicron could make you infectious more quickly than Delta — take a rapid test no earlier than a few hours before heading to a party, experts say (Insider)
• Orthopedic surgery as a specialty continues to have a diversity problem (STAT)
• The famed startup accelerator Y Combinator is wading into the $100 billion psychedelics industry. Here's how 3 psychedelics firms got into the program. (Insider)
• Vaccinators in Peru struggle to get access to remote communities with physical and cultural barriers (NPR)

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-Leah