Attorney General Eric Holder and Associate Attorney General Tony West announced today that the Department of Justice has reached a $16.65 billion settlement with Bank of America Corporation – the largest civil settlement with a single entity in American history ­— to resolve federal and state claims against Bank of America and its former and current subsidiaries, including Countrywide Financial Corporation and Merrill Lynch. As part of this global resolution, the bank has agreed to pay a $5 billion penalty

The United States filed a complaint in federal court in Chicago to bar Laurie G. Helfer, aka Laurie G. Powell, individually and through her businesses Laurie’s Freelance & Tax Preparation Services and Tax Lady Laurie Inc., from preparing federal tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today

Three residents of Montgomery, Alabama, each pleaded guilty during the past week to one count of conspiracy to defraud the government and one count of aggravated identity theft.

The Department of Justice, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) today announced a settlement with Trans Energy Inc., requiring the oil and gas company to restore portions of streams and wetlands at 15 sites in West Virginia that were polluted by the company’s unauthorized discharge of dredge or fill material. Trans Energy will pay a penalty of $3 million to be divided equally between the federal government and the WVDEP. The Clean Water Act requires a company to obtain a permit from EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers prior to discharging dredge or fill material into wetlands, rivers, streams and other waters of the United States.

A 26-year-old man from Newport News, Virginia, was sentenced today to serve 255 months in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, for engaging in numerous gang-related crimes as a member of the Black P-Stones, including the shooting of a rival gang member, marijuana dealing and lying to a federal grand jury.

A federal grand jury in San Francisco returned an eight-count indictment against five real estate investors for their role in bid rigging and fraud schemes at foreclosure auctions in Northern California, the Department of Justice announced

An Alabama real estate investor pleaded guilty yesterday for his role in a conspiracy to commit mail fraud related to public real estate foreclosure auctions held in southern Alabama, the Department of Justice announced today

A federal grand jury in San Francisco returned three multi-count indictments against eleven real estate investors for their role in bid rigging and fraud schemes at foreclosure auctions in Northern California, the Department of Justice announced

A Northern California real estate investor has agreed to plead guilty for his role in conspiracies to rig bids and commit mail fraud at public real estate foreclosure auctions in Northern California, the Department of Justice announced

Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that the Department of Justice and 19 states and the District of Columbia have entered into a $1.375 billion settlement agreement with the rating agency Standard &s Financial Services LLC, along with its parent corporation McGraw Hill Financial Inc., to resolve allegations that S&s 2013 lawsuit against S& true credit risks. Other allegations assert that S&s business relationships with the investment banks that issued the securities.

A Northern California real estate investor has agreed to plead guilty for his role in bid rigging and fraud conspiracies at public real estate foreclosure auctions in Northern California, the Department of Justice announced

A Georgia real estate investor pleaded guilty today for his role in conspiracies to rig bids and commit mail fraud at public real estate foreclosure auctions in Fulton and DeKalb counties, Georgia

Today's Daily Dose brings you news about Bristol-Myers' CheckMate -743 study results; Cyclacel Pharma's entry into COVID-19 drug bandwagon; Exelixis touching a new 52-week high and Novartis exploring anti-malaria drug for COVID-19.

So far this year, 16 novel drugs have received FDA approval compared to 9 which were greenlighted during the same period last year. Now, let's take a look at the biotech stocks that are awaiting a regulatory decision in May 2020.

These are exciting times for Vapotherm Inc. (VAPO) whose share price has almost doubled in value since the beginning of this year.

Let's take a look at the biotech/pharma companies that are slated to report clinical trial results this quarter.

The following are some of the stocks in the healthcare sector that touched a high yesterday. Will the rally continue?

While patients are consumers of healthcare services, they can’t be considered customers in the traditional sense. The same is true of students. Over many years of teaching, I’ve noticed this parallel between the healthcare and education professions; both require significantly more “customer participation” to achieve desired outcomes than other industries do. That’s one reason it’s difficult to measure the quality of these institutions and the skills of their practitioners. That’s also why both industries focus so intently on engaging our communities; we simply can’t be successful unless we do.

“Can You Hear Me Now?”
As the old joke goes, there are 3 types of people in this world: those who are good at math and those who aren’t. Many students believe themselves to be permanent denizens of the 2nd camp. They find mathematical concepts confusing and the terminology inscrutable, so they tend not to ask questions. They’re afraid they’re being judged, so they’re not always truthful. Tests and exams fill them with anxiety, and sometimes even panic (no doubt waking to nightmares of trains leaving stations at varying rates of speed). These are the students who need my help the most. Our success in overcoming these challenges together will depend heavily on the student/teacher connection we can establish, yet few students are actually able to choose the teacher with whom they are asked to connect. Sound like healthcare yet?



So it’s no surprise that trends toward greater patient engagement in healthcare, and patient-centricity in clinical research, emphasize clear and compassionate communication. Doctors, like instructors, need to explain concepts in relatable terms, encourage and address questions, assuage unwarranted anxiety, and establish trust. Until that happens, a meaningful partnership isn’t even possible.

When the Cat’s Away, Will the Mice Make Good Choices?
You may remember that old college rule of thumb: 1 hour of class requires 3 hours of study. This means instructors have just 25% of their students’ time to inspire the behaviors and habits that will make a success of the other 75%. “Don’t be the Sage on the Stage,” the mantra goes, “be the Guide on the Side.” If you’ve ever taught in an academic setting, you know how challenging that can be. The role of lecturer is fairly obvious, but the role of coach is nuanced; it evolves over time and it’s different for everyone.

And if a college instructor has just 3 hours of face time a week, a physician is lucky to have 3 hours of face time a year. That’s not much time to persuade, convince, and encourage the lifestyle choices and medication adherence essential to maintaining good health. And when you consider that a good part of each office visit is spent performing examinations and assessments, it’s easy to understand the excitement surrounding mobile health technologies. Beyond delivering real-time, real-world data, smartphone apps can send patients important reminders, make complying with diet and exercise recommendations easier, and make progress toward fitness goals visible.

“And the Survey Says…?”
Most service industries are rightly concerned with customer satisfaction – how to achieve it, how to measure it, and how to improve it. So last year, an article entitled “The Problem with Satisfied Patients” caught my eye. The Atlantic article concluded that higher hospital satisfaction ratings don’t necessarily correlate with better healthcare. A five-star student course evaluation can be similarly misleading. Pleasing a student is not the same thing as teaching a student, just as making people happy doesn’t make them well. That’s not to say that hospitals and colleges shouldn’t solicit feedback; of course they need to understand the perspective of the communities they serve. But healthcare facilities and schools should give satisfaction surveys their proper weight or they risk implementing changes that consume resources but do nothing to improve a patient’s health or increase a student’s proficiency.

Outcomes-based Evaluation
So if outcomes are paramount in both medicine and academia, it follows that the quality of care and education would be best measured by evaluating those outcomes. Right?  Well, it’s a good place to start, but since patients and students share responsibility for success with their doctors and teachers, an individual outcome may be misleading. An instructor can influence, but can’t control, whether a student works on practice problems, studies for tests, asks questions, or even pays attention. A doctor can’t control whether a patient takes a prescription, follows medical advice, or reports relevant symptoms. There isn’t always a straight line between quality of service and success rate.


College instructors try to keep their students engaged by tailoring their coaching styles, offering a mix of delivery methods, seeking out fresh ideas to make the concepts relevant, and maintaining convenient office hours. Looking to improve patient engagement, healthcare systems have found that many people face situations that prevent them from keeping appointments and following medical advice. Some organizations are now providing copay assistance, arranging transportation, and employing patient care coordinators to place routine monitoring calls. None of these services are free, but they can be considerably less expensive than eating the costs associated with hospital readmissions.

The Partnership Starts Here
Teachers want their students to learn and healthcare providers want their patients to be well, but students and patients must actively participate in order to meet those goals. Handing out easy A’s and offering gourmet hospital menu items in response to survey responses won’t cut it.

Success begins with clear, compassionate communication – communication designed to explain complex concepts, to build trust, and to encourage the behaviors that lead to positive results. Understanding the challenges students and patients face enables educators and medical professionals to offer practical, meaningful solutions that can actually improve outcomes.

[In case you missed it, our last blog post was about the most common site inspection finding every year for the last decade: Protocol Deviations and How to Avoid Them.]

On Friday, 21 emerging medical device companies will present their technologies and business plans to a group of local investors at the annual MedTech Showcase, hosted by the Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council. More than 300 venture leaders and business leaders are expected to attend the event tomorrow, Oct. 28 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Westin Waltham, 70 Third Ave. As a main event, John McDonough, president and CEO of Lexington-based T2 Biosystems (Nasdaq: TTOO), will be interviewed…

- Libtayo decreased the risk of death by 32.4% compared to chemotherapy

April saw the company add new CEO, receive approval for lead ADC drug, and launch a public offering of stock.

by Robert Faturechi and Derek Willis

Sen. Richard Burr was not the only member of his family to sell off a significant portion of his stock holdings in February, ahead of the market crash spurred by coronavirus fears. On the same day Burr sold, his brother-in-law also dumped tens of thousands of dollars worth of shares. The market fell by more than 30% in the subsequent month.

Burr’s brother-in-law, Gerald Fauth, who has a post on the National Mediation Board, sold between $97,000 and $280,000 worth of shares in six companies — including several that have been hit particularly hard in the market swoon and economic downturn.

A person who picked up Fauth’s phone on Wednesday hung up when asked if Fauth and Burr had discussed the sales in advance.

In 2017, President Donald Trump appointed Fauth to the three-person board of the National Mediation Board, a federal agency that facilitates labor-management relations within the nation’s railroad and airline industries. He was previously a lobbyist and president of his own transportation economic consulting firm, G.W. Fauth & Associates.

Burr came under scrutiny after ProPublica reported that he sold off a significant percentage of his stocks shortly before the market tanked, unloading between $628,000 and $1.72 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 33 separate transactions. As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the health committee, Burr had access to the government’s most highly classified information about threats to America’s security and public health concerns.

Before his sell-off, Burr had assured the public that the federal government was well-prepared to handle the virus. In a Feb. 7 op-ed that he co-authored with another senator, he said “the United States today is better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus.”

That month however, according to a recording obtained by NPR, Burr had given a VIP group at an exclusive social club a much more dire preview of the economic impact of the the coronavirus, warning it could curtail business travel, cause schools to be closed and result in the military mobilizing to compensate for overwhelmed hospitals.

The timing of Burr’s stock sales drew widespread outrage, allegations of insider trading, calls for his resignation and an FBI investigation.

Burr defended his actions, saying he relied solely on public information, including CNBC reports, to inform his trades and did not rely on information he obtained as a senator.

Fauth avoided between $37,000 and $118,000 in losses by selling off when he did, considering how steeply the companies’ shares fell in recent weeks, according to an analysis by Luke Brindle-Khym, a partner and general counsel of Manhattan-based investigative firm QRI. Brindle-Khym obtained Fauth’s financial disclosure from the Office of Government Ethics and shared it with ProPublica. Government forms only require that the value of stock trades be disclosed in ranges. After the February sales, the total value of Fauth’s individual stock holdings appears to be between $680,000 and $2 million.

Alice Fisher, Burr’s attorney, told ProPublica that “Sen. Burr participated in the stock market based on public information and he did not coordinate his decision to trade on Feb. 13 with Mr. Fauth.”

She did not respond to a question about whether Burr discussed anything he learned as a senator with Fauth or any other relatives.

A review of Fauth’s financial disclosure forms since 2017 show that he is not a frequent stock trader, but that he also had a major day of sales in August 2019.

On Feb. 13, Fauth or his spouse sold between $15,001 and $50,000 of Altria, the tobacco company; between $50,001 and $100,000 of snack food maker Mondelez International; and between $1,001 and $15,000 of home furnishings retailer Williams-Sonoma. He also sold stakes in several oil companies, which have been hit particularly hard, including between $15,001 and $50,000 of Chevron; between $1,001 and $15,000 of BP and between $15,001 and $50,000 of Royal Dutch Shell.

The finances of the Burrs and Fauths have intersected before. Federal Election Commission records show that Burr’s leadership PAC, Next Century Fund, has paid $120,348 since 2002 to his sister-in-law, Mary Fauth, Gerald’s wife, who serves as treasurer. The PAC has also paid $104,850 in rent and utilities over the same period to 116 S. Royal St. Partners, in which Gerald Fauth is a partner.

Do you have access to information about stock trading by Trump administration officials or members of Congress that should be public? Email robert.faturechi@propublica.org or reach him on Signal/WhatsApp at 213-271-7217. Here’s how to send tips and documents to ProPublica securely.

Update, May 6, 2020: This story was updated with new comment from Sen. Richard Burr’s attorney.

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The FDA has delayed its decision on whether to approve Bristol Myers Squibb’s CAR-T cell therapy by three months. Bristol Myers attributed the delay to its submission of additional information upon the request of the FDA.

PTC Therapeutics is adding to its rare disease pipeline with a midstage biotech buyout with a low upfront payment tied in with stock and biobucks.

GlaxoSmithKline is hard at work with partner Sanofi in getting a vaccine tested for COVID-19, but this morning it said it was now also entering the race to treat patients already hit with the disease.

The dietary supplement industry as a whole is enjoying booming sales as consumer stock up on products to support optimum health. But an industry strategist warns that that sales bump is likely to be ephemeral, and brands that are not strategizing vigorously now may be caught out in the near future.

Merchants rejoice they finally reopen businesses and greet customers, with social distancing

The surgeon general's report is the first in 30 years to focus entirely on quitting tobacco.

Some Buckeyes are not comfortable being told by a "woman in power" to quarantine, one expert said.

Li’s departure raises questions around succession planning and HKEX’s strategic direction.

The post Hong Kong stock exchange CEO Charles Li to step down next year appeared first on DealStreetAsia.

Jaimini had co-founded Swiggy along with Sriharsha Majety and Nandan Reddy in 2014.

The post India: Swiggy’s co-founder and CTO Rahul Jaimini quits, to join Pesto Tech appeared first on DealStreetAsia.

Innoangel Fund now manages over 3 billion yuan ($425 million).

The post Chinese early-stage tech investor Innoangel Fund closes RMB fund at $51m appeared first on DealStreetAsia.

LetsVenture Plus will allow Indian investors access to investments across growth-stage private companies and global funds.

The post Indian angel investor LetsVenture launches growth-stage platform to tap domestic capital appeared first on DealStreetAsia.