InnovationRx is your weekly digest of healthcare news. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here.
November 1 marks the start of open enrollment season — the time when people can enroll in Obamacare health plans on Healthcare.gov. Stride Health just raised $47 million to help the one-third of Americans who work in the gig economy health insurance. The startup focuses on freelancers, part-time workers, independent contractors, and other gig economy workers who don’t get health insurance benefits through an employer, explains Forbes contributor Deb Gordon. To date, Stride has enrolled 2.7 million members and also partners with companies that rely heavily on gig workers, such as Uber, Amazon, DoorDash, Instacart, and GrubHub, among others.
Y Combinator Names Surbhi Sarna Its First-Ever Partner For Healthcare And Biotech
Subhi Sarna is Y Combinator’s first group partner in bio.
michele beckwith photography
Inspired by the pandemic and recent portfolio successes including several public companies and newly minted unicorns, Y Combinator is doubling down on bio startups with its first-ever partner focused fully on this sector. nVision Medical founder and former CEO Surbhi Sarna will serve as a group partner focused on bio taking the baton from YC managing director Jared Friedman, the former Scribd cofounder who has overseen YC’s growing bio portfolio in recent years. Read more here.
Noteworthy
Mammoth Biosciences inks $691 million deal with Vertex to develop Crispr gene-editing therapies.
Workit Health’s cofounders, who are both in recovery, raised $118 million for their virtual addiction treatment startup.
Health insurer Centene’s membership grew by more than 1 million thanks to a big increase in enrollment in its Medicaid and Medicare Advantage plans.
The FDA issued a voluntary nationwide recall for certain blood pressure medications manufactured by Lupin Pharmaceuticals over concerns about a cancer-causing impurity.
CDC sleuths find source of deadly melioidosis outbreak in a room spray sold at Walmart.
Coronavirus Updates
According to the World Health Organization, every region in the world reported declining levels of Covid-19 cases in the past week—except for Europe, which has seen an 18% jump in new infections. That’s the fourth week in a row that cases have risen in Europe, which public health officials …….