Health

HEALTH • September 21, 2015 5 WORCESTER — W. Patrick Hughes, the president and CEO of Fallon Health, will retire Nov. 1, the health insurer's board of directors announced. Hughes, 68, who has led Fallon for five years, will be replaced by Richard Burke, the organization's president of senior care services and government programs, as interim CEO, according to a statement from Fallon. The company said the board will begin to discuss plans to find a permanent successor when it meets next. The statement from Fallon's board commended Hughes for his leadership since 2010, in areas such as membership, service, quality, employee engagement, brand reputa- tion, and product and network expansion, at a time of great indus- try disruption. GARDNER — Heywood Hospital's Golf Classic at the Oak Hill Country Club in Fitchburg raised $100,000, allowing Heywood Healthcare to continue to move for- ward with plans for The Quabbin Retreat, the proposed site for Heywood Healthcare's new behav- ioral health and addiction service facility. Now in its 23rd year, the event has underwritten Heywood initiatives and services such as oncology, surgical day care, endos- copy, the Diabetes Center of Excellence and capital projects. WORCESTER — Two groups of sci- entists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School have each received $1 million in grant money raised during last sum- mer's viral Ice Bucket Challenge campaign, funds that will support ALS research projects that the school's chancellor called "pivotal work." Medical School Chancellor Michael Collins said the money from the ALS Association comes at a time when the federal government has stepped back its own research funding, requiring faculty members to devote more of their time to writ- ing grant proposals. In one of the ALS efforts, researchers will com- pare the DNA of 15,000 ALS patients with that of 7,500 people who do not have the disease, which causes nerve cells to die and leads to paralysis. In the other, scientists are working with mice to block genes that trigger the death of the animals' nerve cells. MARLBOROUGH — Marlborough- based Sunovion Pharmaceuticals received federal approval for its drug Aptiom as a monotherapy for the treatment of partial-onset epileptic seizures, the company announced. The drug was first approved in 2013, but a recent decision by the Food and Drug Administration to approve the company's supplemental new drug application makes Aptiom the first once-daily, non-extended- release antiepileptic drug (AED). The drug can be used alone or in conjunction with other AEDs. The new approval gives health care pro- viders greater flexibility, said Dr. Antony Loebel, executive vice presi- dent and chief medical officer at Sunovion. MARLBOROUGH — A three-year contract has been negotiated for 198 nurses at the Marlborough Hospital, representing the last Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA)-represented hospital to settle a contract, the association announced. The tentative agreement improves the ratio of registered nurses to patients, according to the MNA, and includes the creation of a Marlborough RN Staffing Committee that will issue recom- mendations to hospital management regarding staffing concerns. It also includes a 4.5-percent wage increase over the life of the contract. WORCESTER — Cambridge-based biopharmaceutical company Enumeral Biomedical Holdings has announced a research agreement with the University of Massachusetts Medical School to aid the company in developing can- cer therapies. Under the agreement, which also includes UMass Memorial Health Care as the medi- cal school's clinical partner, UMass Medical School will provide Enumeral with tissue and blood samples from melanoma patients being treated with Yervoy, a drug made by Bristol-Myers Squibb. Enumeral will fund these tissue col- lection activities and the company will have access to the samples for in-vitro studies using its platform, which is designed to identify prom- ising new drugs relevant to cancer, infectious and inflammatory diseas- es, according to Enumeral's website. WORCESTER — UMass Memorial Health Care said in June that it would invest $700 million to upgrade its electronic health records system to improve the accuracy and availability of patient data. It chose privately held Verona, Wis.-based Epic Systems Corp. At stake for UMass Memorial and other health systems is not only efficient use of staff and better patient outcomes. Those factors are now tied to reim- bursement from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the nation's largest single health-care payer, which is pressing for pay for performance. Where CMS goes, private insurers, and ulti- mately, health-savvy consumers, may be expected to follow. In a July 20 blog post, UMass Memorial CEO Eric Dickson cited the move as "one of the most important contracts" he had signed since taking office in 2013, citing Epic's industry standing and the support of UMass Memorial staff for choosing Epic. DEVENS — Behavioral health ser- vices provider Health Partners New England is building a 104-bed treatment facility in Devens after buying more than seven acres of land from MassDevelopment, the two organizations announced. Health Partners, based in Winchester, said the 75,000-square- foot facility will provide patients with short-term care. It will open in the fall of 2016 and create more than 200 jobs, the company said in a statement released by MassDevelopment, the state's eco- nomic development agency. Dr. Michael Krupa, Health Partners' founder, said the organization took an interest in the property last year after talking with officials of MassDevelopment and the Devens Enterprise Commission, the regula- tory and permitting authority for Devens, which MassDevelopment manages. MILFORD — The $25-million fund- raising goal to upgrade Milford Regional Medical Center's facili- ties has received a matching chal- lenge gift for its "Excellence" cam- paign from an anonymous donor, the Milford Regional Healthcare Foundation announced. The cam- paign has already raised $23 million to support the medical center's building project. The dollar-for-dol- lar challenge gift means that if the foundation raises another $1 million in donations, it will have reached the $25-million goal. The initiative will result in a new emergency depart- ment, intensive care unit and private patient rooms, the foundation said. The two-story structure is expected to open this fall. HOLLISTON — Life sciences firm Harvard Apparatus Regenerative Technology of Holliston will work with a Connecticut hospital to devel- op a way to fix or replace a child's esophagus to treat life-threatening conditions, the Holliston firm announced. Harvard Apparatus (HART), which develops bioengi- neered organs for life-threatening conditions, will work with Connecticut Children's Medical Center in Hartford. HART said one of the conditions to be treated is esophageal atresia — a rare disorder in which a child is born without a portion of his or her esophagus. WORCESTER — UMass Memorial Health Care has renewed and expanded its contract with an Atlanta-based services provider to help manage its supply chain and procurement operations, the firm announced. The firm, MedAssets, said UMass Memorial agreed to a multiyear deal that will also include consulting, sourcing services and spending analytics. MedAssets said UMass Memorial has saved an aver- age of $5 million a year since 2006 by working with MedAssets. WORCESTER — Worcester Polytechnic Institute has landed a grant for genetic research from the National Institutes of Health that will take aim at cancer cells, the school announced. The grant, $747,000, will help fund a three-year project that will explore the molecu- lar mechanisms associated with the genetic mutations and chromosome instability observed in all cancer cells, according to a statement from the school. The goal is to turn the genetic tables against cancer by learning more about the molecular { Health Care Briefs } Continued on Page 6

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