SAN FRANCISCO & BLOOMFIELD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Building on the largest enrollment quarter in the company’s history, Omada Health today announced a $50 million fundraising round led by global health services leader Cigna (NYSE: CI). In addition to leading the fundraising round, Cigna will also grow its non-exclusive commercial partnership with Omada, adding the recognized Omada Program to Cigna’s suite of health improvement services. Joining the Cigna-led fundraising round were new investors Civilization Ventures and Sanofi Genzyme BioVentures.

As part of the expanded commercial collaboration, eligible Cigna-administered health plan customers may have no-cost access to Omada’s digital intensive behavioral counseling platform as a fully covered preventive benefit in the carrier’s health improvement program portfolio. The Cigna-Omada Initiative will incorporate Omada’s data-driven, evidence-based digital behavioral counseling program and be available to Cigna customers with prediabetes, as well as those at elevated risk of chronic conditions such as heart disease and hypertension.

Read More: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170614005208/en/Omada-Health-Raises-50-Million-Led-Cigna

Aside from Humana and Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Omada Health has scored yet another insurer investor: Cigna.

Omada, which has a built a digital platform to prevent prediabetics from becoming full-blown Type 2 diabetes patients, announced Wednesday that Cigna led its $50 million round that also attracted two new investors: Civilization Ventures and Sanofi Genzyme BioVentures.

Cigna is doing more than just investing in Omada. It is also expanding its commercial partnership with the San Francisco-based company such that the behavioral health technology will be made available to Cigna customers with prediabetes, as well as those at higher risk of chronic conditions such as heart disease and hypertension.

Read More: http://medcitynews.com/2017/06/cigna-leads-omada-healths-latest-50m-investment-round/

Oxygen-rich blood generally flows from the heart to the brain, but a new technology aimed at preventing strokes temporarily reverses that path.

Surgeons at Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa are the first in this region, and among a growing number nationwide, to use the system to channel blood from the brain through a special external filter and then injecting it back into the body via a vein in the leg.

The point of this unusual rerouting is to keep bits of plaque in a clogged carotid artery — plaque can be knocked loose during insertion of a stent — from traveling to the brain, where they can cause strokes.
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“While the flow is reversed, any plaque that tries to break loose gets filtered out,” said Dr. Scott Musicant, a vascular surgeon at Sharp Grossmont.

Made by Silk Road Medical in Sunnyvale, the system is a new take on the well-established idea of using stents to open narrowed carotid arteries. Studies of this technology, which has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and is covered by Medicare, found that only 1.4 percent of patients suffered strokes when undergoing the blood-flow-reversal technique. In comparison, strokes occurred in about 4 percent of patients who underwent regular stenting procedures.

Read More: ​http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/health/sd-me-brain-blood-20170602-story.html