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Happy Tuesday, readers—I hope you enjoyed the long weekend.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) confirmed on Tuesday afternoon the first case of a deadly strain of coronavirus in the U.S.
The so-called 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) causes respiratory illnesses and has caused an outbreak of lung disease in Wuhan, China, and has since spread to other parts of China and Asia. The patient in the U.S. had returned to Washington from Wuhan recently and is now in isolation at the Providence Regional Medical Center in Washington.
“While originally thought to be spreading from animal-to-person, there are growing indications that limited person-to-person spread is happening. It’s unclear how easily this virus is spreading between people,” the agency wrote in a statement on Tuesday.
There are worries that the coronavirus outbreak could escalate into a full-blown pandemic if not contained quickly. The trouble is, millions of Chinese residents are set to travel for Lunar New Year celebrations, leading to heightened screenings at airports.
To date, there have been at least six reported deaths linked to the virus in Asia. Washington health authorities cautioned that the isolated case shouldn’t cause a panic, and likely poses a low threat of setting off an outbreak.
Read on for the day’s news.
Sy Mukherjee
sayak.mukherjee@fortune.com
@the_sy_guy
DIGITAL HEALTH
Medicine by machine. Fortune's latest issue includes a fascinating package on artificial intelligence—and of course, it wouldn't be complete without a deep dive into the use of A.I. in medicine. Jennifer Alsever delves into the companies using A.I. to develop drugs and parses through what's the hope and what's the hype. Read it here. (Fortune)
The big business of baby making. My colleague Beth Kowitt has a must-read on the big business of fertility as more and more couples put off having children until later in their lives and the reality that one in eight couples have trouble conceiving. Here's one big takeaway: "For all its momentum, the modern fertility industry remains a relative newborn. That freshness is part of its potential, but also its risk. There are medical insiders who say it’s still the Wild West of medicine, under-regulated and commercially driven, with certain players overpromising what treatment can do," Beth writes. (Fortune)
INDICATIONS
FDA approves Horizon's rare eye disease drug. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is already continuing its 2019 drug approval bonanza. The agency has approved Horizon Therapeutics' Tepezza, the first-ever drug to treat a rare thyroid eye disease that causes serious vision problems. The treatment is expected to be a blockbuster drug for Horizon. (Nasdaq)
THE BIG PICTURE
Study: Juul use doubled among young adults in one year. A new study suggests that young people's use of Juul vaping devices rose dramatically between 2018 and 2019, with the most prominent rise being a tripling among those aged 21 to 24, followed by a doubling among those between the ages of 18 and 20. (Reuters)
REQUIRED READING
Inside Big Tech's Quest for Human-Level A.I., Jeremy Kahn
Industry Standouts: The Companies Most Admired By the Business World, by Scott DeCarlo and Matthew Heimer
A.I. Breakthroughs in Natural Language Processing Are Big for Business, by Jeremy Kahn