Trending News Today: Humana Delays 2017 Guidance After Court Ruling

The biotech company Theranos Inc is in trouble again. According to The Wall Street Journal, federal inspectors cited deficiencies in the company’s Arizona-based lab. The report stated that Theranos failed to ensure that some patients who potentially received inaccurate diabetes test results were notified. Furthermore, patient blood-coagulation tests were performed on a machine that the company’s staff configured improperly. The federal inspection revealed the company repeatedly violated its own policies and procedures, the Journal reported.

Humana Inc has postponed its earnings call, which will delay the release of its 2017 guidance until February 16, 2017, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company stated that revenues fell resulting in a loss during its last quarter. The decision to delay the release of its forecast came after a federal judge blocked its proposed merger with Aetna Inc on antitrust grounds. Humana said postponing the guidance will allow the company to evaluate the court’s decision and its impact on future results, the Journal reported.

US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson has rejected Anthem’s bid to acquire Cigna for $54 billion on federal antitrust law. According to Politico, Judge Jackson concluded that the merger would form the nation’s largest insurance company and would stifle competition for large employers. “The evidence has also shown that the merger is likely to result in higher prices, and that it will have other anticompetitive effects: it will eliminate the 2 firms’ vigorous competition against each other for national accounts, reduce the number of national carriers available to respond to solicitations in the future, and diminish the prospects for innovation in the market,” Judge Jackson wrote, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.