Dispensed Business Insider weekly healthcare newsletter August 16

Meanwhile, Emma has an essential read this week on Epidiolex, the first cannabis-derived drug approved by the FDA. A year in, here’s what it’s doing for those living with and caring for rare seizure disorders.

A groundbreaking drug made from cannabis has brought hope for kids with rare seizure disorders. We talked to parents, doctors, and the company’s CEO to find out if it lives up the hype.

• A new drug that’s made from a component of cannabis called CBD became available in the US last year to treat rare forms of childhood epilepsy. That makes it the first cannabis-derived CBD drug in the US.
• The medicine, Epidiolex, has a list price of $32,500 a year and has proven lucrative for drugmaker GW Pharmaceuticals.
• Business Insider spoke with the parents of four kids who have taken the drug about what it’s been like. For most of their kids, the treatment has helped to some degree, but they also recounted sometimes-severe side effects and long delays at the pharmacy.
• The hype around marijuana and CBD raised hopes for many that Epidiolex would be a miracle cure, they and doctors who prescribe the treatment say.
• Experiences with Epidiolex foreshadow the issues that other cannabis-based drugs could grapple with as more come to market.

And the young-blood company Erin Brodwin has been following — Ambrosia — had a big update this week. It’s shut down, but its founder Jesse Karmazin isn’t done yet. He’s launching a new company, this one named Ivy Plasma that will provide blood transfusions that aren’t age-specific.

Read more about the end of Ambrosia and the beginnings of Ivy Plasma here.

We put out a lot more from the 30 healthcare leaders under 40 project we launched last week. (Missed it? Here’s the main list.)

Get your reading lists ready… we asked all of our nominees for the healthcare books they’d recommend you pick up if you’re looking for a better understanding of healthcare. Here’s what they told us.

The 29 best books to read if you want to disrupt US healthcare, according to top young leaders in the $3.5 trillion industry

And then some more posts and profiles based on our conversations with the nominees.

I’ll leave you with two pieces of news you can use.

Clarrie Feinstein and policy fellow Joseph Zeballos-Roig took a close look at how Medicare For All would change every single part of the massive, $3.5 trillion healthcare industry we have here in the US. Read more to find out how it would affect employers, doctors, hospitals, drugmakers, insurers and more.

And Clarrie and Emma rounded up the 28 biotech startups that have at traced the most venture cash (ergo, prime candidates for M&A or an IPO). You can check out the full list here.

This is the last you’ll hear from me for the next three weeks! I’m off starting next Wednesday to prep for my wedding and then will be off on my honeymoon. In the meantime, you’ll be hearing from the rest of the healthcare team here, which should be a fun change of pace. They’ll keep you up to date with all the goings on in healthcare while I delete my Twitter app and take a break from it all.

Hope you all have a great rest of your summer!

– Lydia