José Baselga on Wednesday resigned from his position as an editor-in-chief of Cancer Discovery, following a review of his lapses in disclosing conflicts of interest in medical journal articles, in today's bite-sized hospital and health industry news from California, Illinois, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.

• California/Illinois: Walgreens and Verily, the science arm of Alphabet, have partnered on an initiative to combat chronic diseases. The initiative will make Walgreens the first choice for retail commercialization of all products made by Verily, and will specifically focus on medication adherence (Truong, MedCity News, 12/19).

• Maryland: LifeBridge Health and Union Hospital of Cecil County have called off merger negotiations. The two hospitals in January had signed a letter of intent to merge, but they have since decided future revenue for Union Hospital under Maryland's hospital reimbursement system was uncertain and ended the negotiations (Ellison, Becker's Hospital Review, 12/19).

• Pennsylvania: José Baselga on Wednesday resigned from his position as an editor-in-chief of Cancer Discovery, following a review of his lapses in disclosing conflicts of interest in medical journal articles.  The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the journal's publisher, said a panel of experts and the organization's board had determined that "Baselga did not adhere to the high standards pertaining to conflict of interest disclosures that the AACR expects of its leadership." Baselga in his resignation letter thanked AACR for its "deliberate and thorough review" and said he takes "great heart from the panel’s finding that my failure to disclose was inadvertent." Baselga in September resigned from his position as CMO of Memorial Sloan Kettering following a news investigation that he had not disclosed millions of dollars in industry payments in researcher articles (Orstein/Thomas, New York Times/ProPublica, 12/19).

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