Allison Inserro

The House of Representatives, on Thursday, voted 230-192 to pass Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s, D-California, HR 3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, although the White House has already said it will veto the measure, assuming it is ever brought to the Senate floor and passes.

Sanofi will retain its insulin business, but will otherwise stop research and development in diabetes and cardiovascular drugs in order to focus on cancer immunotherapies and its biologic for asthma and allergies.

Increased spending on new oncology and autoimmune drugs was partially offset by a decline in price growth and the continued increase in the use of generic drugs, according to a recent report from CMS about national healthcare spending in 2018.

Interestingly, nocebo effects may also be induced by exposure to information shared online, through social media, through drug advertisements, and advertised descriptions or warnings about health-related conditions. The effect can be profound; the authors said negative expectations underlying nocebo phenomena have been shown to alter activity in certain regions of the brain.

Bio-Thera Solutions, a global biotechnology company based in Guangzhou, China, said this week that the China National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) has approved its Investigational New Drug (IND) application to initiate a phase 1 clinical study to compare the pharmacokinetics and safety of BAT2206, a proposed ustekinumab biosimilar, to the reference Stelara in healthy volunteers.

Trade representatives for Canada and Mexico met last week over the ratification and implementation of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), and press reports say that the Trump administration is considering acceding to Democrats’ demands to reduce patent protections for reference biologics in order to get the pact through Congress.

With debate and argument over what is to blame for high drug pricing, this report sought to examine the executives’ reasoning and attitudes behind pricing decisions.

How much does the price of common drugs vary across the globe? A UK digital healthcare startup collected that information to display the disparities across 50 countries for 13 often-used pharmaceuticals, including adalimumab and insulin glargine.

The American Medical Association (AMA) wants medical schools and residency programs to start training medical students and residents in healthcare economics.

Perhaps not surprisingly, officials from generic drug companies, reference product companies, the FDA, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have different opinions about the usefulness of various actions the federal government has taken to prevent abuses of risk evaluation and mitigation strategies (REMS), according to a recently released Government Accounting Office (GAO) report.

With more choices available in 2020 for Medicare stand-alone Part D drug plans, beneficiaries should compare choices, especially if they are not low income or on specialty drugs or drugs not on the payer’s formulary, according to a new analysis.

A recent review explored the evidence of monoclonal antibodies (mAb) and fusion proteins (FP) to examine their safety and efficacy in the most common chronic inflammatory diseases in children—bronchial asthma, psoriasis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), and chronic inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD).

A House subcommittee voted unanimously Thursday to send a bill intended to stop sham citizen petitions from clogging the FDA’s approval process for generic drugs under the section 505 pathway to the full Energy and Commerce Committee.

Organizations reacted this week to news that CMS is raising Part B premiums with a variety of opinions, as CMS blamed rising drug prices for the increase.

The lead author said the results indicate that biologics can be used in older patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as effectively as in those who are younger.

The results will inform will inform counseling and management of pregnant women with inflammatory diseases who need tofacitinib or non-tumor necrosis factor inhibitors during pregnancy, said the author.

Postmarket drug price changes alone accounted for most of the recent spending growth on biologics, and manufacturers’ rebates had little impact, according to an abstract presented at the American College of Rheumatology’s 2019 meeting, being held in Atlanta, Georgia, this week.

Among all respondents, 53% of beneficiaries reported having had a serious problem paying a medical bill of any kind. Thirty percent of respondents said prescription drugs created the largest burden.

Sanofi released phase 3 results this week for its long-acting insulin glargine (Toujeo) when used in pediatric patients with type 1 diabetes aged 6 to 17.

The biggest cost difference in filgrastim administrations was seen in the commercially insured population after the launch of a biosimilar, according to a study published Monday in Health Affairs.

Novartis Friday announced results from a head-to-head trial of its secukinumab (Cosentyx) versus adalimumab in patients with active psoriatic arthritis (PsA), saying its therapy missed statistical significance for its primary end point.

Given how markets operate, pharmaceutical companies need financial incentives in order to keep providing a reliable stream of high-quality products that otherwise, due to low prices and other factors, might fall into shortage, according to an FDA report about the drug shortages problem released this week.

Between 2003 to 2014, patients in Ontario, Canada, received public drug benefits for infliximab or adalimumab at a combined rate of 2.2% in 2003, rising to 18.8% of eligible patients by 2014. During that period, the prevalence of Crohn‐related hospitalizations fell 32.4%.

A bipartisan bill to require patent transparency in an effort to bring down the cost of prescription drugs has been introduced in the House of Representatives; the bill is a piece of companion legislation to one introduced in the Senate in March.

Republicans in the House of Representatives this week laid out their alternative to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in an effort to position themselves against various Democratic healthcare proposals. The document contains many ideas that have been debated previously when Republicans tried to repeal the ACA, and it draws on work from the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute.

A recent survey of employers regarding their concerns about growing healthcare costs reveals that some are looking to biosimilars as one method of controlling specialty drug spending.

While some data suggest that overall drug price increases may have moderated recently, prices for specific drugs continue to rise at rates above inflation.

H.R. 3, The Lower Drug Costs Now Act, passed 2 committees in the House of Representatives Thursday, with a bipartisan amendment intended to boost uptake of biosimilars tucked inside.

Drug shortages are an increasing problem—witness the news this week that the chemotherapy drug vincristine, a mainstay in fighting pediatric cancer, is in such short supply that doctors may be forced to start rationing, according to published reports. On Wednesday, the FDA said fiscal year 2018 saw a record number of generic drug approvals.

The less experience an oncologist has with administering rituximab, the more likely a Medicare beneficiary with non-Hodgkin lymphoma is to discontinue treatment, according to a new study. In addition, early rituximab discontinuation was associated with inferior lymphoma-specific and overall survival.