Perspectives: Novartis Fell Victim To Human Nature When Putting A $2.1M Price Tag On New Treatment

Stat: ‘Anchoring’ Was At Work In Setting The Price Of Novartis’ New Gene Therapy
If the Empire State Building happened to be hollow, could you fill it with 1 billion ping pong balls? Would that number fall short, or would you have leftovers? How many ping pong balls do you think it would take exactly? I know, it’s a hard question. It’s hard to know even where to start. A half a century ago, Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman and his lifelong colleague Amos Tversky described what they called anchoring. When offered a number about an intuitively unknowable quantity, like how many ping pong balls could fill the Empire State Building, the guesser is pulled toward that number. (Peter B. Bach, 6/4)

Stat: I Have Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Critics Of The $2 Million New Gene Therapy Are Missing The Point
As someone who has lived with spinal muscular atrophy for all 30 years of my life, I was perplexed and disappointed that the recent approval of Novartis’ gene therapy Zolgensma was immediately overshadowed by outrage over the drug’s price: $2.125 million.The Food and Drug Administration’s decision was a pivotal day for those of us in the SMA community. Zolgensma, approved for children under 2, is the only one-dose treatment option for any category of SMA patients and has been highly effective in clinical testing so far. (Nathan Yates, 5/31)

Sacramento Bee: How President Trump Is Delivering Results On Drug Prices
Americans have heard politicians talk about high drug prices for years. It’s one of the main problems in health care that both President Donald Trump and I, as his health secretary, have talked about a great deal too. But the Trump administration isn’t offering up just talk — we’re delivering results. In December for the first time in 46 years, the official government measure of inflation in drug prices actually dropped for all of 2018. More than a dozen companies last year cut their prices, froze prices or rolled back price increases. (HHS Secretary Alex Azar, 5/30)

The Hill: Consumers Agree: Greater Transparency Among Pharmacy Benefit Managers Is Needed
Recently, the Trump administration finalized a rule to require drug companies to disclose the list prices of their drugs in direct-to-consumer advertisements. It appears to be a step toward greater transparency in the pharmaceutical market, but its impact is likely to be overshadowed by a much deeper problem: the billions of dollars in drug rebates captured by pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) that should be used to lower consumer prices at the pharmaceutical counter. A recent survey of 1,000 heads-of-household finds the vast majority of consumers agree. (Liam Siguad, 6/1)

Bangor Daily News: Transparency A Good Place To Start To Reduce Prescription Drug Costs
Prescription drug costs, which have risen substantially in recent years, now account for a fifth of all health care spending. As a result, a quarter of Americans say they have a difficult time paying for their prescription medications and nearly one in 10 say they do not take their medication as prescribed to save money. This is not sustainable. There are efforts in Congress and the Maine Legislature to slow the cost increases to ensure that people don’t go without needed medication. (6/4)

The Hill: Are Generic Drugs Safe?
Almost every conversation we have at the kitchen table or in our public discourse in the context of our prescription medicines is regarding price, and for good reason. Profiteering among some within in the pharmaceutical industry compels many of us into situations where we are forced to make a decision between putting food on the table versus cutting our prescription pills in half. This is clearly unacceptable.  A significant outcome of this dilemma is addressed by generic drugs that are on the other end of the pricing spectrum. (Dinesh Thakur, 5/30)

The Star Tribune: Lawmakers And Advocates: Work On Emergency Insulin Program Not Over 
So why did the bill, which had bipartisan support, fail to pass this year? Some legislators said they had concerns about the program's logistics, while others were worried about the funding source. But the proposal's fate was ultimately decided in complex end-of-session negotiations that happened outside the public eye. Rep. Tina Liebling, the House DFL chairwoman for the health and human services committee, said that during one of the final negotiating sessions she asked her Senate counterpart, Republican Sen. Michelle Benson, whether the insulin provision was going to end up in the final version of the massive health and human services bill. (Van Berkel, 5/29)