It May Soon Be End-Of-An-Era For Standalone Drug Middlemen. But That Doesn’t Mean They’re Losing Power.

Stat: Mega-Mergers Would End Standalone PBMs. Should Consumers Rejoice?
They started as simple claims processors. Then, over three decades of mergers and shifts in business strategy, pharmacy benefit managers emerged as powerful conglomerates with the ability to extract billions of dollars in payments from the largest players in the nation’s drug supply chain. And now, as their role in prescription drug pricing comes under increasing scrutiny, the nation’s biggest PBMs are changing shape again — this time by aligning themselves with the nation’s largest insurers. (Ross, 3/22)

Stat: Congress Loves Shaming CEOs. Why Hasn't Pharma Been On The Hot Seat?
It’s a rite of passage for executives in the hot seat: get hauled before Congress, sit for bipartisan tirades, squirm in the face of difficult questioning. Over the past six months, lawmakers have dragged in former Equifax CEO Richard Smith, Wells Fargo’s Tim Sloan, and Amtrak’s Richard Anderson. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg could be the next one up. (Mershon, 3/28)

The Hill: PhRMA Ads Blame Insurers For Drug Costs
The pharmaceutical industry's top trade group on Tuesday launched a new series of advertisements as part of its drug pricing campaign aimed at blaming cost increases on insurers and pharmacy benefit managers. Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America's (PhRMA) ads in print, radio, digital and social media highlight drug companies’ use of copay coupons to help people lower their deductibles. (Weixel, 3/27)

Stat: SEC Greenlights Shareholder Proposals For Several Big Drug Makers Over Pricing 
The Securities and Exchange Commission agreed to allow shareholders in five large drug makers to vote on a proposal demanding the companies compile reports about the risks created by high prices and also examine the extent to which pricing strategies propel executive compensation. The companies involved are AbbVie (ABBV), Amgen (AMGN), Biogen (BIIB), Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), and Eli Lilly (LLY). (Silverman, 3/26)

The Hill: Revamped US-South Korea Trade Deal Tackles Pharma, Currency Issues 
The U.S. renegotiation of its free trade agreement with South Korea will include provisions to boost American pharmaceuticals as well as a pending side agreement on currency, officials said Tuesday. The White House confirmed it had renegotiated elements of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, known as KORUS, a day after Korean Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong announced the move. (Elis, 3/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Policy Change Is A Win For Drugmakers
The Trump administration has issued a policy change that could drive up prices of certain biologic drugs, implementing a new industry-backed measure that overturns existing regulation that promoted lower prices. The move came after months of intense lobbying last year by pharmaceutical companies to overturn an Obama administration policy, introduced in 2015, that rewarded doctors with larger profits if they used the lowest-priced biosimilars, which are generic-like copies of brand-name biologic drugs. The rationale was that steering doctors to lower-priced products would compel drugmakers to cut prices to capture market share. (Walker, 3/22)

Stat: Here’s The Slide Deck Moderna Uses To Defend Its $7.5 Billion Valuation
Biotech unicorn Moderna Therapeutics baffled its peers last month when it raised $500 million in a seventh round of venture financing. How, the question went, did the company sell investors on a $7.5 billion valuation despite outstanding questions about its science? STAT obtained Moderna’s investor slide deck, one in which the company predicts billion-dollar futures for drugs only tested in mice and argues its vaccines business can bring in $15 billion in annual revenue. Those promises didn’t sit well with some investors. (Garde, 3/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Glaxo CEO Dispenses Bitter Pill To Fix R&D
Emma Walmsley, the rookie chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline PLC, is giving the 300-year-old British drug giant’s ailing research-and-development operations a dose of bitter medicine. In the roughly one year that the 48-year-old former cosmetics executive has been in place, Ms. Walmsley has replaced nearly half of Glaxo’s top 125 executives, according to the company. She has reassigned or let go some 400 scientists in its drug-development unit, and another 100 science jobs are still on the line, according to people familiar with the matter. She is also shutting down more than two dozen clinical drug trials, as she narrows the focus of Glaxo’s drug-discovery portfolio. (Bisserbe and Lublin, 3/25)

FiercePharma: Gilead Sciences' Revenue May Be Shrinking, But CEO John Milligan Just Got An 11% Raise
Gilead Sciences completely transformed its business model last year when it got into the cell-therapy field by buying CAR-T developer Kite Pharma for $11.9 billion. Its top line won't be transformed so quickly. Kite’s cancer CAR-T, approved by the FDA in October, faced early reimbursement hurdles that hampered pickup. Declining sales in the company’s hepatitis C franchise drove Gilead’s total revenues for 2017 down 14% to $26.1 billion. (Weintraub, 3/27)

Stat: Can John And Laura Arnold Loosen Pharma’s Grip On Drug Prices?
When it comes to philanthropy, the Arnolds are the only major game in town on drug pricing at a time when other billionaires are flocking to fund politically charged work on hot-button issues like climate change and gun control. But no one really seems to have a good idea of what exactly has motivated the Arnolds to take on drug pricing — or specifically what their endgame is to go about addressing it. (Robbins, 3/26)

Stat: FTC Loses Lawsuit Over Citizen's Petitions Used To Delay Generic Competition
In a setback to the Federal Trade Commission, a federal judge has dismissed the first-ever lawsuit filed by the agency against a drug maker for abusing the citizen’s petition process in order to thwart generic competition to a best-selling medicine. However, the FTC appears to have won a key point that may make it more difficult for drug makers to fend off such challenges in the future. And the judge left the door open for the FTC to refile its lawsuit, although an FTC spokeswoman declined to comment when asked if the agency will do so. (Silverman, 3/23)

Reuters: Britain's Use Of Copycat Biotech Drugs Takes Off While U.S. Lags
Cut-price copies of an expensive Roche biotech drug for blood cancer have taken 80 percent of the British market since launching last year, saving the healthcare system 80 million pounds a year, experts said on Wednesday. The rapid adoption of two so-called biosimilar forms of rituximab from Celltrion and Novartis has been accompanied by discounts of 50-60 percent as the National Health Service (NHS) has used tenders to bring down costs. (Hirschler, 3/21)

FiercePharma: Roche's Avastin Could Get A Boost With Tecentriq's Second Lung Cancer Win This Week
Roche is back with more survival data for its Tecentriq-Avastin cocktail—and it’s more important survival data, too. Sunday night, the Swiss drugmaker revealed that in a phase 3 trial, the two meds, combined with chemo, had beaten out an Avastin-chemo combo at prolonging lung cancer patients' lives. The trial, focused on previously untreated non-small-cell lung cancer patients, showed that the survival benefit extended across various subgroups, and it was seen in patients with tumors expressing varying levels of PD-L1. (Helfand, 3/26)

Stat: FDA Moves To Address Disputes Between Drug Makers And Compounders
Amid ongoing scrutiny of compounding pharmacies, the Food and Drug Administration has issued new draft guidelines to address a contentious debate: When should compounders use the same raw ingredients that are found in prescription medicines? Known in industry parlance as bulk substances, these ingredients figure prominently in discussions over the safe use of compounded medicines, as well as rising tensions between drug makers and compounders that are vying for some of the same patients. (Silverman, 3/23)

Columbus Dispatch: Millions Of Ohio Taxpayer Dollars At Stake In Debate Over Drug Prices
Pharmacy benefit managers are receiving $1.54 per pill from Ohio’s Medicaid program for a drug commonly used to treat depression. The state pharmacy association and operators of nearly two dozen pharmacies across the state say those same pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, are paying them only about 18 cents for each of those pills. (Candisky, 3/25)

St. Louis Post Dispatch: Nonprofit Drug Venture With Local Backing Proposes Radical Changes 
A hospital-backed nonprofit generic drug manufacturer has radical plans for the drug industry as it prepares to launch operations later this year. Leaders of the drugmaker said they planned to publish drug prices in an effort to force more transparency in an industry that is known for being opaque. (Liss, 3/25)

Chicago Sun Times: Fourth Potential CityKey ID Benefit: Discounts On Name-Brand And Generic Drugs 
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and City Clerk Anna Valencia have been accused of “suborning voter fraud” by allowing Chicago’s CityKey municipal identification card to be used to register to vote. They’ve also been hit with a rival bidder’s politically-explosive claim that printing technology used to create the new ID compromises personal information that the city had promised to keep confidential to shield illegal immigrants from the threat of deportation. (Spielman, 3/26)

Chicago Tribune: Chicago Seeks To Add Prescription Drug Discounts To ID Card 
Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants Chicagoans to be able to use new municipal ID cards to get discounts on prescription drugs. Emanuel and City Clerk Anna Valencia on Monday announced a request for proposals to add the benefit to the CityKey cards. Chicagoans also will have the option of getting a separate card for prescription drug discounts, the city clerk’s office said. (Schencker, 3/26)

Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky Pharmacists: Surprise Medicaid Cuts Threaten To Shut Them Down
As the owner of the only drugstore in Trimble County, pharmacist Jennifer Grove says she provides a vital service for customers, including some who walk to the Bluegrass Drug Center in Bedford, population 600, to obtain needed medication." A lot of elderly people don't drive," she said. "A lot of poor people don't drive."But the growing power of an industry middleman in the state's Medicaid program known as a "pharmacy benefit manager," or a PBM, to determine payments to pharmacies is threatening the business of the 520 independent pharmacies around Kentucky, according to such pharmacists. (Yetter, 3/26)

The Star Tribune: Smith's First Bill As Senator Aims To Cut High Drug Costs, Close Loophole
They were among a dozen advocates and people living with cancer, HIV, multiple sclerosis and other chronic conditions who met Sunday with Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn. The group spoke of the challenges of paying for prescription medications and how drug costs can be lowered.In her first piece of stand-alone legislation, Smith has introduced a bill to close a loophole that allows major drug companies to “pay to delay” bringing more affordable generic drugs to market. (Pheifer, 3/25)