Talking About High Drug Prices Could Be Political Gold For Democrats — But They’ve Yet To Gel Around A Plan

Stat: Drug Prices Could Be A Winning Issue For Democrats — If Only They Had A Plan
Nancy Pelosi sent Democratic House members home for summer recess with a three-point plan to “own August”: talk about the economy, talk about President Trump, and talk about health care costs — specifically, exorbitant prescription drug prices facing Americans. It’s easy to see why drug pricing gets such prominent billing. Polls have consistently shown that voters hold a decidedly negative view of pharmaceutical companies, that they trust Democrats more on health care, and that they believe high drug costs should be a top priority on Capitol Hill. (Facher, 8/8)

CQ: Some Hopeful Democrats Walk Fine Line On Drug Prices
Democrats working to regain control in Congress this fall are making the cost of prescription drugs a centerpiece of the party’s message. The path to a majority, however, runs through some places where the pharmaceutical industry employs a lot of potential voters. Southern California, New Jersey, and the Philadelphia suburbs are among the areas where Democrats have the strongest chances to turn red House seats blue. Yet since these states are some of the biggest pharmaceutical hubs in the United States — the industry estimates it directly employs 44,000 people in Pennsylvania, 65,000 people in New Jersey, and 131,000 in California — candidates there tread a little more cautiously on the issue of drug prices. (Siddons, 8/7)

Stat: When More Is Less: Americans Spent Lots More On Fewer Pills
As debate rages over prescription drug pricing, a new analysis finds that Americans spent much more on the same medicines as people living in 10 comparable countries, and their spending covered far fewer days of needed treatment per month. Specifically, the U.S. spent 203 percent more per capita on drugs in 2015 than people living in countries such as Canada, France, Germany, Australia, and the U.K. But despite the higher spending, the amount of money Americans shelled out for the same types of medicines covered 12 percent fewer days. (Silverman, 8/6)

Stat: Express Scripts To Drop Dozens More Drugs Next Year
As the cost of prescription drugs generates increased controversy, Express Scripts (ESRX), the nation’s largest pharmacy benefit manager, will be removing still more medicines from its list of drugs covered by insurance, known as formularies. In 2019, the PBM will exclude 242 medicines, compared with 196 this year, and the changes are forecast to save about $3.2 billion for its clients, such as health plans. The formulary covers approximately 25 million people, and about 0.2 percent of them are forecast to be affected by the changes. (Silverman, 8/7)

The Wall Street Journal: Skies Darken For Drug Middlemen
Drug manufacturers seem perfectly comfortable with the Trump administration’s plan to lower drug prices. That should inspire an opposite reaction for supply-chain investors. The Department of Health and Human Services is scrutinizing the system of rebates and discounts paid to middlemen as medicine flows from manufacturers to patients. Those middlemen, such as drug wholesalers, pharmacies, and pharmacy-benefit managers, are often compensated as a percentage of a drug’s list price. That creates a perverse incentive for higher list prices throughout the system. (Grant, 8/7)

Stat: Wall Street Is Writing Off Spark's Hemophilia Gene Therapy. Clinicians Are Not
On Tuesday, Spark Therapeutics offered what it called “highly encouraging” data in hemophilia A, and Wall Street rewarded it by driving down the stock price by nearly 28 percent. But doctors in the field say it’s far too early to count Spark out in its effort to craft a gene therapy that could leave patients free of spontaneous bleeding. (Garde, 8/7)

The CT Mirror: Blumenthal Calls On Colleagues, Trump To Act On Soaring Drug Costs
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal called on his federal colleagues and President Donald Trump to do more now to control the costs of skyrocketing prescription drug costs. ...Democrats like Blumenthal say Trump’s plan does not go far enough, however, especially since it does not include allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. (Rigg, 8/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Tough Choices Ahead For New GlaxoSmithKline CFO
GlaxoSmithKline PLC named a new finance chief, Iain Mackay, on Tuesday, appointing a former HSBC Holdings PLC executive to lead the pharmaceuticals company through Brexit and a time of substantial change in drug development.  Mr. Mackay, who will join the U.K.-based firm in January 2019 as CFO designate, is part of the shift in GSK’s management under the helm of Chief Executive Emma Walmsley. Since she took the job in April 2017, Ms. Walmsley has replaced roughly half of the company’s top 125 executives, cut research and development budgets and reinforced the role of the company’s pharmaceuticals business. She also launched a restructuring program at the end of July that aims to cut annual costs by £400 million ($517.8 million) by 2021. (Trentmann, 8/7)

The Associated Press: Insider Q&A: What's Behind Rising Insulin Prices?
Rising prices for insulin are getting scrutiny from diabetes patients, physicians and politicians. More than 7 million Americans with diabetes need insulin to control their blood sugar and stave off dangerous complications. The average price of insulin tripled between 2002 and 2013, according to the American Medical Association. The group recently called on regulators to monitor competition among the three drugmakers who control the market. (Perrone, 8/5)

Nashville Tennessean: CoreCivic: Diabetics Say They Are Denied Insulin By For-Profit Prison
The class-action lawsuit is one of at least three ongoing suits that have accused CoreCivic of endangering diabetic inmates. Former Trousdale inmate Thomas Leach filed a separate suit levying similar allegations against the prison in 2016, and a third suit was filed this year after the death of inmate Jonathan Salada, who allegedly spent his final days in excruciating pain because of diabetes compilations and negligent care. CoreCivic has denied wrongdoing in all three suits and insisted that the plaintiffs in the class-action case are responsible for their own diabetes complications. In a court filing, the company has claimed that Dodson and the other inmates have a documented history of skipping meals, refusing insulin shots, using illegal drugs and buying sugary snacks at the prison store in "willful non-compliance" with a diabetic diet. (Kelman, 8/7)

California Healthline: Medicaid Expansion Making Diabetes Meds More Accessible To Poor, Study Shows 
Low-income people with diabetes are better able to afford their medications and manage their disease in states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, a new study suggests. The Health Affairs study, released Monday afternoon, found a roughly 40 percent increase in the number of prescriptions filled for diabetes drugs in Medicaid programs of the 30 states (including Washington, D.C.) that expanded eligibility in 2014 and 2015, compared with prior years. (Bartolone, 8/6)

The Wall Street Journal: How China Is Evolving From A Maker Of Copycat Medicines Into A Producer Of Complex Drugs
At a cancer conference in Chicago in June last year, a little-known Chinese startup stunned researchers with early results showing its experimental gene therapy was abating an aggressive form of blood cancer in patients back home. Six months later, the startup, Nanjing Legend Biotechnology Co., received $350 million from Johnson & Johnson for the global rights to co-develop and market the experimental treatment. In May, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its testing on Americans, making it the first Chinese-developed gene therapy to receive such a signoff. The companies plan to kick off a U.S. trial later this month. (Rana, 8/5)

WBUR: Ohio Medicaid Pushes For More Transparency In Prescription Drug Plans
CVS Caremark is suing Ohio Medicaid officials to block release of a report the agency commissioned to show how the pharmacy benefit manager does business, and ultimately how drug prices are set. (Kodjak, 8/8)

Georgia Health News: Medicine Donation Program Helps Many Georgians Who Can’t Afford What They Need
The Good Pill drug donation and reuse program is now serving about 1,000 patients in the state, and the number has been growing by 40 percent a month since its formal launch in January. Good Pill is affiliated with a national nonprofit known as Sirum (Supporting Initiatives to Redistribute Unused Medicine), which was founded by students at Stanford University in California to help the uninsured and underinsured and others struggling to pay their prescription costs. (Miller, 8/7)

Reuters: AstraZeneca Settles Texas Drug Lawsuits For $110 Million
Drugmaker AstraZeneca has agreed to pay $110 million to settle two lawsuits brought by the state of Texas claiming that it fraudulently marketed the antipsychotic drug Seroquel and Crestor for high cholesterol. The largest settlement, totaling $90 million, resolves allegations the drugmaker encouraged doctors to use Seroquel for unapproved uses. A second settlement for $20 million covers allegations it misrepresented the benefits of Crestor. (Hirschler, 8/8)

MPR: Drug Prices Are Rising. What Can Be Done?
Gubernatorial candidates for Minnesota want to take on the skyrocketing costs of health care. What can they do about drug prices? (Miller and Lillie, 8/1)