Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Azar Urges Congress To Pass Law That Would End Drug Rebate System More Broadly Than Trump Proposal
The Associated Press: Trump Health Chief Asks Congress To Pass Drug Discount Plan
The Trump administration's top health official asked Congress on Friday to pass its new prescription drug discount plan and provide it to all patients, not just those covered by government programs like Medicare. The plan would take now-hidden rebates among industry players like drug companies and insurers and channel them directly to consumers when they go to pay for their medications. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 2/1)
Stat: Azar Calls On Congress To Help Eliminate Drug Rebates
“Congress has an opportunity to follow through on their calls for transparency, too, by passing our proposal into law immediately and extending it into the commercial drug market,” Azar said in a speech, according to prepared remarks. His remarks, however, highlight a key tension underlying the proposal: whether or not HHS itself has the power to implement such a massive change without additional authority from Congress. Critics of the proposal, most notably in the pharmacy benefit manager industry, have suggested they would sue HHS over such a proposal on those grounds. (Swetlitz, 2/1)
The Wall Street Journal: Cigna Says Proposed Drug-Rebate Curbs Will Have Minimal Impact On Earnings
Cigna Corp. said a new federal proposal that would curb rebates from drugmakers would have minimal impact on its results and offered conservative earnings guidance for 2019, the first year it will include the operations of Express Scripts Holding Co. The insurer’s projections for the year were expected to be closely watched by investors, as they provide the first snapshot of the newly merged company’s expected 2019 performance. The insurer closed its $54 billion deal for the pharmacy-benefit manager in December. (Wilde Mathews and Chin, 2/1)
Stat: Will Trump’s New Drug Pricing Idea End PBMs? And Other Key Questions
The Trump administration’s newest drug pricing idea suggests change on a massive scale: it pitches a wholesale transformation of the way millions of Americans pay for drugs, one that could have a ripple effect into nearly every corner of the country’s health care system. The proposal would effectively eliminate the rebates that drug makers pay insurance companies in Medicare and parts of Medicaid. Manufacturers pay these rebates to secure good placement on an insurer’s formulary, which makes it easier for patients to get those drugs and harder for them to get competitors’. (Florko and Swetlitz, 2/1)
The Associated Press: Prescription Manager Stocks Dip After Rebate Change Pitched
Shares of some insurers and pharmacy benefit managers were pressured Friday after President Donald Trump's administration laid out a plan to change how prescription rebates are handled for the government's Medicare and Medicaid programs. CVS Health Corp., Humana Inc. and UnitedHealth Group Inc. all slipped less than 1 percent while broader indexes climbed in late-morning trading. (2/1)
Kaiser Health News: Winners And Losers Under Bold Trump Plan To Slash Drug Rebate Deals
Few consumers have heard of the secret, business-to-business payments that the Trump administration wants to ban in an attempt to control drug costs. But the administration’s plan for drug rebates, announced Thursday, would end the pharmaceutical business as usual, shift billions in revenue and cause far-reaching, unforeseen change, say health policy authorities. (Hancock, 2/1)
In other pharmaceutical news —
Reuters: Exclusive: Top U.S. Insurer To Cover Amgen, Eli Lilly Migraine Drugs, Exclude Teva
A top U.S. pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) owned by UnitedHealth Group Inc has included new migraine drugs from Amgen Inc and Eli Lilly and Co as preferred treatments on its lists of covered drugs, according to an OptumRx client note viewed by Reuters. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd's rival migraine headache preventer is excluded on one list and patients can pay more for it in some cases on a second list, the note said. (Hummer, 2/1)
Stat: Dana-Farber Heads To Court To Add Researcher On Immunotherapy Patents
Four months after one of its scientists was snubbed for a Nobel Prize in medicine, a leading cancer center will ask a court to credit him in another way: by adding his name to patents underlying a major cancer immunotherapy drug made possible by the award-winning research. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute on Monday will petition the U.S. District Court in Boston to include Gordon Freeman and a colleague on six patents issued by the U.S. Patent Office. Those patents currently name Nobel laureate Tasuku Honjo, two Kyoto University colleagues, and one scientist from the drug maker Ono Pharmaceutical. (Cooney, 2/1)
Bloomberg: Starboard Value Said To Take Stake In Bristol-Myers Squibb
Starboard Value has taken a stake in Bristol-Myers Squibb, the pharmaceutical giant that agreed to acquire Celgene Corp. in a record $74 billion deal last month, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The size of the stake and any plans that Jeff Smith’s activist hedge fund might have for its investment in the $81 billion drugmaker couldn’t immediately be learned. (Hammond and Ahmed, 2/2)
