Biotech Bigwigs Are Gaming The System — And It’s All Legal

Stat: How Biotech Executives Profit From Legal Insider Trading
A biotech company called Seres Therapeutics got some bad news late last month: Its all-important infectious disease drug failed in a clinical trial, sending its stock price down roughly 70 percent. Investors took a bath. But in the two days before that failure became public, three top Seres executives sold a combined $2.5 million worth of the company’s stock. They made a tidy profit. They avoided nearly $2 million in paper losses. And it was entirely legal. (Garde, 8/8)

Stat: SEC Charges Doctor With Insider Trading
As a rule, principal investigators for clinical trials should not be trading in the stocks of companies whose drugs they are testing. But the feds allege that Dr. Edward Kosinski ignored this dictum and now faces charges of insider trading. In two separate instances, Kosinski sold his shares in Regado Biosciences after receiving bad news about a clinical trial in which he was the principal investigator, according to a lawsuit filed on Thursday in federal court in Connecticut by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. In the first stock trade, he avoided $160,000 in losses, and in the second transaction he made more than $3,000 by exercising options. (Silverman, 8/5)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Cost Of HIV-Preventing Drugs Still A Worry For Some Sexual Assault Victims Despite Law Passed Two Years Ago 
Nurses and doctors lobbied the state to help cover the cost of a cocktail of drugs that can protect sexual assault victims from contracting HIV. In 2014, they succeeded when a state law was changed to reimburse hospitals, at least in part, when they provided the medication to victims who sought treatment and had a rape kit collected. Now, more than two years later, the law still isn't being followed; the state isn't covering any medication costs. (Dissell, 8/8)

Reuters: Future Of Drug Pricing: Paying For Benefits Not Per Pill 
Global pressure on health spending is forcing the $1 trillion-a-year pharmaceutical industry to look for new ways to price its products: charging based on how much they improve patients' health, rather than how many pills or vials are sold. In the United States, both parties are promising fresh action on drug prices whoever wins the White House. In Europe, economies are stalled, squeezing state health budgets. And in China and other Asian markets, governments are getting tougher with suppliers. Pricing drugs based on clinical outcomes is one way to ensure that limited funds bring the most benefits to patients now and pay for the most promising medical advances in future. Some experiments in pricing have already been made. (Hirschler, 8/9)

Stat: Novartis Execs In Korea Are Indicted For Bribing Doctors
Six former and current Novartis executives at its Korean unit were indicted Monday on charges of paying more than $2 million to doctors in return for prescribing its medicines, a company spokesman confirmed. Among those indicted was the former chief executive in the country. At the same time, six publishers of medical publications and 15 doctors who work at general hospitals were also indicted. The drug maker funded academic events that were supposedly organized by the publications, but distributed to doctors money disguised as attendance fees and for articles that the doctors contributed to the publications, the Korea Herald reported. (Silverman, 8/9)

CNBC: Blink Health Looks To Disrupt Relentless Rise Of Drug Prices
Prescription drug prices are a mystery, but a new start up is disrupting prices for generic drugs across the country. While there's pricing transparency for most products, costs vary widely for the same medication at different drug stores. The terrain has created an opening for one enterprising start-up looking to shake up the market." Technology is sort of realigning a whole host of…industries," Geoffrey Chaiken, Blink Health CEO told CNBC's "On the Money" recently. He mentioned Uber and Groupon as disruptor examples. "It just hadn't happened yet in the pharmaceutical space." (Gillies, 8/7)