Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Cigna Express Scripts Will Simplify Its Pricing Structure Next Year
Bloomberg: Drug Prices: Cigna Follows Mark Cuban’s Lead To Simplify Pricing
Cigna Group is taking a page from billionaire Mark Cuban’s playbook to sell medicines for a set markup, the latest sign that companies that manage drug benefits are responding to pressure from upstart competitors. Next year Cigna’s Express Scripts subsidiary will offer employers and health plans the option to pay pharmacies up to 15% above their wholesale costs, plus an extra fee for dispensing the medicines. (Tozzi, 11/14)
KFF Health News: Biden Administration’s Limit On Drug Industry Middlemen Backfires, Pharmacists Say
The Biden administration’s first major step toward imposing limits on the pharmacy benefit managers who act as the drug industry’s price negotiators is backfiring, pharmacists say. Instead, it’s adding to the woes of the independent drugstores it was partly designed to help. The so-called PBMs have long clawed back a fee from pharmacies weeks or months after they dispense a drug. A new rule, which governs Medicare’s drug program, is set to take effect Jan. 1 and requires PBMs to take most of their “performance fees” at the time prescriptions are filled. (Allen, 11/15)
In other pharmaceutical developments —
Reuters: US FDA Warns Amazon Against Sale Of Unapproved Eye Drops
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday it had sent a warning letter to Amazon.com related to sale of seven unapproved eye drops on the company's e-commerce platform. In the letter dated Nov. 13, FDA said Amazon was selling eye drops which have not been recognized as safe and effective for providing temporary relief from eye symptoms such as excessive watery discharge, redness, burning, or pink eye. (11/14)
Reuters: German Drug Regulator Considering Export Ban On Ozempic
The head of German drug regulator BfArM is considering an export ban on Novo Nordisk's diabetes drug Ozempic, which is in high demand for its weight-loss benefits, to prevent a worsened supply shortage. ... "We are currently in talks with lawmakers about what we will do if the current measures and the public messages don't show an effect," BfArM President Karl Broich told Spiegel magazine. "We would then think about imposing an export ban so that enough remains in the country for the patients that need it," said Broich, adding that the drug was going to other European countries and the United States. (Burger, 11/15)
Bloomberg: Ozempic: Belgium Limits Novo Drug To Diabetes, Obesity Patients
Belgium tightened rules around prescribing Novo Nordisk A/S’s Ozempic and other diabetes medications amid shortages driven by competing demand for the drugs as a popular remedy for weight loss. The drugs may only be prescribed to patients with type 2 diabetes and people with certain types of obesity, the Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products said in a statement on Tuesday. (Pronina, 11/14)
The Boston Globe: Theseus Pharmaceuticals Cuts 72 Percent Of Workforce
Theseus Pharmaceuticals says it is laying off 72 percent of its workforce, or 26 employees, just four months after safety concerns derailed the Cambridge biotech’s clinical trial on an experimental drug to treat a form of gastrointestinal cancer. Theseus announced the layoffs after the market closed Monday and said it was “exploring strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value,” corporate lingo for launching a sale. (Saltzman, 11/14)
The Boston Globe: EMD Serono Moving Its Headquarters To Seaport
EMD Serono, the American drug development arm of Germany’s Merck KGaA, plans to move its headquarters from the South Shore town of Rockland to Boston’s Seaport district next summer. The company will join more than two dozen life sciences companies, including biopharma giants Vertex and Eli Lilly, that have moved to or are constructing buildings in the Seaport. Once a neighborhood of warehouses and parking lots, the Seaport has emerged as the state’s second-largest drug discovery cluster after Cambridge’s Kendall Square. (Weisman, 11/14)
Also —
Stat: NIH Chief: Government Has Fallen Behind Pharma On Clinical Trials
The new National Institutes of Health director, Monica Bertagnolli, said it’s a “failure” that enrollment in government-funded clinical trials has lagged behind those funded by the pharmaceutical industry. (Cohrs, 11/14)
