Generic Price Fixing Probe Has Been Called One Of Biggest Cases Of Corporate Collusion In History. Now It’s Hit Some Roadblocks.

Bloomberg: Drug Prices: Did Drugmakers Fix Generic Medicines’ Prices?
FBI agents in black vehicles pulled up at the suburban Pittsburgh headquarters of generic drug giant Mylan NV. Wearing windbreakers with block-yellow FBI logos and carrying a warrant, they headed for the fifth-floor executive offices. The September 2016 raid was meant to surface what a multiyear Justice Department investigation hadn’t found up to that point: evidence that Mylan’s top executives played a role in what authorities have described as widespread price fixing in the generic-drug industry—potentially one of the biggest corporate collusion cases in U.S. history. Mylan, which on Monday announced a deal to be absorbed into Pfizer Inc.’s older drugs unit next year, has denied any wrongdoing. (Griffin, McLaughlin and Elgin, 7/30)

Stat: Inside The Conservative Campaign To Sabotage A Trump Drug Pricing Plan
The conservative health policy minds asked to gather at the White House on July 12 were not there to celebrate a legislative victory or to strategize. Instead, the who’s-who list of Republican-leaning advocates received a head-turning admonishment from a key White House aide who told them, in no uncertain terms, to get in line with President Trump. “The president will not be outflanked on the left on drug prices,” said Joe Grogan, the White House’s top policy aide, according to four sources familiar with his remarks, two of whom were present. (Facher, 7/29)

CNBC: Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks: Drug Price Caps Will Not Lower Health Costs
Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks told CNBC on Tuesday that prescription drug costs would still soar even if Democrats managed to cap the prices that pharmaceutical companies are allowed to charge. “There’s a lot of rhetoric in the air, and most of it non-productive,” Ricks told with “Squawk Box. ” “We could cap that forever. And what we get is less innovation and still have growing health-care costs.” Democratic proposals aimed at lowering health-care costs target Big Pharma directly. (Lovelace, 7/30)

Stat: Meet The Advisers Helping Shape Democrats’ Plans To Lower Drug Prices
Democratic presidential candidates are making bigger promises than ever before on reforming the pharmaceutical industry. But the candidates have not formulated the policies on their own. Instead, to workshop the bold and occasionally far-fetched ideas, Democrats have turned to a familiar cast of outside advisers, according to drug pricing advocates, Capitol Hill aides, and the campaigns themselves. (Facher, 7/30)

Reuters: Mylan Reaches $30 Million Settlement In SEC's EpiPen Probe 
Mylan NV has reached a tentative agreement to pay $30 million to resolve a probe by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission related to its emergency allergy shot EpiPen, which became the center of a firestorm over price increases. The drugmaker in a regulatory filing on Monday disclosed that it had reached an agreement-in-principle with the SEC's enforcement staff to resolve the investigation that dated back to 2016. Mylan said it will neither admit nor deny wrongdoing as part of the accord. (7/30)

Reuters: Gilead, Novartis Cancer Therapies Losing Patients To Experimental Treatments
Unusually high numbers of U.S. lymphoma patients are choosing experimental treatments over expensive cell therapies sold by Gilead Sciences Inc and Novartis AG, new data shows, helping explain why sales of the two products have not met rosy expectations. Both Gilead's Yescarta and Novartis's Kymriah - which are part of a class of therapies known in the medical field as “CAR-T” - were approved in 2017. (7/30)

Marketplace: The Battle Over Who Gets To Sell Pills For Cancer Treatment
Cancer treatment has never been cheap. But the cost of oncology drugs in the U.S. has become jaw-dropping, and where there are big dollars, business interests compete. And in the world of oncology, that “battle ground” is between cancer doctors and pharmacy benefit managers. (Farmer, 7/29)

MPR: Minnesota Lawmakers Say There's Agreement On Emergency Insulin Aid
Lawmakers working for months on a way to help Minnesotans struggling with runaway insulin prices say they’ve agreed on a plan to get emergency insulin to those who need it. However, there’s no deal yet on how to pay for it, and Capitol leaders haven’t signed off on it. (Bierschbach, 7/29)

WBUR: Families Fought For A New Drug's Approval. Now They Fear Insurers Will Drop It
ICER's conclusion has patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy and their families worried, and it led to a tense meeting with ICER's review panel this week in Cambridge. Their concern is that if a treatment is seen as having both little evidence that it works and a high cost, health insurers may choose not to cover it. (Chen, 7/26)

Stat: Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ Jeffrey Leiden To Step Aside As CEO 
Vertex Pharmaceuticals will promote Reshma Kewalramani, its chief medical officer, to president and CEO on April 1, the company announced Thursday morning. She will succeed Jeffrey Leiden, who said he would step down as president and CEO after seven years in those roles. Leiden, who has also served as chairman, will become executive chairman, a position he will hold through the first quarter of 2023. (Herper, 7/25)

Stat: Advocates Urge Italy, Belgium To Probe Biogen On Spinraza Price 
A pair of consumer advocacy groups wants antitrust authorities in Italy and Belgium to investigate Biogen (BIIB) for allegedly abusing its “position in the marketplace” by imposing an “unfair price” for Spinraza, a pricey therapy for treating a rare and fatal childhood disease called spinal muscular atrophy. In arguing their case, the advocacy groups maintain that there is an “excessive” and “disproportionate” difference between the development costs for the medicine and what the Italian and Belgian health systems are paying. And they want authorities to take action in order to strike a balance between innovation and access. (Silverman, 7/25)