Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
High Drug Price Blame Game: Middlemen Under Fire From Pharma Defend Their Role In Finding Savings
Bloomberg: Secret Discounts Kept Soaring Drug Bills Down, Says Middleman
Middlemen that negotiate drug discounts are under fire from drugmakers who say that secret rebates aren’t always shared with patients. But Express Scripts Holding Co., one of the biggest pharmacy-benefits managers, says the drug-price deals it cuts behind closed doors are saving consumers a lot of money. In a new report, the company said U.S. drug costs for its employer, union and other commercial plans rose just 1.5 percent last year, on a per-person basis, the smallest increase in the more than two decades the company has been measuring it. Costs declined for nearly half of its commercial clients, when rebates are included. (Langreth, 2/6)
CNBC: Group Will Make High Drug Prices Issue In 2018 Elections
A group launched Thursday plans to make rising drug prices an issue in the 2018 midterm elections. The group, Patients for Affordable Drugs NOW, will back federal and state candidates who support legislative efforts to reduce high prescription medication costs, and target candidates who don't share those goals. (Mangan, 2/1)
The Hill: Poll: Majority Of Voters Say Lowering Drug Prices Should Be Priority For Congress
More than 80 percent of voters think lowering drug prices should be a priority for Congress, according to a new poll released Monday. The poll, completed by GS Strategy Group, shows 85.5 percent of registered voters surveyed think lowering the cost of prescription drugs should be a "top priority" or an "important priority" for Congress. (Hellmann, 2/5)
Stat: Amazon's Health Move Has These Pharma, Health Care Companies Spooked
Amazon is not a health care company. It does not treat patients, sell insurance, or make prescription drugs. And although it has revolutionized modern commerce, it has not discovered a cure for cancer. And yet, when the company announced a partnership with JPMorgan and Berkshire Hathaway to fix health care for employees last Tuesday, a $3.5 trillion industry began to tremble. Leading health stocks nosedived, losing $69 billion in value before the ink was dry on a 400-word press release that provided no detail on what Amazon will do in health care, or how it will do it. (Ross, 2/5)
The Hill: Coalition Of 44 Groups Calls For Passage Of Drug Pricing Bill
A coalition of 44 groups is calling on Congress to pass a measure aimed at fighting high drug prices that has gained support from across the political spectrum. The letter is signed by groups that are often directly opposed to each other, such as the conservative group FreedomWorks and the liberal group Families USA. The bill, called the CREATES Act, has bipartisan cosponsors and is designed to increase competition and bring prices down by preventing branded drug companies from using delay tactics to prevent generic competitors from getting onto the market. (Sullivan, 2/6)
CNBC: Pharma's Latest Defense: Drugs Lower Health-Care Costs
When the topic of drug prices comes up, as it so often does in this post-Martin Shkreli world, pharma is always prepared with a rebuttal. First, it was that drugs account for only 10 (or more recently, closer to 15) percent of overall health-care spending. Then, that it's the middlemen, like pharmacy benefit managers, who drive up drug prices. Now, the pharmaceutical industry's counter to criticisms of its prices: that use of medicines lowers other health-care spending. (Tirrell, 2/1)
Stat: Should Pharma Be Allowed To Give Insurers Data Before Drug Approvals?
Yet another legislative effort is underway to allow drug makers to provide health plans with key data about their medicines before regulatory approval. Specifically, a House subcommittee recently endorsed the notion, which would grant the pharmaceutical industry a long-standing wish, but has consumer advocates on edge. Here’s why: Drug makers have regularly argued they should be permitted to provide scientific and economic information to health plan committees that decide which medicines to cover. By conveying such data, health plans can get a jump on making budget decisions that can take weeks or months. And the sooner a drug is covered by insurance, the sooner a drug maker can ring the proverbial register. (Silverman, 2/2)
Stat: CMS Could Have Saved Billions If Generic Substitution Was Really Pursued
If Medicare pursued the same strategy that pharmacy benefit managers use to weed out certain medicines and offer alternatives for private health plans, the federal government could have saved nearly $3 billion from 2012 and 2015, according to a recent analysis. How so? Well, pharmacy benefit managers purportedly try to limit costs for private health plans by excluding certain medicines from their formularies, or lists of drugs for which reimbursement is available. But as the authors of the JAMA Internal Medicine research letter note, the extent to which such maneuvers are used by all Medicare Part D plan administrators is unknown. (Silverman, 2/1)
Stat: Biotech's Biggest Unicorn Is Now Worth $7.5 Billion
Moderna Therapeutics, a multibillion-dollar biotech startup, is raising $500 million in a round that values the company at $7.5 billion, according to the data provider Pitchbook. The financing, first reported by Bloomberg, comes as Moderna burns through about $450 million a year in an effort to craft medicines that can transform the body’s cells into drug factories. The company has raised more than $1.5 billion since its inception in 2010, repeatedly putting off a public offering as it worked through setbacks that delayed its most ambitious science. (Garde, 2/1)
CNBC: Express Scripts Plans See Lower Gains In Prescription Drug Spending
Prescription drug prices may still be high, but Express Scripts says the commercial insurance plans it works with saw the lowest increase in drug spending last year, in nearly a quarter of a century. For private employer and individual health plans, total drug spending rose 1.5 percent last year, according to the latest Express Scripts annual Drug Trend report. That was the smallest increase since the pharmacy benefits firm first began tracking spending in 1993. (Coombs, 2/6)
Healthline: Quicker Generic Drug Approvals Should Mean Lower Drug Prices
A record number of generic drugs were approved by the Food and Drug Administration last year. If President Trump has his way, that trend will continue — or even accelerate — in the coming years. This increase in generics, which are usually cheaper and more widely used than their brand name counterparts, is a boon for consumers, experts say. But, the experts add, even more can be done to get generics on pharmacy shelves and keep drug prices coming down. (Berger, 2/5)
Reuters: AmerisourceBergen Sees $60 Million Hit From Troubled Memphis Plant
U.S. drug distributor AmerisourceBergen Corp (ABC.N) said it expected to take a $60 million hit to its core profit in 2018 due to suspension of operations at its facility that produces around half of the compounded drugs it supplies. Operations at the automated facility in Memphis, its largest, were suspended in December following an inspection by the U.S. drug regulator. (Mathias and Mitra, 2/6)
Denver Post: Some Hospitals Are Sick Of The Cost Of Prescription Drugs. So They’ve Decided To Form Their Own Pharma Company.
Tired of paying high prices for common drugs and still facing shortages, a group of hospitals across the country say they are teaming up to do the unprecedented: form their own pharmaceutical company. The effort has attracted the support of five different health systems, representing more than 450 hospitals nationwide. No Colorado hospitals have announced that they are joining the plan, though some say they are watching its development with interest. (Ingold, 2/5)
Stat: Pharma Struggles To Ward Off Yet Another Drug Take-Back Program
The pharmaceutical industry is playing an intensifying game of whack-a-mole as its latest battle over a so-called drug take-back program is being fought in Washington state, which could become the third state in the nation to force drug makers to finance collections of unused or unwanted medicines. The Washington bill, which was first introduced a year ago, is now gaining momentum in the state House of Representatives, where a vote may occur this week, according to legislators and lobbyists. And the lawmaker who sponsored the bill believes the state Senate will be amenable to the legislation, as well. (Silverman, 1/30)
Reuters: Sanofi's Return To Profit Growth This Year Slower Than Hoped
Sanofi expects to return to profit growth this year on the back of two recently announced acquisitions and a revamped drugs pipeline, after fourth-quarter earnings were dented by a charge related to its troubled dengue vaccine. France's largest drugmaker forecast on Wednesday earnings per share (EPS) would grow 2-5 percent at constant exchange rates this year, after a 0.4 percent drop in 2017. (Blamont, 2/7)
Reuters: Brazil's EMS And India's Torrent Pharma Vying For Sanofi's Generic Drugs-Sources
Brazilian drugs firm EMS and Indian rival Torrent Pharma have emerged as the only industry bidders for Sanofi's generic drugs unit, battling a series of buyout funds for an asset worth as much as $2.4 billion, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. (Barbaglia, Schuetze and Afanasieva, 2/5)
