Orphan Drug Costs A Headache For Insurers, But Many Aren’t Touching Politically Sensitive Topic

Stat: Insurers Worry More About Orphan Drug Prices, But Few Plan Big Changes
Sky-high prices for orphan drugs may be causing insurers considerable concern, yet a slight majority continue to believe they can manage the costs, according to a new survey. To wit, just 2 percent of beneficiaries covered by the surveyed plans have an orphan disease, which is defined as an ailment that afflicts 200,000 or fewer people. But rising prices for orphan drugs now account for roughly 9 percent of their total drug expenses. As a result, 77 percent of the payers say they are “extremely concerned” and 30 percent are “moderately concerned.” (Silverman, 9/26)

Stat: Governors Plan A Big Strategy Session Over Drug Pricing
With prescription drug prices continuing to strain state budgets, the National Governors Association is planning a meeting later this year to explore strategies for lowering costs, notably for hepatitis C drugs. And payers and drug makers will be invited, according to one state official familiar with the plan. Details have not been disclosed, but the effort reflects ongoing concern that some medicines remain out of reach for people who rely on cash-strapped state Medicaid programs, according to Dr. Rebekah Gee, the Louisiana Department of Health secretary, who has been involved in the planning. (Silverman, 9/25)

Kaiser Health News: Right After Trump Blamed High Drug Prices On Campaign Cash, Drugmakers Gave More
“The cost of medicine in this country is outrageous,” President Donald Trump said at a rally in Louisville, Ky., two months after his inauguration. He went on about how identical pills have vastly lower price tags in Europe. “You know why?” the president asked, before spreading his hands wide. “Campaign contributions, who knows. But somebody is getting very rich.” It was March 20, 2017. (Lupkin and Lucas, 9/27)

Stat: Did Someone Say Pledge? AbbVie May Reverse Its Promise On Price Hikes
What a difference a few months make. Just eight months after joining a small but growing list of drug makers that vowed to limit price hikes, AbbVie (ABBV) appears to be backing away from its pledge. In a meeting with Leerink analysts last week, company executives indicated they believe there is less political risk now if they walk back their commitment to keep all price increases below 10 percent and raise prices only once this year. (Silverman, 9/25)

FiercePharma: What Pledge? AbbVie Executives May Back Off Their Vow To Limit Price Hikes: Report
Looking to combat the public drug-pricing backlash, AbbVie in January followed their peers in promising to hold the line at less than 10%. Now, though, they're thinking about reneging on that pledge, according to a report from analysts. For its part, AbbVie refuted the report on Tuesday. The pricing development came from analysts at Leerink, who walked away from a management meeting last week impressed enough to roll out a 14-page report detailing their upbeat outlook for AbbVie. Confident they can hold off Humira biosimilars until 2022, the company trotted out a $20 billion target for its best-selling drug, a figure higher than the full-company sales of some rival Big Pharmas. (Sagonowsky, 9/25)

Axios: AbbVie Believes Political Risks Of Drug Pricing Are "Waning"
President Trump and left-leaning lawmakers have excoriated pharmaceutical companies for the rising prices of prescription drugs. But top executives of drug giant AbbVie, including CEO Richard Gonzalez, think the outrage is fading and won't lead to any large-scale changes, according to a meeting AbbVie held with pharmaceutical analysts from investment bank Leerink Partners. (Herman, 9/22)

Kaiser Health News: Everyone Says We Must Control Exorbitant Drug Prices. So, Why Don’t We?
Of all the promises President Donald Trump made for the early part of his term, controlling stinging drug prices might have seemed the easiest to achieve. An angry public overwhelmingly wants change in an easily vilified industry. Big pharma’s recent publicity nightmare included thousand-percent price increases and a smirking CEO who said, “I liken myself to the robber barons.” Even powerful members of Congress from both parties have said that drug prices are too high. (Hancock, 9/25)

Politico Pro: Politico-Harvard Poll: Congress Should Focus On Reducing Drug Prices
Lowering prescription drug prices should be Congress’ No. 1 priority for the rest of this year, according to the latest POLITICO-Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health poll. Forty percent of respondents cited the issue as a top priority, ahead of nine others on the survey. (Demko, 9/21)

Stat: Pharma Giant Pfizer Launches A Tiny Startup To Kick-Start Drug Research
There’s a popular theory about the limitations of global pharma companies: For all their skyscrapers and strategy reviews and private jets, they’re simply too knotted up in bureaucracy to realize how many great drugs are gathering dust in their vaults. Now, the biggest of Big Pharma is out do do something about that. Pfizer, home to nearly 100,000 employees, on Monday announced the launch of a six-person startup to develop new drugs. (Garde, 9/25)

Bloomberg: CVC To Explore Options For $4 Billion Drugmaker Alvogen 
Alvogen’s private equity owners including CVC Capital Partners are exploring options for the generic pharmaceutical company, which could be valued at about $4 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The controlling shareholders of the drugmaker have held on-and-off talks with Shanghai Pharmaceuticals Holding Co. focusing on a sale of Alvogen’s U.S. business, the people said. Alvogen would keep its operations in Asia as well as central and eastern Europe, one of the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. (Browning, Baigorri, Syed and Chew, 9/26)

California Healthline: High On Drugs? Anthem Cites Soaring Drug Costs To Justify 35% Rate Hike In California
Health insurance giant Anthem predicts Californians will pop a lot more pills next year. To make the case for a hefty premium hike in the state’s individual insurance market, Anthem Blue Cross has forecast a 30 percent jump in prescription drug costs for 2018. Such a sharp increase is nearly double the estimates of two other big insurers, and it runs counter to industry trends nationally. (Terhune, 9/20)

Stat: The Next Big Alzheimer's Data? Not 'Til 2019. Here's What To Look For Then
With news of Axovant’s big failure in Alzheimer’s, the drug industry is looking ahead to its next major crack at the disease — and it’s a long wait.In 2019, three large, late-stage Alzheimer’s trials are expected to read out, providing what could be the final word on a trio of drugs that scientists and analysts say represent the next best hope of breaking the industry’s generation of failure in the field. (Garde, 9/26)

Bloomberg: Cheap Drugs Pay For Aurobindo As U.S. FDA Approvals Surge
While India’s largest pharmaceutical companies have seen drug approvals in the U.S. slow overall, their research and development spending has been on a run. Not so for Aurobindo Pharma Ltd. Quarter after quarter, Hyderabad-based Aurobindo has not only had more products approved for sale by the Food and Drug Administration than its largest Indian peers, but the number has often totaled more than that of its biggest three local rivals combined, according to FDA data analyzed by Bloomberg. (Altstedter and Modi, 9/25)

Stat: Another Alzheimer's Failure: Axovant's Drug Flops In Late-Stage Trial
Yet another once-promising treatment for Alzheimer’s disease has come up short in the final stage of development, this time adding Wall Street drama to the familiar disappointment that has plagued the drug industry for decades. A pill called intepirdine, developed by the biotech startup Axovant Sciences, failed to blunt the symptoms of Alzheimer’s in a large trial. The drug was never seen as a cure, but the company had hoped it would delay the worst symptoms of the disease, giving patients a few more months of health before needing around-the-clock care. (Garde, 9/26)

Stat: The Next Big Alzheimer's Data? Not 'Til 2019. Here's What To Look For Then
With news of Axovant’s big failure in Alzheimer’s, the drug industry is looking ahead to its next major crack at the disease — and it’s a long wait. In 2019, three large, late-stage Alzheimer’s trials are expected to read out, providing what could be the final word on a trio of drugs that scientists and analysts say represent the next best hope of breaking the industry’s generation of failure in the field. (Garde, 9/26)

Forbes: Biotech's Boy Wonder Calls Alzheimer's Drug His 'Single Greatest Failure'
This morning, Vivek Ramaswamy, who began building an empire of six matryoshka-doll biotechnology companies at the age of 29 after a life as a valedictorian, a nationally ranked junior tennis player, a Harvard graduate, and a hedge fund partner, had to face something on a scale he never had before: Failure. (Vardi, 9/26)

Stat: Aegerion Pays $40 Million Fine For Illegally Marketing Cholesterol Drug
Following a long-running probe, Aegerion Pharmaceuticals has agreed to pay $40 million to settle civil and criminal charges of illegally marketing a pricey cholesterol medicine, failing to adhere to a regulatory safety program, and misleading investors. Specifically, the company was accused of “unlawfully” marketing Juxtapid, which costs up to $300,000 a year and was approved to treat a rare and inherited form of high cholesterol. The U.S. Department of Justice charged that sales reps were instructed to promote the medicine for treating very high cholesterol more generally, to widen the pool of potential patients and boost sales, but without adequate directions, according to court documents. (Silverman, 9/24)