Patient Groups Losing Faith In Pharma

Stat: Drug Makers Have A Bad Reputation Among Patient Groups
As far as many patient groups are concerned, the theme song for the pharmaceutical industry should be Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation.” For all the criticism that drug makers have endured in recent years, a new survey finds that they are faring worse than ever. Just 38 percent of patient groups thought the pharmaceutical industry had an “excellent” or “good” reputation last year, down from almost 45 percent in 2015, according to PatientView, a research firm that canvassed more than 1,400 patient groups from 105 countries. (Silverman, 3/21)

Boston Globe: Biopharma Facing Stiffer Opposition 
Biopharma, a high-flying industry for most of the past decade, may be coming down to earth. The backlash against steep drug prices has become a rare subject of bipartisan agreement in Washington, D.C. Leading the charge is President Trump, who promised last week that his administration is “going to get drug prices so far lower than they are now your head will spin.” (Weisman, 3/19)

The Washington Post: Four Former FDA Commissioners Denounce Drug Importation, Citing Dangers To Consumers
The four most recent Food and Drug Administration commissioners are warning Congress that legalizing the importation of drugs from other countries — an idea that has drawn support from both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump — is a risky approach that would endanger consumers by exposing them to fake, substandard and contaminated drugs. (McGinley, 3/17)

The Wall Street Journal: Sunlight Is The Best Medicine For Pharma
Scrutiny of high drug prices constitutes a major investment risk for big pharma. The industry’s transparency push can help. Eli Lilly released a report Monday that shows the growth of its gross and net prices across its U.S. drug portfolio. They are the third major drug company to release such data this year after Merck & Co. and Johnson & Johnson. The data show that Lilly has raised average gross prices by more than 11% in each of the past five calendar years. (Grant, 3/20)

Stat: Maryland Closer To Penalizing Generic Drug Makers On Prices
Abill that would allow the Maryland attorney general to take legal action against generic drug makers for price gouging cleared a significant hurdle on Monday night when the Maryland House of Delegates overwhelming voted to approve the measure. The legislation, which was approved by a vote of 137-to-4, now goes to the state Senate. Specifically, the bill would require the Maryland Medical Assistance Program to notify the attorney general when an “essential” generic drug rises in price by 50 percent or more within the preceding two-year period. (Silverman, 3/21)

NPR: Buying The Firm That Makes Hepatitis C Drugs Could Save The U.S. Money
David Higginbotham contracted hepatitis C more than 35 years ago. He'd like to rid his body of the virus, but Colorado's Medicaid program says he's not sick enough to justify the cost. And he's not alone. (Kodjak, 3/17)

Stat: Pricey Cholesterol Drug Cuts Cardiovascular Risk — But Will Insurers Pay?
Acholesterol-cutting drug from Amgen succeeded in lowering patients’ risk of cardiovascular trouble in a huge clinical trial — but the results, announced Friday, may not be good enough to prompt insurers to cover the expensive drug for millions of patients. Amgen’s treatment, called Repatha, met its goals in a two-year trial on more than 27,000 patients with heart disease who were already taking a maximum dose of statins like Lipitor and yet still had stubbornly high cholesterol. Those who got Amgen’s drug were 15 percent less likely to suffer a bad outcome, defined as heart attack, stroke, hospitalization for chest pain, placement of a stent, or death. (Garde, 3/17)

The Wall Street Journal: Two Cheers For Biogen’s Court Victory
Biogen scored another intellectual property win for its investors Tuesday, but growth concerns remain. The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board upheld a key piece of intellectual property on Biogen’s multiple sclerosis drug Tecfidera, following a hedge fund’s challenge to its validity. Biogen shares rose Tuesday morning, even as most biotech stocks sold off sharply. (Grant, 3/21)

Kaiser Health News: Trump’s Promise To Rein In Drug Prices Could Open Dam To Importation Laws
With prescription drug prices soaring and President Donald Trump vowing to take action, an old idea is gaining fresh traction: allowing Americans to buy medicines from foreign pharmacies at far lower prices. A new bill in Congress to allow the practice would modify previous safety standards and remove a barrier that proved insurmountable in past attempts to enable progress. (Bluth, 3/22)

Stat: Lilly Takes A Stab At Pricing Transparency, But Is It The Right Data?
Hoping to deflect criticism of its pricing, Eli Lilly released data showing that rebates and discounts paid to middlemen are increasingly reducing the list prices charged for its drugs. (Silverman, 3/20)

NPR: U.S. Could Drive Down Drug Prices By Exercising Patent Rights
Rising drug prices are one of the biggest challenges in health care in the United States. More people are using prescription drugs on a regular basis, and the costs of specialty drugs are rising faster than inflation. President Donald Trump has promised over and over again to drive down drug prices. ... But Trump already has a weapon he could deploy to cut the prices of at least some expensive medications. (Kodjak, 3/16)

The Associated Press: How Do Insurers Decide What Medicines To Pay For?
How do insurance companies decide what medicines to pay for and when to pay for them? Insurers and other payers look first at how well the drug works — not its cost — when they decide whether to cover the latest treatments, according to the nation’s largest pharmacy benefits manager, Express Scripts. The price patients eventually pay gets determined later, when an insurance company or pharmacy benefits manager decides where a drug fits on a list of covered treatments called a formulary. (Murphy, 3/17)

Kaiser Health News: Prescription Drug Costs Are On The Rise; So Are The TV Ads Promoting Them
Laura Ries was moved to action when she saw a TV commercial that portrayed a woman enjoying time with her grandchildren after taking Lyrica, a prescription medication for diabetic nerve pain. Ries’ elderly mother suffered from just that problem. “The ad showed someone who was enjoying life again,” said Ries, president of a marketing strategy firm in Atlanta, who then researched the drug and spoke with her mother’s doctor. “This … was very relatable to what my mom was experiencing.” (Horovitz and Appleby, 3/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Sanofi’s Prescription For Growth: Drug Sales In The Middle Kingdom
Sanofi SA expects its drug sales in China to grow at least 10% this year, helped by its push outside cities and efforts to tailor medicines to suit local needs, senior executives said. Sales in China last year exceeded €2 billion ($2.15 billion), making it the French company’s third-largest market after the U.S. and France. Drugs accounted for €1.8 billion, with the rest from vaccines and consumer health products. (Rana, 3/21)

Kaiser Health News: Low-Income AIDS Patients Fear Coverage Gains May Slip Away
When Tami Haught was diagnosed with HIV, she was one day shy of her 25th birthday. The diagnosis did not come as a shock since doctors had determined her fiancé was dying of AIDS several weeks earlier. In the two decades since, Haught, 48, has turned to expensive prescription drugs to keep the deadly infection in check. In 2005, she began receiving help purchasing her medications through the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), a federally funded network of programs in each state that assist low-income HIV and AIDS patients. Since the Affordable Care Act was implemented, ADAP instead has helped her buy an insurance policy to cover a wide assortment of her health care needs. (Heredia Rodriguez, 3/21)

Stat: Pharma Convinces FDA To Delay Rule On Off-Label Marketing
In response to anger from drug makers, the Food and Drug Administration delayed implementing a final rule until next year that would give the agency greater leeway to police off-label marketing. The move comes three weeks after the pharmaceutical industry filed a petition urging the agency to postpone the rule over concerns it would harm public health and chill “valuable scientific speech.” As we noted previously, the rule says drug makers must update product labeling if there is evidence indicating a company intended its medicine to be used off-label, or for an unapproved use. (Silverman, 3/17)