Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Perspectives: Don't Believe The Rhetoric, Most Drug Companies Aren't That Innovative Anyway
The Hill: Drug Companies Exaggerate — Controlling Drug Prices Won't Threaten Innovation
It is hard to not be impressed by the progress Americans have made in combatting diseases. Cures for hepatitis C and advances in breast cancer treatments have changed lives. This is in part due to scientific breakthroughs at our national laboratories, universities and the pharmaceutical industry. But progress creating new drugs has led to a new problem: a drug pricing crisis. Nearly 1 in 3 American adults report not taking their medicines as prescribed because of the cost. In Washington and across the country, people are engaged in a spirited debate about the affordability of prescription drugs for households and public budgets. (Richard G. Frank, 11/13)
Stat: Booker-Sanders-Harris Drug Affordability Bureau Could Be Brilliant
In response to growing bipartisan outrage over prescription drug prices, Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Kamala Harris (D-Cal.) introduced a bill on Friday proposing the creation of a new federal agency: the Bureau of Prescription Drug Affordability and Access.Under the bill’s current stipulations, when a new drug enters the market, this new bureau would weigh the costs of its research and development against the costs of comparable therapies and any federal money that contributed to its discovery to determine an appropriate list price.It should go without saying that allowing the government to engage in price-setting for America’s most innovative industry would decimate the early-stage biotech ecosystem that allows us to lead the world in biomedical innovation. In an environment where 9 out of 10 drugs in development don’t make it to the market, drug developers already assume a massive amount of risk. (Jessica Sagers and Peter Kolchinsky, 11/18)
Stat: Bipartisan Support For Biosimilars Is Good. More Would Be Better
In today’s hyperpartisan and gridlocked political climate, we should seize any opportunity for bipartisan agreement that benefits the American public — especially one that can lower health care costs, like greater use of biosimilars. During the eight-hour markup of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s drug pricing bill (H.R. 3), more than 300 amendments were submitted. Only one passed: an amendment from Reps. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) and Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.), which they had previously introduced as a bipartisan bill called the BIOSIM Act. (Juliana Reed, 11/20)
Bloomberg: A $5 Billion Cholesterol Bet May Be An Overreach
Novartis AG appears ready to put a premium on convenience. Bloomberg News reported early Tuesday that the Swiss pharmaceutical giant is conducting due diligence on Medicines Co., a New Jersey-based biotechnology company with a promising drug called inclisiran that can substantially lower so-called bad cholesterol with just two annual treatments. Its principal rivals, Amgen Inc.'s Repatha, and Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceutical Inc.’s Praluent, require biweekly or monthly injections. (Max Nisen, 11/19)
Portland Press Herald: Congress Has An Opportunity To Lower Drug Costs – And There’s No Time To Waste
Americans agree that prescription drug prices are too high. Countless individuals and families across the country are grappling with impossible choices between buying the medication they need to stay healthy and paying the bills. And with no prescription is that truer than insulin. A member of the congregation I serve in Portland can’t afford the insulin he needs to manage his diabetes. Even though he works a full-time job with overtime, having worked hard to earn a promotion to a supervisory position, his low hourly salary is inadequate to cover even the co-pay on top of his rising rent and other expenses. (Sara Ewing-Merrill, 11/20)
Stat: CAR-T Therapies Should Be Made By Academic Medical Centers
Draw blood from someone with cancer. Engineer their blood cells to seek and destroy cancer. Reinfuse the cells and watch the cancer melt away. Chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy (CAR-T) sounds like science fiction. But it’s the next frontier in cancer therapy. We’re weaponizing individuals’ immune systems to destroy cancer and add years to their lives. It’s incredibly exciting. But at hundreds of thousands of dollars per dose, insurance companies and the U.S. government are struggling to figure out how to pay for these breakthrough treatments. (David Mitchell, Saad Kenderian and S. Vincent Rajkumar, 11/20)
