Perspectives: Drug Prices Give Lawmakers An Opportunity To Show They Can Reach Across The Aisle

The Wall Street Journal: White House Principles For Reducing Drug Costs
A divided Congress in a presidential election year may seem an unlikely setting for the first major drug-pricing reform in decades, but over the past year common goals and designs have emerged to set up a rare opportunity. President Trump in his State of the Union address called on both parties to “get something on drug pricing done, done quickly, and done properly.” During times when our country faces public health challenges, America’s strength in pharmaceutical innovation is recognized as an asset we must employ. The administration’s goal is to help patients, including seniors, afford the drugs they need, not destroy this vital industry. The White House urges Congress to adhere to the following five principles. (Joe Grogan, 3/10)

Columbus Dispatch: Transparency Is Key To Lower Drug Prices
To tame ever-rising prices for prescription drugs in Ohio, most observers have a similar idea on how to do it, and it’s right in the name of a new task force that began meeting recently: The Prescription Drug Transparency and Affordability Advisory Council. We agree that greater price transparency for drugs is essential to a saner health care system, but we hope the new panel also will consider a broader fix: getting rid of pharmacy benefit managers. The private companies serving as middlemen between drug companies and the private companies who handle the state’s Medicaid program have profited immensely by draining hundreds of millions of dollars from the taxpayer-funded system. (3/5)

Stat: Five Years On, Biosimilars Need Support From All Health Care Players
Today marks a milestone for the U.S. biosimilar market: the FDA approved our first biosimilar, Sandoz’s Zarxio, five years ago, on March 6, 2015. The biosimilar category holds incredible promise, and the market for these products is on an upward trajectory. But it’s been a long journey and biosimilars have faced hurdles at every progression point. Every innovator company has filed legal action in some form against a biosimilar manufacturer to protect its patents and brand position, so before biosimilars even have a chance to compete, they are generally saddled with legal fees or settlement expenses, which have become another cost of entry. (Sean McGowan, 3/6)

Stat: Tackling Drug Shortages With Data, AI, Legislation, And More
Every quarter since 2014, roughly 150 to 300 drugs have been in short supply in the U.S. The drug shortages list has included injectable morphine and other painkillers, anesthetics, antibiotics, cancer drugs, medications for mental illness, and much more. In June 2018, a bipartisan group of 31 U.S. senators and 104 members of the House of Representatives wrote to then-FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb in hopes of addressing the nation’s drug shortage crisis. (Shabbir Dahod, 3/11)

Chronicle Herald: CF Drug Pricing Dispute Hurting Patients
Behind the recent heartwarming story of Truro’s Nicole Turple being gifted a four-month supply of a life-saving cystic fibrosis drug, there’s a darker reality. Critics say ongoing disagreements over pricing between Canadian governments and the drug’s manufacturer are keeping revolutionary new treatments for the deadly disease out of the hands of those who desperately need them. In Turple’s case, the CF medicine — Symdeko — is approved for use by Health Canada but is not covered by government drug plans anywhere in this country. (3/6)