Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Reversing Course After Complaints, CVS Health Will Again Offer Eliquis
Modern Healthcare: CVS Caremark Returns Eliquis To Formulary After Outcry
CVS Health will return blood thinner Eliquis to its pharmacy benefit manager's commercial formulary beginning July 1, reversing a decision that sparked protests from physicians and patients, the company notified providers last week. CVS Caremark negotiated a new arrangement with Eliquis maker Bristol-Myers Squibb to acquire the prescription anticoagulant. Both Eliquis and Janssen Pharmaceutical's Xarelto will be available to patients the PBM covers. For months, CVS Caremark's formulary included only Xarelto, even though research hasn't shown the two medications to be interchangeable. (Tepper, 6/22)
In other pharmaceutical and research news —
Stat: Study: Industry-Funded Studies On Cost-Efficacy Often Favor Pricier Drugs
In response to rising prices for medicines, public and private payers increasingly rely on assessments of cost-effectiveness to justify coverage. But a new examination finds that such studies sponsored by drug companies were often biased in favor of setting higher prices for their medicines. Specifically, one-third of the cost-effectiveness analyses that were conducted by drugmakers reached more favorable conclusions than independently conducted analyses. And industry-sponsored analyses were twice as likely to report that a medicine was cost effective when relying on a commonly used metric to gauge the value of a medication, according to the study published in The BMJ. (Silverman, 6/22)
FiercePharma: Pfizer's Russian Profit Pledge Bears Fruit With $5M Initial Gift, CEO Says
After Russia’s war in Ukraine escalated sharply earlier this year, Pfizer swiftly pledged to donate the sum of its Russian profits to causes that provide direct support to the people of Ukraine. Three months later, Pfizer says it’s making good on that promise. The company’s first down payment of $5 million will be spread out among eight nongovernmental organizations to support humanitarian relief and response efforts, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, Ph.D., said in a statement Wednesday. That cash will go toward food security and support services plus education for children and “other pressing needs of the people of Ukraine,” Bourla said. (Kansteiner, 6/22)
Stat: Women Get Short Shrift With Credit On Scientific Publications, Analysis Finds
Look at the list of authors on a scientific paper and you’ll typically see more men than women. It’s easy to notice that gap and blame it on productivity-limiting factors many female scientists face, like greater family obligations or unwelcome environments. A new study published in Nature attempts to interpret this authorship discrepancy in a different way. It asked whether everyone who put in the same effort on the same project had an equal chance of being listed as an author. Instead of focusing on names on papers and patents, researchers compared employment records with author lists to find out whose names were missing. Their findings are clear: Women are less likely to be credited than men for the same work. (Welle, 6/22)
