The Record Number Of New Drugs That Emerged In 1990s Helped Drive Prices Up To Current Eye-Popping Figures

The New York Times: Something Happened To U.S. Drug Costs In The 1990s
There was a time when America approximated other wealthy countries in drug spending. But in the late 1990s, U.S. spending took off. It tripled between 1997 and 2007, according to a study in Health Affairs. Then a slowdown lasted until about 2013, before spending shot up again. What explains these trends? (Frakt, 12/12)

Stat: A New Frontier For Drug Ads: Patient 'Influencers' On Social Media
For years, so-called influencers — celebrities, former reality television contestants and sometimes, former lawyers or other professionals — have hawked diet teas and hair products everywhere from Facebook to Snapchat. And now, pharma is catching on. An entire industry has cropped up to link drug makers with the industry’s own version of an influencer — people, usually patients, who have small but devoted followings and who might be willing to promote their products or share valuable insights about the patient community. Ciccarella, for example, is one of nearly 100,000 such influencers on the rosters of Wego Health, one of a handful of companies that essentially act a patient influencer talent agency. (Sheridan, 11/13)

The Washington Post: Setting Drug Prices Comes With Complicated Questions
How much should your medicine cost? A physician colleague recently told me the story of a patient who asked if she could put off taking her medication until the end of the month, after she received her paycheck. The price had risen and she didn’t have the money to pay for it along with her other bills. Unsure how to respond, he gave her $20 to cover part of the cost. (Khullar, 11/11)

Stat: Makers Of Top-Selling Drugs Hike Prices In Lockstep, And Patients Bear The Cost 
The drug giants moved in near-perfect synchronicity, raising prices for their top-selling arthritis treatments as though they were opposite-corner gas stations bumping up the price of unleaded. On Jan. 3, 2013, AbbVie (ABBV) hiked the price of Humira, its blockbuster biologic drug for arthritis and related conditions, by 6.9 percent. A day later, Amgen (AMGN) followed with an identical increase for Enbrel, another biologic used to treat similar patients. The pattern repeated 10 more times between 2014 and early 2018. In every instance, prices of both drugs jumped by nearly the same percentage, usually within days of each other, topping out at the exact same amount, $63,363 per year, according to a STAT analysis of pricing data. (Ross, 11/14)

NPR: Installment Plans And Money-Back Guarantees Considered For Ultra-Expensive Drugs
Researchers expect that three dozen new drugs will come on the market over the next few years with astronomical prices — some likely topping a million dollars per patient. The drugmaker Novartis has told investors it might be able to charge $4 million to $5 million for one of its potential products, a treatment for a rare disease called spinal muscular atrophy. (Harris, 11/14)

Stat: Protesters Take Anger Over Insulin Prices To Drug Makers, Some With Children’s Ashes
On Mother’s Day, Nicole Smith-Holt, whose son died last year after rationing his insulin, protested insulin prices at a rally at the Minnesota state capitol. That same month, she traveled to Indianapolis to meet with a representative of the insulin maker Eli Lilly. This week, she and another mother whose child died under similar circumstances plan to travel to the office of insulin maker Sanofi in Cambridge, Mass. They will also be holding their children’s ashes. (Thielking, 11/12)

FierceHealthcare: Experts: Trump Administration’s Moves Will Put Drug Prices Center Stage In 2020 Election
The Trump administration’s plan to peg Part B drug prices to those paid in other countries may not come to fruition in its current form, but it’s meant more to signal to the healthcare industry—and voters—that it's serious on this issue, experts say. Ezekiel Emanuel, M.D., chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the key architects of the Affordable Care Act, said the policy’s release was clearly tied to the election, and means that the administration will do something, even if the final version is scaled back or revamped significantly from the current plan. (Mineymyer, 11/13)

Politico: Teaching Big Pharma To Share
Researchers want to save the pharmaceutical industry time and money on clinical trials. But that means teaching companies to work together and convincing them to pool patient data, benefiting not just themselves but also their competitors.It’s not an easy sell. (Wheaton, 11/9)

Stat: Did Rep. Chris Collins Sell His Biotech Stock Without Telling Congress? 
Rep. Chris Collins, the New York lawmaker facing insider trading charges, was once the No. 2 shareholder in an Australian firm called Innate Immunotherapeutics. According to the company’s most recent disclosure, he’s no longer even in the top 20 shareholders. What’s unclear is what happened to his shares. Under law, members of Congress are required to publicly disclose their stock trades within 30 days. Yet there is no record of Collins having sold the bulk of his shares. (Garde, 11/12)

Stat: Rep. Welch On Drug Prices, Potential Bipartisan Action, And A ‘Broken Market’ 
Rep. Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, is one of the loudest voices in Congress on the need to lower prescription drug prices. Already, he’s met with President Trump in the White House to discuss the issue, co-sponsored one of the most aggressive drug-pricing reforms introduced in the current Congress, and taken a leadership role in a Democratic group called the Affordable Prescription Drug Task Force. With his party back in the House majority for the first time since 2010, Welch and a pair of key allies — Reps. Elijah Cummings (Md.) and Lloyd Doggett (Texas) — are positioned to push their Democratic colleagues on a number of legislative proposals, including the party’s white whale: allowing Medicare to negotiate for prescription drug prices. (Facher, 11/9)

The New York Times: In China, Desperate Patients Smuggle Drugs. Or Make Their Own.
Zhang Zhejun used a fat plastic straw to gently tap the pale yellow pharmaceutical powder onto a piece of silver foil that lay on an electronic scale. He made sure the amount was just right before he poured it into a clear capsule. When you’re making cancer drugs at home, the measurements must be precise. (Wee, 11/11)

Stat: Moderna Aims To Raise $500 Million In Biotech's Largest-Ever Public Offering 
Moderna Therapeutics, a biotech company valued at more than $7 billion, is plotting to raise $500 million in what would be the sector’s largest-ever initial public offering. The company, based in Cambridge, Mass., filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday in the first step toward listing its shares on the Nasdaq. Moderna became biotech’s most valuable private startup on the promise of crafting therapies that could transform patients’ cells into microscopic drug factories. Since its founding in 2010, Moderna has raised more than $2.5 billion through investments and partnerships, choosing to stay private while the biotech industry experienced an unprecedented boom in IPOs. (Garde, 11/9)

The Wall Street Journal: Merck Ups Sales View Despite Lower Profits
Merck KGaA said Wednesday that third-quarter net profit fell, but it raised its full-year organic sales growth expectations on the performance of its Healthcare and Life Science businesses in the quarter.The German chemical and pharmaceuticals company reported net profit for the quarter of $382.7 million compared with EUR644 million a year earlier. The company said the decline was due to a one-off gain of EUR321 million from its divestment of the Biosimilars business reported the previous year. (Shevlin, 11/14)

Forbes: Novartis' $4 Million Gene Therapy -- Real Price Or A Negotiation Ploy?
At its annual R&D investor day, Novartis updated the world on its drug pipeline and research priorities. It was an impressive session befitting a company that spends $9 billion annually on R&D (about 18% of its top line revenues). Novartis touted a pipeline that includes more than 200 programs in clinical development encompassing over 500 ongoing clinical trials with 26 potential blockbusters in late stage development. Its pipeline is truly enviable and teems with potential new treatments in a variety of therapeutic areas including various types of cancer, heart disease, metabolic disorders and rare diseases. (LaMattina, 11/13)

Stat: Some Tactics AbbVie Allegedly Used To Thwart Biosimilar Versions Of Humira 
Over the past year, AbbVie has settled patent lawsuits with a growing number of drug makers that will delay biosimilar versions of its Humira rheumatoid arthritis medicine from becoming available in the U.S. until 2023. But one company has so far refused to settle and the litigation is yielding purported details that shed light on AbbVie’s use of a so-called patent thicket to defend its franchise product. Among the allegations is that AbbVie re-patented certain claims and processes for making the drug when, in fact, the approach was already in use, yet the company did not provide this information to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, according to court documents filed by Boehringer Ingelheim. (Silverman, 11/7)