Tying Drug Costs To Performance Is A Favored Strategy To Tackle Prices, But Past Failures May Damper Enthusiasm

The Wall Street Journal: Italy Serves Cautionary Lesson For New Trump Drug Plan
The Trump administration is pushing drug plans that tie costs to performance as a way to lower health-care spending in the U.S. In Italy—where they’ve used the strategy for years—such plans haven’t brought down costs. A number of global drug companies, in response to criticism of high prices in the U.S., have recently committed to tying the cost of some of their most-expensive treatments to how well they work. So called “outcomes-based” contracts—which reimburse insurance companies for treatments that turn out to be ineffective—has been trumpeted by the industry as a way to lower health-care costs, while also avoiding broad price cuts. (Bisserbe, 4/17)

Axios: Pharma's Biggest Concern Is A Trump Surprise
President Trump is scheduled to give a speech on drug prices next week, but few expect the policy proposals that will accompany it to pack a real punch to the pharmaceutical industry — unless the president goes off-script. What they're saying: “We are hopeful the administration will embrace market-oriented policies that address patient affordability ... We would obviously be concerned if the administration pursued Medicare negotiation or importation which we think would take the system in the wrong direction," said Stephen Ubl, president and CEO of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. (Owens, 4/16)

Reuters: As Cancer Drug Prices Climb, Value Not Keeping Pace
The cost of new anti-cancer drugs increased more than five-fold from 2006 to 2015, but a new analysis suggests that cancer patients and insurers may be getting less for their money. Anticancer medications account for the lion’s share of global drug spending, and the average price per month of these drugs is known to have more than doubled in recent years, Dr. Kelvin Chan of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto and colleagues note in the Journal of Oncology Practice. (4/12)

Bloomberg: Coke Versus Pepsi Of Drugmakers? Wall Street Doesn't Buy It 
Hours after markets closed on Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.’s worst day in more than a year, executives used a sugary analogy to explain to Wall Street why the drugmaker’s new cancer treatment would do just fine against its main competitor. “Point blank, these are Coke and Pepsi in lung cancer, OK?” Bristol-Myers Chief Scientific Officer Thomas Lynch told a hotel ballroom packed with analysts and investors at a major medical conference in Chicago. Merck & Co.’s drug, Keytruda, had shown impressive results at the conference -- but Bristol-Myers was right there with it, Lynch said. (Hopkins and Lipschultz, 4/17)

The Wall Street Journal: Why Merck Is Betting Big On One Cancer Drug
Merck & Co. is making one of the biggest bets on a single drug in the pharmaceutical industry, a move that is risky but that could, if successful, pay off for the company and a broad array of cancer patients. Merck’s Keytruda, a new type of cancer drug that harnesses patients’ immune systems to fight tumors, is already marketed to treat lung, skin, bladder and other cancers. Global sales soared to more than $3.8 billion in 2017—about 9% of Merck’s total revenue—fueled by a monthly U.S. price tag of $13,500 and studies showing it prolongs patient survival in some cancers. (Loftus, 4/15)

Stat: Will A $300 Hep C Treatment Break Gilead's Grip On Mid-Income Countries?
With an eye toward making a low-cost hepatitis C treatment available in numerous countries, a nonprofit says that a mid-stage study showed an experimental combination of two pills appeared safe and effective, while offering high cure rates for hard-to-treat patients. The results were greeted with enthusiasm by patient advocacy groups, because once testing is completed, the nonprofit hopes to register the combination treatment in middle-income countries, starting with Malaysia, where it could be sold for $300, or about half the price of existing treatment in that country. (Silverman, 4/12)

Kaiser Health News: Federal Appeals Court Puts Chill On Maryland Law To Fight Drug Price-Gouging
States continue to battle budget-busting prices of prescription drugs. But a federal court decision could limit the weapons available to them — underscoring the challenge states face as they, in the absence of federal action, go one-on-one against the powerful drug industry. The 2-to-1 ruling Friday by the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated a Maryland law meant to limit “price-gouging” by makers of generic drugs. The measure was inspired by cases such as that of former Turing Pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli, who raised one generic’s price 5,000 percent after buying the company. (Luthra, 4/17)

Modern Healthcare: Highmark Health Strikes Outcomes-Based Contract For Asthma Drug 
Highmark Health, a Pittsburgh-based Blues plan, has entered into a value-based drug-pricing contract with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca for Symbicort, which is used to treat asthma and other chronic lung diseases. Under the contract, Highmark said it will track whether the symptoms of its plan members using Symbicort are in line with the results of AstraZeneca's clinical trials. If the drug doesn't live up to its promise, AstraZeneca will provide Highmark with some savings. Highmark didn't release specifics on the agreement's financial terms, but said the contract applies to commercial members in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Delaware. (Livingston, 4/17)

Stat: How Well Do Biotech And Pharma Pay? A Breakdown By Company 
Using data from MyLogIQ, which collects data from filings from the Securities and Exchange Commission, we charted the median salaries for 32 biopharma companies, ranging from the tiny Geron to the multinational Johnson & Johnson. The result: The drug business pays better than any other industry, according to MyLogIQ. (Garde, 4/16)

The Hill: New Affordable Drugs Advocacy Group Pledges Six Figures In First 2018 Endorsement
A new drug-pricing advocacy group on Tuesday announced its first endorsement of the 2018 campaign, backing Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) for standing up to pharmaceutical companies. The group, Patients for Affordable Drugs NOW, which was founded this year, says it will spend six figures on the race and is seeking to help counterbalance pharmaceutical companies’ spending in November's midterm elections. (Sullivan, 4/17)

Stat: Trade Secrets Battle Between Alnylam, Dicerna Is Just One Of Many
Douglas Fambrough III had good news about his fledgling biotech company when he met with a roomful of investment analysts in a swanky midtown Manhattan hotel on a November morning in 2014. During a half-hour presentation at the Lotte New York Palace, the chief executive of Dicerna Pharmaceuticals Inc. showed 19 slides that gave an overview of his Watertown, Mass., firm. The 11th one featured a diagram with circles and squiggly lines. It represented a new delivery system for gene-silencing drugs that Dicerna hoped to develop to treat rare disorders. (Saltzman, 4/17)

Stat: A Digital Medicine Firm Tries To Adopt Pharma's Patent Game. Will It Work?
In biopharma, patents are everything. In tech? Not so much. Which is why it was unusual to see a company that’s trying to turn software into medicine announce this week that it’s bagged several patents. Boston-based Akili Interactive Labs’s new patents, issued in the U.S. and Japan, are meant to deter competitors from copying the algorithms underlying the video games it’s developing to try to treat conditions like ADHD, depression, and multiple sclerosis. (Robbins, 4/13)

Stat: U.S. Catching Up To Europe On Biosimilars, FDA Official Insists
The Food and Drug Administration lags behind its European counterpart when it comes to approving biosimilars — but a top agency official insisted Tuesday that the agency is not as far behind as some critics suggest. Leah Christl, the associate director for therapeutic biologics at the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, pushed back on an oft-cited statistic that shows the European Medicines Agency has so far approved more than 40 biosimilars, drugs that are almost identical to biologics, compared to just nine approved in the U.S. by the FDA. (Mershon, 4/17)

The Wall Street Journal: Johnson & Johnson Raises Sales Outlook
Johnson & Johnson reported higher-than-expected sales in its latest quarter and boosted its sales outlook for the year despite ongoing pricing pressures for its prescription drugs and medical devices. J&J said it planned to cut costs in its supply chain by $600 million to $800 million a year by 2022. To carry out the changes, J&J expects it will take $1.9 billion to $2.3 billion in charges over the next several years. (Rockoff, 4/17)

Stat: FDA Takes How Long To Warn Companies About Plant Problems? 
For companies readying medicines for regulatory approval, the Food and Drug Administration can take up to half a year to issue follow-up warning letters over problematic manufacturing facilities. Last year, the median time it took the agency to issue a warning letter was 191 days, or slightly more than six months after closing an inspection and sending a so-called 483 form to a drug maker, according to a report released by the FDA. (Silverman, 4/17)

Bloomberg: Sanofi To Sell Generics For $2.4 Billion To Focus On Biotech
Sale adds to Brandicourt’s transactions to overhaul SanofiSanofi plans to sell its European generic-drug unit to buyout firm Advent International Corp. for 1.9 billion euros ($2.4 billion) as part of a broader move by Chief Executive Officer Olivier Brandicourt to focus resources on biotechnology and new medicines. Advent has made a binding and fully financed offer, and the companies are in exclusive negotiations, Paris-based Sanofi said in a statement Tuesday. The deal should close by the end of the year, it said. (Serafino and Baigorri, 4/17)

Stat: Canadian Online Pharmacy Fined $34 Million For Selling Counterfeit Meds
A Canadian online pharmacy company that figured prominently in a scandal several years ago over a counterfeit cancer medicine sold to U.S. doctors has been fined $34 million, a penalty that a nonprofit advocacy group with ties to the pharmaceutical industry called a “slap on the wrist.” Companies controlled by Canada Drugs had sold $78 million in mislabeled and unapproved medicines, including two counterfeit batches of the Avastin cancer treatment, that were made in several countries, according to federal prosecutors. The version of Avastin that was sold to U.S. doctors in 2011 did not contain any active ingredient. The brand-name medicine is marketed by Roche. (Silverman, 4/16)

Forbes: Bristol Partners With Illumina On Diagnostic Test To Use With Opdivo
Drug giant Bristol-Myers Squibb is partnering with Illumina, the leading maker of DNA sequencing gear, to develop diagnostic tests that will pair with Bristol's cancer drugs. One of the first tests will be for tumor mutation burden, a measure of how much a tumor's DNA has changed compared to the patient's healthy cells. Cancer drugs that target the immune system, like Bristol's Opdivo (2017 sales: $4.9 billion) and Yervoy (2017 sales: $1.2 billion), may work better in patients where the tumor mutation burden is higher, because this may make the cancer easier for the immune system to "see." (Herper, 4/13)

NBC Connecticut: Bill Aims To Make Drug Prices More Transparent
A new poll found that many Connecticut residents are concerned about rising drug prices, and state lawmakers are now trying to pass a bill to hold drug companies accountable. Berlin resident Greta Stifel was diagnosed with a rare cancer in 2015.“Having a chronic illness requires extensive work to find the right treatment and medical team,” she said. “The last thing I need is to figure out how to afford my medications.” (Rayner, 4/12)