Biosimilar manufacturers face an uphill struggle to fully mobilize their product portfolio. Against a background of aggressive defense strategies by originator companies, often skeptical prescribers must be brought on board, the anxieties of patients reduced, and payer demands for lower prices […]
Express Scripts Jolts Markets with Drug List
Top-three pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts says it is excluding an extra 64 drugs from its list of preferred drugs, bringing the total to 159. Radius Health's shares surged 4.5 percent Monday after the announcement Lilly's Forteo was getting the axe. The biotech also recently got the OK for […]
MMM: Health Care Agencies Not Free of Gender Issues
The path to gender parity in the health care industry doesn't have a straightforward solution, Medical Marketing and Media (MMM) reports. MMM calls gender bias "one of the most pressing issues in corporate America today," and says the behavior is fueled by "cartoonishly bad behavior from several of […]
Get Your Abstract Ready for the 2018 ISMPP Meeting; Deadline Set
A deadline has been scheduled for abstract submissions for the 2018 European Meeting of International Society for Medical Publication Professionals. According to a press release, the deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. EDT on Oct. 2. "Your structured, scientific abstract should highlight results of […]
BMJ Paper: Pharma Trial Transparency ‘Highly Variable’
According to a paper published July 26 in The BMJ, pharmaceutical companies have mostly inconsistent policies regarding trial transparency. The authors assessed the policies of 42 pharmaceutical companies. Policies across the 42 companies were described as "highly variable." "Of 23 companies […]
FDA Slates First Meeting of Patient-Centered Committee
The Food and Drug Administration has scheduled the first meeting of the new Patient Engagement Advisory Committee (PEAC) for Oct. 11-12. The patient-centered board will help facilitate better communications between patients and physicians, manufactures, other patients and even the FDA. According […]
Health Affairs Seeks Abstracts for Special Publication
Health Affairs (HA) has set an August 14 deadline for abstract submissions for a special publication with a Precision Medicine theme. The special edition will be published May 2018, according to the HA website. "For our purposes, we define precision medicine as an approach to treating illness that […]
VIDEO: PCORI Executive Director talks CER
In a video posted Thursday by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, Joe Selby, the institute's executive director, discussed some challenges facing efficient comparative effectiveness research. "There are a lot of methodological questions about how one does comparative effectiveness […]
Correlating Surrogate Endpoints with RWE in Oncology
Via the American Journal of Managed Care: "A new study has analyzed data from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in oncology that used surrogate endpoints and measured their relation with treatment effectiveness and patient survival in the real world. A significant concern with using surrogate […]
ICON Acquires Mapi Group
ICON plc on Thursday announced its acquisition of the Mapi Group. Mapi Group describes itself on its website as "the leading patient-centered research company serving academia, life science researchers, and the pharmaceutical industry." ICON "specializes in the strategic development, management […]
’90s Health Care Effort May Offer Cautionary Lesson
A Republican effort in 1993 to scrap only parts of a health care reform bill, which ultimately led to chaos in the marketplace, echoes an ongoing battle between Republicans and Democrats on health reform today. Congress in 1993 pushed through a health care proposal which in some fashion carried […]
ICER Seeks Public Comment on Proposed Framework Changes
The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) has put out the call for public comments on proposed changes to its value framework which it uses to analyze some therapies for rare diseases. According to a press release, ICER outlines qualifications for a treatment to qualify for a […]
Report Shows Interest in RSAs on Rise in EU
Since 2000, there has been a notable rise in European interest in risk-sharing agreements, according to a report published this month. The report was written by Trevor Jozef Piatkiewicz, Janine Marie Traulsen and Tove Holm-Larsen. The authors pulled 238 articles to study from a batch of 2144 […]
How Can HTA Impact Budgeting, Innovation? ICER President Chimes in
Health technology assessment (HTA) is a solid tool for helping make decisions on health care costs and innovation in the current landscape, according to Institute for Clinical and Economic Review President Steve Pearson. " ... (HTA is) supposed to help foster the right kinds of decisions," […]
Goodman: Value Frameworks Always Evolving
Clifford Goodman, senior vice president and director at the Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research at the Lewin Group, said in an interview value frameworks are continually evolving and adapting in the health care marketplace. "Value frameworks also recognize that value is the in the eye of […]
PCORI CSO Whitlock Talks Comparative Effectiveness
"PCORI’s Chief Science Officer, Evelyn Whitlock, explains how comparative effectiveness research can improve health and health care in the United States." Click here to watch the video. […]
NPC Calls for Proposals on Health Care Forecasts
From the National Pharmaceutical Council: Earlier this year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced that health care spending in the United States is projected to reach almost 20 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) by 2025. This forecast is significant, as rising health […]
Patent-Free Drugs as an Escape from Big Pharma’s Pricing
One doctor's outrage at the sole treatment for Human African Trypanosomiasis during his time with Doctors Without Borders led to an effort to create patent-free drugs to escape the grip of big pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Bernard Pecoul and Doctors Without Borders in 2003 funneled money from its […]
Report Puts U.S. Health Care System at Bottom
According to a Commonwealth Fund report published July 14, the U.S. has one of the worst health care systems in the developed world. The report ranked the U.S. system last on "performance overall," and fell toward the bottom on areas like care access, efficiency among administrative branches, […]
Report: Many Believe Biosimilars, Biologics Require Uniform Tests
According to a Health Stories Project-Insights (HSPi) report, 81 percent of people believe uniform testing should be required for biosimilars and biologics. Researchers studied 300 accounts of patients with autoimmune conditions based off data in a 2016 survey and two discussion forums. A […]
Syndicated Report: Why Pharma Needs to Get Serious about Data
"In today’s highly scrutinized drugs marketplace, pockets continue to be squeezed and the list of demands from every quarter lengthens. Against this challenging backdrop, every decision made must be backed up by evidence. But exactly what evidence is required by whom, and how should it be […]
Republicans Grapple with ‘Old Truth’ on Health Law
An "American entitlement" is difficult to walk back once its established, Jennifer Steinhauer with the New York Times writes, and Republicans are wrestling with a law whose roots have spread far and thick. Since its creation, the Affordable Care Act has had a target on its back as Republicans […]
Q&A: Taking a Look at President Trump’s Drug Agenda
Federal Government Relations Practice Group Leader Michael Strazzella and Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney shareholder William Garvin sat down for a question-and-answer with Becker's Hospital Review Editor Laura Dyrda to discuss President Donald Trump's efforts to slash drug prices. Garvin during […]
ICER Releases Report on Ovarian Cancer Inhibitors
The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review is accepting public comments on its Draft Evidence Report for olaparib, niraparib and rucaparib, all of which are poly ADP-ribose polymerase inhibitors used in ovarian cancer treatment. According to a press release issued by ICER, the report will be […]
Same Condition, Different Costs: NPC to Address Contentious Question
The National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC) will bring to focus a contentious issue in the health care industry: Why do some patients with the same condition sometimes have different out-of-pocket costs than others for their medicines? In a free, online webinar titled "Same Condition, Different […]
PhRMA Initiative to Discuss Cost of Medicine
PhRMA is looking to kick up a national dialogue about the cost of modern medicine with its "Let's Talk About Cost" initiative. PhRMA Executive Vice President of Public Affairs Robert Zirkelbach says an ongoing question-and-answer conversation will persist throughout the year in "print, radio, […]
CTI Clinical Trial and Consulting Services Adds HEOR Directors
CTI Clinical Trial and Consulting Services (CTI) announced Monday the addition of two researchers to their Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR) department. According to a press release, Frank Ernst will join the team as the HEOR executive director; Michael Minshall has been named the […]
3 Keys to Value-Based Drug Pricing
KPMG Principal Peter Gilmore provided a rundown on three keys to make value-based drug pricing successful in an article on Forbes: "focus on the right patients ... keep it simple ... and keep costs reasonable." Gilmore says the value-based model is gaining traction due to the schism between […]
Chen: Plan to Reduce Drug Prices Would Have Opposite Effect
Writer Michelle Chen in her report on The Nation claims Congress' health-care reform efforts "will actually make America sicker." Chen also says a leaked "draft executive order" proposed by President Donald Trump to cut drug prices "promises to make medicines more expensive." "Perhaps the most […]
Analyst: Amgen, Teva Price Hikes Not Forced by PBMs, Rebates
Bernstein Analyst Ronny Gal says there are solid data points which provide a foundation for the argument some drug companies raise prices "because they can," not because they're working to keep up with pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) and rebates. According to a report by Gal, Amgen increased the […]
