Taxing Drug Price Spikes: Assessing The Potential Impact
On March 29, 2017, senior Democrats introduced comprehensive legislation (titled the Improving Access to Affordable Prescription Drugs Act) in the House and Senate aimed at lowering prescription drug costs and improving transparency.
The 129-page bill contains several popular provisions that could help drive its passage or could reappear in a future bipartisan attempt to repair or replace the Affordable Care Act.
One such provision is section 202, which establishes an excise tax on drugs with price increases exceeding the inflation rate. The amount of the tax penalty would depend on the size of the price increase. It is mo...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - May 12, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Thomas Hwang and Aaron Kesselheim Tags: Costs and Spending Drugs and Medical Innovation Insurance and Coverage Medicaid and CHIP Medicare Payment Policy Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry drug price spikes excise tax on drugs Improving Access to Affordable Pres Source Type: blogs
PhRMA Gets Religion & Purges Low Hanging Fruit
PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry's primary lobbying group, announced changes to its membership structure that purged 22 companies of their membership or associate membership status.Now, to be a member of PhRMA, you have to spend at least $200 million per year spent on research and research expenditures must equal to at least 10% of global sales (click on"Read more>>" below for details).Back in January, John LaMattina (@John_LaMattina) former president of Pfizer Global R&D, writing in Forbes, suggested that big pharma companies secede from PhRMA."I cannot help but wonder if the interests of...
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - May 10, 2017 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: Drug prices Pfizer PhRMA Source Type: blogs
Update from London Global Forum on Life Science Innovation
The two-day Global Forum on Life Science Innovation came to London last week, bringing together participants from industry, academia, and advocacy charities. The program’s speakers included a number of Directors of Research who set out the pressing global issues facing the life sciences sector and showcased some exciting new innovations for combating these challenges.
One theme of the meeting was the exponential growth of AMR (antimicrobial resistance), the cost of which is predicted to reach a staggering $100 trillion worldwide by 2050. Kai Stoeber, VP of Global Innovation at Shionogi of Japan, discussed the use of bi...
Source: Medgadget - May 2, 2017 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Tom Peach Tags: Exclusive Source Type: blogs
Through the Revolving Door, Darkly
While the rare appointments to top health care positions by the Trump administration deservedly get considerable media coverage, lower level appointments sneaking through therevolving door do not. So we hereby present our latest roundup of same, in chronological order by first coverage.Lance Leggitt from Health Care Lobbyist at Baker Donelson to Chief of Staff for the Secretary of Health and Human ServicesThis appointment first appearedin StatPlus on March 2, 2017 but was behind a paywall. It was more recently covered in the New York Times in along article about revolving door appointments not specific to healt...
Source: Health Care Renewal - May 2, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: conflicts of interest DHHS health care corruption regulatory capture revolving doors US Department of Justice Source Type: blogs
Interview: International Trachoma Initiative and Pfizer On Par To Eliminate and Eradicate Trachoma-caused Blindness
Thanks to advances in science and technology, the world is now on the cusp of eliminating several debilitating diseases that affect the world’s most disadvantaged populations. Many experts who have dedicated their careers to ending trachoma recently attended an international summit in Geneva (April 19-22, 2017) to discuss the progress to date. There a total of 10 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) of the 18 identified by the World Health Organization being targeted by these international organizations and partnerships.
Trachoma is a leading infectious cause of blindness currently threatening about 185 million people ...
Source: Medgadget - May 2, 2017 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Alice Ferng Tags: Exclusive Public Health Source Type: blogs
Interview: International Trachoma Initiative and Pfizer On Par To Eliminate and Eradicate Trachoma-caused Blindness
Thanks to advances in science and technology, the world is now on the cusp of eliminating several debilitating diseases that affect the world’s most disadvantaged populations. Many experts who have dedicated their careers to ending trachoma recently attended an international summit in Geneva (April 19-22, 2017) to discuss the progress to date. There a total of 10 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) of the 18 identified by the World Health Organization being targeted by these international organizations and partnerships.
Trachoma is a leading infectious cause of blindness currently threatening about 185 million people ...
Source: Medgadget - May 2, 2017 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Alice Ferng Tags: Exclusive Public Health Source Type: blogs
Interview: International Trachoma Initiative and Pfizer On Par To Eliminate Trachoma-caused Blindness
Thanks to advances in science and technology, the world is now on the cusp of eliminating several debilitating diseases that affect the world’s most disadvantaged populations. Many experts who have dedicated their careers to ending trachoma recently attended an international summit in Geneva (April 19-22, 2017) to discuss the progress to date. There a total of 10 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) of the 18 identified by the World Health Organization being targeted by these international organizations and partnerships.
Trachoma is a leading infectious cause of blindness currently threatening about 185 million people ...
Source: Medgadget - May 2, 2017 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Alice Ferng Tags: Exclusive Public Health Source Type: blogs
ExL Events to Host the 8th Aggregate Spend and Sunshine Act Conference
Unlock the Value of Transparent and Efficient Data Reporting to Improve the Operation of Your Organization
ExL Events will host the 8th Aggregate Spend and Sunshine Act Conference this June 15-16 at the Sonesta Philadelphia Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, PA.
Progressive leaders from pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies will convene for two days to discuss the value of transparency reporting and exchange tools used to translate aggregate spend data into business improvements that enhance daily efficiency. View the complete agenda and faculty list here.
This annual conference attracts delegates...
Source: Policy and Medicine - April 28, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
Value-Based Pricing For Pharmaceuticals In The Trump Administration
Everyone seems to agree: Drug prices are too damn high. Scandalous prices for new drugs and enormous price hikes on old drugs have focused public ire on the pharmaceutical industry. A bipartisan consensus has emerged that something must be done to tackle drug prices.
There’s less consensus, however, about what that something ought to be. Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices is one popular possibility; outright price controls are also under discussion. But with Republicans in control of both Congress and the White House, neither appears to be on the policy agenda. But one market-friendly alternative, “value-based ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - April 27, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Rachel Sachs, Nicholas Bagley and Darius Lakdawalla Tags: Costs and Spending Drugs and Medical Innovation Medicaid and CHIP Medicare Payment Policy Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services drug pricing outcome-based pricing valued-based pricing Source Type: blogs
Horse Urine … Really?
An excerpt from my new book Undoctored.
This one little tale about hormonal health of human females, pregnant horses, and drug patents paints a microcosm of the bigger healthcare picture. It is an example of how when money becomes the primary goal, health may not be served.
For years, physicians prescribed estrogen hormone replacement for women experiencing menopause, believing that drugs like Premarin, manufactured by harvesting estrogens from the urine of pregnant horses, prevented osteoporosis, improved cholesterol values, and reduced cardiovascular risk, since preliminary epidemiological studies, not real clinical stud...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - April 27, 2017 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: Hormone Replacement Drugs Undoctored Source Type: blogs
Making Sense of DTC Ad Spending
About this time every year, I get data from Kantar Media and Nielsen regarding how much money the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spends on direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising.The data I ’m most interested in are the total spend for the year and what portion of that is digital versus TV. But it can be difficult to ferret out that information from the two different sources, which often report different numbers.Let ’s look at the total spend first.According to Nielsen numbers reported in the March 3 2017 issue of MM&M online, spending on direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical ads rose 9% to $5.6 billion in 2016 (readDirect-...
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - April 5, 2017 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: Ad Spend DTC Advertising Source Type: blogs
Strategies To Address The Challenges Of Outcomes-Based Pricing Agreements For Pharmaceuticals
With major reforms of U.S. health policy likely in the coming years, the future of the health care system is uncertain. It is highly likely, however, that the increasing focus on a value-based, rather than volume-based, system will continue. Given major public concern about the costs of pharmaceuticals, there is a particular need to tie reimbursement to value in the drug space. Stakeholders frequently discuss outcomes-based pricing agreements (OBAs) as a promising alternative to traditional drug pricing strategies. These arrangements are a type of performance-based risk-sharing, in which prospective clinical outcomes data ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - April 3, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Daniel Blumenthal, Mark Linthicum and Sachin Kamal-Bahl Tags: Costs and Spending Drugs and Medical Innovation Featured drug pricing FDA outcomes data Outcomes-based agreements Source Type: blogs
‘ I ’m Willing To Try Anything ’ : Compassionate Use Access To Experimental Drugs And The Misguided Mission Of Right-To-Try Laws
Some patients facing death take drastic, or even desperate measures in order to prolong their lives. Such actions often include taking unapproved, investigational drugs. In the U.S., a program known as Compassionate Use, or Expanded Access, allows terminally ill patients who meet certain medical criteria to apply (through their physicians) to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the drug manufacturers for access to drugs that are undergoing FDA clinical trials. At first blush, it may appear that there should be no legal, political, or ethical controversies surrounding the concept of expanded access. How can one possi...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - March 27, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Amy Scharf and Elizabeth Dzeng Tags: Drugs and Medical Technology End of Life & Serious Illness Compassionate Use expanded access FDA pharmaceutical companies right-to-try laws Source Type: blogs
“What will it take for Pharma to Go Big?”
In conclusion of this recap on the ePharma summit 2017, I would like to share some of the industry trends that were acknowledged during the three days of the conference:ePharma TRENDS: What are we going to be talking about in 2020?Digital not as a platform but as a service: VR and AR in clinical trials to get an electronic consent or to be able to get it faster (by Craig Lipset, Head of Clinical Innovation, R&D at Pfizer)Augmented reality becomes cost effective (by Mohammed S. Ali, R&D Operations Innovation, Director, Janssen US)Wearables and decentralized trials - (by Daniel Grant, Director, Early Develo...
Source: ePharma Summit - March 21, 2017 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: Digital Health ePharma Pharma Innovation pharma marketing Source Type: blogs
