Pharmacy

The announcement of the $10.6 billion acquisition comes a few months after the company announced it was buying Signify Health, a home health provider, for $8 billion.

In 2022, 12 states have enacted 19 pieces of legislation that offer a variety of restrictions and requirements for pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs).

Sixteen states have banned a pharmacy benefit management practice that involves not counting the value of drug copay assistance from manufacturers toward patient deductibles.

Spending on specialty drugs fueled a 11% increase in Medicaid drug spending from 2020 to 2021, says Magellan's seventh annual Medicaid Pharmacy Trend Report.

Biosimilars will have limited effect on the oncology drug expenditures, according to IQVIA. Spending on obesity drugs may increase tenfold, depending on guidelines and payer coverage.

Spending using net prices (prices after discounts and rebates are factored in) will grow between -1% and 2% between 2023 through 2027, say IQVIA analysts in the company's Global Use of Medicines report. Patent expiration and competition from generics and biosimilars and the healthcare-related provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act will push down spending, predict IQ.

Manufacturers and payers will now be allowed to exchange information before a drug is approved by FDA.

Baker discusses specialty drugs and their discounting in this segment of his interview with Peter Wehrwein, managing editor of Managed Healthcare Executive.®

Baker spoke with Peter Wehrwein, managing editor of Managed Healthcare Executive®, about the smaller, upstart pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and their role in the industry. Some are using newer technology as their calling card, he says.

Pradaxa (dabigatran) and Coumadin (warfarin) came out even in this randomized study. The Brazilian researchers who conducted the study said one explanation for the result is that use of Coumadin was exceptionally well managed because the patients were enrolled a study.

Kareem Karara, Pharm.D., BCPS, CCHP, spoke about unbranded biologics, which are identical the branded products. They are coming on the market amid a growing number of biosimilars.

Agenda includes sessions on overall trends in the pharmacy benefit management industry, digital therapeutics and biosimilars.

The respondents were almost evenly split on whether it was a mistake for the FDA to approve Aduhelm, but a large majority agreed that CMS made the right decision to restrict Medicare coverage to those enrolled in clinical trials.

Opinion was split evenly on preexposure prophylaxis as a strategy for preventing HIV infections.

Two-thirds of the respondents to our 2022 annual Pharmacy Survey believe that biosimilars will have a significant effect on drugs prices over the next several years.

Our survey shows some optimism about the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, but concern about Paxlovid rebound. Former President Donald Trump’s job performance on COVID-19 was rated low while the World Health Organization and Pfizer were rated high.

An OptumRx drug pipeline report highlights Zynteglo, a curative gene therapy treatment for beta-thalassemia, and Skysona, a gene therapy for a cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy. FDA approval decision are imminent for both. Price tags of $2 million are expected.

Harvard researchers calculated that buying 77 generic drugs at prices being charged by Mark Cuban’s online pharmacy prices would have lowered Medicare spending on those drugs from $9.6 billion to $6 billion.

A week after announcing a study of the PBM industry, the Federal Trade Commission announced yesterday that it was stepping up possible enforcement actions targeting the industry's rebate practices. Rebates to exclude lower costs from formularies may constitute commercial bribery under the Robinson-Patman Act, the commission said.

Dogged by controversy, the new Alzheimer’s drug has not fared well since its approval by the FDA a year ago.

The Federal Trade Commission says its inquiry “will shed light on” clawbacks, potentially unfair audits, rebates and other business practices of the pharmacy benefits management (PBM) industry. Today’s announcement says the commission will be requiring information from the six largest PBMs.

The launch is one of several digital therapeutics partnerships Pfizer has announced in recent months.

Two studies published this week documented the billions that Medicare and Medicaid spend on drugs that have been granted accelerated approval by the FDA based on surrogate end points. A study reported today in JAMA Health Forum found that only 6 of the 22 confirmatory trials used clinical outcomes.

In their general session, Adam J. Fein, PhD of Drug Channels Institute, and Doug Long of IQVIA reviewed the current specialty pharmacy space, ongoing trends and future expectations.

As industries across the board move towards a digital-only world, pharma companies must account for the different technologies that are transforming the R&D process.

Collaboration among stakeholders is needed to increase transparency of pharmacy payment programs and to better align the design of these models with good patient care.

Clinical appropriateness, not the cost of a drug, is the first consideration in formulary decisions, said Katie Thompson and Katie Deckelbaum of Express Scripts.

In this final part of the MHE 2021 Pharmacy Survey, participants share their thoughts on which federal policies they favor as a way to curb drug prices and which policy is more likely to occur this year. MHE's annual pharmacy survey had over 225 respondents.