Category:

Laura Joszt, PTNN, Pharmacy Week in Review, this weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

Genentech has called a truce with Taiwanese biosimilar firm JHL Biotech, which allegedly stole trade secrets to help it develop copycats to top-selling cancer drugs...The Roche unit said the settlement requires JHL “to abandon development of and destroy” all cell materials related to the cancer drug brands involved—namely Rituxan, Herceptin, Avastin and Pulmozyme—and stop using or sharing them in any way. To make sure JHL complies, Genentech has the right to unannounced checkups...JHL...posted, the Taiwanese firm “will reimburse Genentech for its legal fees and the cost of its investigation, but will not otherwise pay any damages.”...READ MORE

Canada’s main pharmaceutical industry lobby group, along with 16 of its member companies, filed a lawsuit...to block new regulations meant to lower patented drug prices, the second legal challenge to a new regime that could eventually reduce prices in the United States as well...Canada published the final regulations in August, despite heavy lobbying from drug companies, which stand to lose revenue as prices drop. The federal government estimates the new rules will save Canadian patients, employers and insurers, including governments, C$13.2 billion ($10 billion) over a decade...lawsuit was filed in federal court and led by Innovative Medicines Canada, which represents major drugmakers in Canada. It is separate from a lawsuit filed last month and focuses on federal patent law, arguing that Canada cannot use regulations to “fundamentally alter” the role of its federal drug price regulator...READ MORE

Laura Joszt, Managing Editor at The American Journal of Managed Care. Welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network

Purdue’s pending opioid settlement with thousands of cities and counties, worth between $10 billion and $12 billion, could rank as the largest deal ever inked by a pharma if it passes a Cleveland federal judge’s muster. But where do pharma’s other major settlements fall on that list?...READ MORE

Here’s the list of pharma’s top 10 largest U.S. settlements.

1. Purdue Pharma—$10 billion to 12 billion*
2. Merck & Co.—$4.85 billion
3. American Home Products Corp. (now Wyeth)—$3.75 billion
4. GlaxoSmithKline—$3 billion
5. Pfizer—$2.3 billion
6. Takeda—$2.3 billion
7. Johnson & Johnson—$2.2 billion
8. Abbott Laboratories—$1.6 billion
9. Eli Lilly—$1.42 billion
10. Reckitt Benckiser—$1.4 billion

A group of 23 Kentucky hospitals is suing major drugmakers, distributors and retailers for their role in the opioid epidemic just days after a group of Texas hospitals unveiled a similar suit...The civil lawsuit filed...in Warren County, Kentucky, alleges more than 40 major companies such as CVS Health, Johnson & Johnson and Purdue Pharma along with individuals made actions that directly led to hospitals bearing the financial burden of caring for opioid victims. Kentucky is one of several states hit especially hard by the epidemic...The lawsuit said hospitals have had to add or modify services such as hiring additional security and providing more “specialized training for staff to accommodate the rapid rise in opioid-related illnesses,”...READ MORE

The Trump administration issued a new rule that aims to prevent payments to Medicare and Medicaid fraudsters by boosting revocation powers and extending the time before troublesome organizations can rejoin the programs...The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said that the final rule...marks a major turnaround from the agency’s normal approach of attempting to recoup fraudulent payments after the fact...“For too many years, we have played an expensive and inefficient game of ‘whack-a-mole’ with criminals⁠—going after them one at a time⁠—as they steal from our programs,”...READ MORE

Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of the blockbuster painkiller OxyContin, reached a tentative settlement...with 23 states and more than 2,000 cities and counties that sued the company over its role in the opioid crisis…Under terms of a plan negotiated for months, the Sacklers would relinquish control of Stamford, Conn.-based Purdue Pharma and admit no wrongdoing. The company would declare bankruptcy and be resurrected as a trust whose main purpose would be producing medications to combat the opioid epidemic...If the deal becomes final, it would be the first comprehensive settlement in the broad effort to hold drug companies accountable for their role in the opioid epidemic...READ MORE

President Donald Trump is weighing nominating a top executive at the MD Anderson Cancer Center as the next Food and Drug Administration Commissioner, according to multiple reports indicating the Texas oncologist, Stephen Hahn, has become a frontrunner for the post...Hahn...would be a change of course from acting FDA Commissioner Ned Sharpless...who replaced Scott Gottlieb…Under federal rules, Sharpless can't serve on an acting basis in a Senate-confirmed position longer than 210 days after the role becomes vacant — a clock that runs out Nov. 1...Sharpless is still under consideration for the permanent role but...Hahn...has emerged as a favorite...READ MORE

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and lawyers representing local governments both said...that they’re interested in continuing negotiations to settle lawsuits...a day after two state attorneys general told colleagues that their talks with the company were at an impasse and that they expected the company to file imminently for bankruptcy...The statements add another layer of uncertainty to attempts to strike a deal with a company that’s portrayed as a prime villain in the national opioid crisis...READ MORE