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Time for the Drug Channels annual reality check on drug pricing. The data once again tell a different story than you might read in your favorite politician’s Twitter feed or misleading news reports...For 2022, brand-name drugs’ net prices dropped for an unprecedented fifth consecutive year. What’s more, after adjusting for overall inflation, brand-name drug net prices plunged by almost 9%...The factors behind declining drug prices will remain in the coming years—and become even stronger due to forthcoming changes in Medicare and Medicaid. Employers, health plans, and PBMs will determine whether patients will share in this ongoing deflation...READ MORE

The Biden administration is facing mounting pressure from states to let them import medicine from Canada to help lower prescription drug costs...Colorado...became at least the fourth state to seek federal permission to use the strategy, following Florida, New Hampshire, and New Mexico...President Joe Biden has endorsed the approach, but his administration has yet to greenlight a state plan...“States have done the work, and the only thing preventing them from going ahead is the Biden administration,”...Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told KHN (Kaiser Health News)...that the Biden administration welcomed applications for drug importation programs from Colorado and other states. But he would not pledge that the FDA would rule on any application in 2023...READ MORE

On the heels of several high-profile acquisitions, Walgreens aims to be a point of entry for consumers for healthcare services ranging from urgent care to specialty care and even in-home health...Walgreen's VillageMD unit recently announced it was buying another urgent and primary care chain, Summit Health-CityMD, in a deal worth close to $9 billion. The VillageMD-Summit Health deal will expand Walgreen's reach into primary, specialty and urgent care. Combined, VillageMD and Summit Health will operate more than 680 provider locations in 26 markets...READ MORE

The biosimilar boom for provider-administered drugs continues to accelerate. Net prices in therapeutic classes with biosimilar competition have declined by 60% or more over the past few years. Some major biological reference products have now lost a majority of their unit sales to their biosimilars...this accelerating adoption also boosts profits for pharmaceutical wholesalers and specialty distributors—particularly when these channel participants can influence which biosimilar version a provider utilizes...READ MORE

After setting record-high U.S. prices in the first half of 2022, drugmakers continued to launch medicines at high prices in the second half, a Reuters analysis has found, highlighting their power despite new legislation to lower costs for older prescription products...The median annual price of the 17 novel drugs the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved since July 2022 is $193,900, down from $257,000 in the first half of 2022...For full year 2022, the median was $222,003...The latest numbers imply double digit year-over-year price growth...READ MORE

Our Northern Nevada pharmacies are being impacted by the countrywide Adderall shortage...According to Quest Counseling, a local mental health clinic, they haven’t had to inform anyone that they can’t fill their prescription, but the scarcity has affected how long it takes to have them filled. That means consumers must search for pharmacies that have it, which may be a time-consuming procedure...“We have our APRN coordinator who’s handling that for patients and it’s very time consuming,” said Amanda Brock with Quest Counseling. “Sometimes they’re calling 10 pharmacies per patient and, with 200 patients, do the math on that. It’s a lot of legwork.”...The shortfall may be more more difficult for people on Medicaid...READ MORE

Third quarter earning reports have brought news of layoffs from at least six biotechnology companies this week as a weak market continues to weigh on smaller drugmakers...Through Wednesday, Tricida, Freeline Therapeutics, Harpoon Therapeutics, Adamis Pharmaceuticals, Neoleukin Therapeutics and NexImmune have all announced workforce reductions. The cuts range from 30% of employees at NexImmune to 57% of staff at Tricida, putting scores of workers out of a job...READ MORE

With the era of free COVID-19 vaccines winding down in the U.S., lawmakers are pressing Pfizer for a fair Comirnaty price tag and singling out the pharma giant for its “unseemly profiteering.”...Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Vermont Sen.-elect Peter Welch blasted Pfizer’s purported Comirnaty pricing scheme—which could see the company charge between $110 and $130 per vaccine dose on the private market—as “pure and deadly greed.”...To date, more than 650 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in the U.S...Warren and Welch explained. But that “public health achievement” is “now at risk” thanks to Pfizer’s greed, they warned...READ MORE

Pharma rep access to HCPs across specialties rose to an average of 60% in the U.S., from a 20% low during the pandemic...The increasing number of clinicians willing to meet virtually has driven the rate of rep-friendly physicians to a record high of 60% in the U.S...That figure, a cross-specialty tally, is up from an average of about 20% during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report shows the extent to which in-person visits, long a staple of the typical drugmaker’s marketing playbook, have been complemented by virtual meetings in the engagement mix. With more than half of all accessible physicians using video in combination with in-person, video is supporting its offline cousin, not supplanting it...READ MORE

While many companies are still unsure of the law’s effects, some have begun to warn investors about the likelihood of lower sales and reduced profitability...Biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies are still parsing the U.S. drug pricing law enacted in August, but recently have begun to warn investors of looming impacts to their development plans and to future sales...In regulatory filings and earnings calls over the past few weeks, major drugmakers described significant uncertainty over how the law will be implemented and how it might directly affect their business. But some have been more specific, with Merck & Co. and Amgen noting they expect it to impact future sales. And a few, including Eli Lilly, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and Alkermes, have cited the law specifically in decisions to cut back or reshape their drug research...READ MORE