- AbbVie, Novo Nordisk lead pharma TV advertisers into big-spending January (fiercepharma.com)
Pharma marketers are continuing their TV ad push into 2021. January pharma TV spending picked up where December ended—matching branded ad spending among the top 10 almost dollar for dollar...The highest spenders racked up $216 million for the month after a robust $217 million December, according to data from real-time TV ad tracker iSpot.tv...Now, with the third month in a row of the top 10 clearing $200 million, are pharma companies setting a new standard for TV spending?...Maybe. Five autoimmune disease treatments and three diabetes meds at the top of the list may point to increases in categories' competition. That could, in turn, foster hand-in-hand media buying increases to get TV mindshare...READ MORE
1. Humira
2. Rybelsus
3. Dupixent
4. Skyrizi
5. Ozempic
6. Trulicity
7. Eliquis
8. Xeljanz
9. Enbrel
10. Opdivo and Yervoy - Trump to unveil international pricing index, rebate crackdown rules: reports (fiercepharma.com)Trump Announces New Drug Pricing Model Is Set for January 2021 (drugtopics.com)
Several years after saying the pharmaceutical industry was “getting away with murder,” President Donald Trump appears poised to unveil new drug pricing rules that could shake up U.S. pricing dynamics in a big way. But it remains to be seen exactly how the implementation will play out...Trump plans to unveil two major measures—an international pricing index and a rule to crack down on drug rebates...The international pricing index—also called the “most-favored-nations" clause—would tie U.S. prices in Medicare to lower prices abroad. The pharmaceutical industry has intensely resisted the proposal. Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks, for one, characterized it as “horrible” policy, and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, Ph.D., said the president’s summer executive orders on drug pricing were “an enormous distraction” amid the COVID-19 fight and threatened American jobs...READ MORE
- Eli Lilly to halt sales of 340B drugs to contract pharmacies with exception of insulin (fiercehealthcare.com)STATEMENT ON ELI LILLY CUTTING OFF ALL ACCESS TO 340B PRICING THROUGH COMMUNITY-BASED PHARMACIES (340bhealth.org)
Eli Lilly will no longer offer discounted products to 340B contract pharmacies, with the exception of insulin. The drug maker is the second to halt sales to contract pharmacies, following a move by AstraZeneca last month...Roughly one-third of the more than 12,000 340B hospitals use a contract pharmacy to dispense the discounted drugs, according to a 2018 report from the Government Accountability Office...The GAO report found that the Health Resources and Services Administration, which oversees the 340B program, does not fully assess compliance with the program’s prohibition on duplicate discounts for drugs prescribed to both Medicaid and 340B...Pharmaceutical manufacturers have also charged that the discount program has gotten too large and unwieldy...READ MORE
- Hospitals Continue Their Startling Expansion into Specialty Pharmacy (drugchannels.net)
Hospitals and health systems are building a major presence in the specialty pharmacy industry...nine out of ten large hospitals now operate a specialty pharmacy. Hospitals and other healthcare providers account for one-third of all U.S. accredited specialty pharmacies...Clinical and general financial motivations are driving hospitals’ DIY specialty pharmacy growth. The enormous profit opportunities from the 340B Drug Pricing Program offer further encouragement for hospitals. In-house specialty pharmacies are also a valuable hedge against the potential loss of contract pharmacies...READ MORE
- Fierce JPM Week: Will AZ’s coronavirus vaccine turn a profit this year? It’s ‘too speculative’ to predict, exec says (fiercepharma.com)
After AstraZeneca pledged not to profit off its COVID-19 shot during the pandemic, a report emerged that the drugmaker might be ready to declare the pandemic over as soon as July. But according to EVP and biopharma president Ruud Dobber, it’s still “too speculative” to predict when the vaccine may start earning money...The company is building a capacity of 3 billion doses for countries around the world, and it won’t be until after AZ delivers on its government supply deals that it might “feel open" to selling the vaccine commercially...READ MORE
- FiercePharmaPolitics—Trump unveils favored-nation drug pricing executive order, and pharma hits back (fiercepharma.com)Trump’s Drug Price Controls are a Lousy Deal for Patients (cei.org)
After touting a series of executive orders on drug pricing in late July, President Donald Trump has now unveiled the most significant among them—an order tying Medicare's drug prices to much lower costs in other developed countries. The biopharma industry pushed back hard, and it’s unclear exactly when or how the changes would be implemented...The executive order...says Medicare should not buy certain Part B or Part D drugs unless at prices paid by “at a minimum, the lowest price at which the manufacturer sells that drug to any other developed nation.” In Part D, the plan would apply “where insufficient competition exists” and where “seniors are faced with prices" higher than those in other developed nations...READ MORE
- Teva indicted on U.S. price-fixing charges after walking away from settlement offers (fiercepharma.com)
With the walls closing in around it on a yearslong generics price-fixing probe, Israeli drugmaker Teva faced two options: Reach a deal with prosecutors or gamble. Teva chose to roll the dice, and now it finds itself facing conspiracy charges—and a potentially bigger penalty on the horizon...Federal prosecutors have charged Teva with conspiring to fix prices for a range of generic medicines between 2013 and 2015 as part of an industrywide scheme to overcharge consumers by more than $350 million, the U.S. Department of Justice said...The DOJ indicted Teva on three counts of criminal conspiracy and acting as a ringleader for a group of drugmakers that have previously pleaded guilty to their own price-fixing charges and are now cooperating with prosecutors...READ MORE
- Roche’s Genentech cleared for massive headquarters expansion that will add up to 4.3M square feet (fiercepharma.com)
More than 40 years since setting up shop in a rented warehouse as the modern world’s first biotech company, Roche’s Genentech is now up for a major expansion at its South San Francisco home in California...the local city council approved Genentech’s expansion proposal, which aims to almost double its headquarters’ building space to 9 million square feet from the current 4.7 million square feet...That extra buildout, all within the boundary of its existing 207-acre campus, allows the Roche unit to add as many as 12,550 employees at the HQ on top of the 10,000 or so who are there right now, according to the master plan...READ MORE
- House committee to subpoena AbbVie over drug pricing (biopharmadive.com)
A congressional oversight committee plans to subpoena AbbVie for documents as part of an investigation into drug pricing... The House Oversight and Reform Committee has been seeking documents related to the pricing of AbbVie's top two drugs, which generated more than $23 billion combined last year...Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., said the company's responses have been "particularly poor"...AbbVie is the only one to receive a subpoena thus far, with Maloney saying its "noncompliance stands out as particularly egregious." The drugmaker said it was "surprised and disappointed" by the committee's action...READ MORE
- What is Gilead’s role in the war on Hydroxychloroquine? (americanthinker.com)
Is Gilead, the maker of Remdesivir, waging war on HCQ (hydroxychloroquine)? Attacks on the drug have been continuous ever since Dr. Didier Raoult used this quinine derivative to save the lives of COVID-19 patients last March. The first attempt to discredit HCQ was a hastily compiled Veterans Administration hospital system study last April. Notably, one of the study’s authors had in the past received numerous grants from Gilead...After deep flaws in the VA study were exposed, Surgisphere came to the rescue in May with a “15,000 patient” megastudy allegedly compiled from hospitals all over the world. This strategy succeeded: Following its publication in the Lancet and the NEJM, all outpatient use of HCQ was severely restricted...When the Surgisphere scam was exposed, both articles were quietly retracted and the editor-in-chief of the Lancet tried to wash his hands of this embarrassing incident by denouncing Surgisphere’s “monumental fraud.”...READ MORE