- This Week in Managed Care: July 6, 2018 (ajmc.com)
Laura Joszt, Managing Editor at The American Journal of Managed Care. Welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network
- Top Democrat demands PhRMA, BIO do more on gender issues after party with topless dancers (statnews.com)
A top Democratic senator is asking PhRMA and BIO, the major pharma and biotech industry trade groups, to detail what they are doing to address sexual harassment at their members’ companies, particularly after an industry event earlier this month featured topless dancers...In two letters...Sen. Patty Murray (Washington State)...cited “problematic public reports of gender discrimination and objectification.”...In both letters, Murray took particular aim at the Party at BIO Not Associated with BIO, an industry event that is not directly affiliated with BIO but that took place near its convention in Boston this month. The event featured topless dancers on mini stages, some of whom had company logos painted on their bodies...Murray called it an event with a “highly concerning history of objectifying women and using culturally inappropriate themes.”...“The bottom line is that objectifying women and exploiting cultural traditions for the purposes of entertaining fellow industry members is a deeply troubling indication of the way the industry leaders still devalue diversity and inclusion,” she wrote.
- Big Pharma abandons lawsuit over Nevada’s insulin pricing transparency law after state approves trade secret protection regulations (thenevadaindependent.com)Nevada Addresses SB 539’s Most Significant Flaws (phrma.org)
Two national drug lobbying organizations dropped a lawsuit Thursday challenging the constitutionality of Nevada’s first-in-the-nation insulin pricing transparency law a little less than a month after the state approved regulations allowing drug companies to protect certain information they turn over to the state from public disclosure...Attorneys representing two associations and the state agreed in a joint court filing that the newly adopted regulations resolve drug companies’ concerns that the new law would require manufacturers of diabetes drugs to disclose trade secret-protected information in conflict with federal law and in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The decision to abandon a legal fight comes nine months after the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America and the Biotechnology Innovation Organization challenged the law in U.S. District Court.
- Amid Opposition, Rite Aid Issues Shareholder Plea To Vote For Albertsons Deal (forbes.com)
Rite Aid executives issued an unusually lengthy plea for shareholders to vote in favor of its merger with Albertsons amid opposition by some investors who’ve been trying to derail the deal...Before shareholders is a $24 billion merger with grocery store giant Albertsons announced in February that would result in Rite Aid shareholders owning about 30% of the combined new company. The combination of Rite Aid, which operates RediClinic, and Albertsons would create a company with 319 health clinics and 4,345 pharmacies after the merger closes...Some investors were upset that senior executives will be paid retention bonuses even if the deal falls through. Others were upset that Rite Aid isn’t getting a higher price, especially as pharmacy benefit managers are suddenly an acquisition target and shareholders see value in Rite Aid’s PBM, EnvisionRxOptions, which has been growing rapidly...
- British Doctors Lack Transparency Where Big Pharma Pays (bloomberg.com)
Half of British doctors who received payments from the pharmaceutical industry last year remained anonymous -- prompting a call for greater transparency from drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc...About 128 million pounds ($169 million) flowed to medical professionals or organizations in consulting fees, travel expenses, donations and other items, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry said...Disclosing which doctors got them is tricky due to data-privacy laws...Gaps in reporting have drawn increased scrutiny across Europe. Countries such as France and Portugal have moved to shed more light on pharma companies’ financial ties to doctors, which have been shown to sway prescribing habits. Health-care advocates are pushing for a system like that in the U.S., where legislation requires companies to fully divulge the relationships with medical practitioners...Pharma groups say there’s no need for more regulation. Doctors provide crucial insights on new medicines, often while collaborating with companies on clinical research, and they should be paid for their time, according to the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations...“There are numerous inefficiencies in the way that America does health care, but there’s one thing which I think America historically and consistently is pretty good at -- that’s transparency,”...“Clear rules are the only things that change behavior.”
- Amazon Buys PillPack: Six Pharmacy and Drug Channel Implications (drugchannels.net)Why Amazon’s Push Into Prescription Drugs Isn’t a Guaranteed Success (nytimes.com)Amazon could start selling discounted meds to cash payers as soon as the PillPack deal closes (cnbc.com)
Amazon has entered the pharmacy business with its acquisition of PillPack, a small mail pharmacy. Consider this move to be the end of the beginning for the pharmacy industry's evolution...The stock prices of pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers predictably plunged...This is a small first step that will let Amazon begin growing a pharmacy dispensing business...We are still a long, long way from a fundamental restructuring of the complex U.S. drug channel. The incumbents still have opportunities to defend their position, capture value from internet technologies, and streamline distribution...
OBSERVATIONS- Amazon has made a small, partly defensive move into pharmacy dispensing.
- Amazon now has a turnkey platform for disrupting the cash-pay prescription business.
- Amazon can reinvent consumer perceptions of non-store pharmacy dispensing.
- PBMs face the prospect of disruption to their long-favored network strategies.
- Amazon still lacks a specialty pharmacy solution—and may not want one.
- The deal is good news for vertical integration.
- Amazon shakes up drugstore business with deal to buy online pharmacy PillPack (cnbc.com)
Amazon is acquiring online pharmacy PillPack in a deal that is already shaking up the drugstore industry...The move is the strongest indication yet of Amazon's intent to push further into the health-care industry. It threatens to remove one of the few distinguishing factors pharmacy chains have relied on to fend off Amazon, the sale of prescription drugs. Retailers like Walgreens Boots Alliance, CVS Health and Rite Aid have seen their so-called front of store sales threatened as shoppers increasingly buy household staples online or from convenience stores...PillPack, which organizes and delivers packages of medications for consumers, is licensed to ship prescriptions in 49 states...Terms of the deal with Amazon were not disclosed, though people familiar with the matter told CNBC that Amazon paid roughly $1 billion. The companies expect it to close during the second half of the year...
- Nevada announces plans to use controversial sedative midazolam in execution next week (thenevadaindependent.com)
Nevada plans to execute death row inmate Scott Dozier next week using the powerful painkiller fentanyl as well the sedative midazolam — a drug that critics have blamed for executions in other states in which prisoners were seen struggling for breath before they died...The Nevada Department of Corrections offered up formal notice...that it would be putting Dozier to death next Wednesday at 8 p.m. at Ely State Prison. They also released the new lethal injection drug protocol, which comes as the state’s supply of a drug formerly in the combination — diazepam — expired...Attorneys for Dozier didn’t immediately return requests for comment on Tuesday about whether they would take any steps to challenge the protocol, or whether Dozier approves of the method...
- NHS has started planning for Brexit no deal (reuters.com)BMA votes to oppose Brexit “as a whole” and calls for public final say on deal (bmj.com)
Britain’s public health service has started “significant planning” to ensure medicines are still supplied to patients if the government fails to negotiate a Brexit deal with the European Union, its head said on Sunday...Simon Stevens, chief executive of the National Health Service, said Britain’s health department was working with pharmaceutical companies to make sure there will be no breakdown in supply if there is no deal with the EU...The EU warned Britain again last week that time was running out for Prime Minister Theresa May to negotiate a deal and stop the country from crashing out of the bloc...
- U.S. Health Regulators OK Marijuana-Based Drug for Seizures (ktvn.com)
The Food and Drug Administration approved the medication, called Epidiolex (cannabidiol), to treat two rare forms of epilepsy (Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome and Dravet Syndrome) that begin in childhood. But it's not quite medical marijuana...British drugmaker GW Pharmaceuticals studied the drug in more than 500 children and adults with hard-to-treat seizures, overcoming numerous legal hurdles that have long stymied research into cannabis...FDA officials said the drug reduced seizures when combined with older epilepsy drugs...The FDA has previously approved synthetic versions of another cannabis ingredient for medical use, including severe weight loss in patients with HIV...Epidiolex is essentially a pharmaceutical-grade version CBD oil, which some parents already use to treat children with epilepsy. CBD is one of more than 100 chemicals found in marijuana...it doesn't contain THC, the ingredient that gives marijuana its mind-altering effect...Physicians say it's important to have a consistent, government-regulated version...