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India’s largest drugmakers are making a case that the U.S. should import cheap Indian-made drugs to hold down healthcare costs, and partner with its pharma leaders to develop inexpensive biosimilars. But Indian pharma companies have a less-than-stellar track record with the FDA on manufacturing quality, and that is casting a cloud over the country’s efforts to partner with President Donald Trump as he pushes to lower drug prices...The Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance made its viewpoints on drug importation clear in a report released recently...The organization...suggested the U.S. would save more by importing inexpensive drugs than it would by boosting domestic manufacturing in an effort to create jobs.

Eric Pusey has to bite his tongue when customers at his pharmacy cough up co-payments far higher than the cost of their low-cost generic drugs, thinking their insurance is getting them a good deal...Pusey’s contracts with drug-benefit managers at his Medicap Pharmacy in Olyphant, Pennsylvania, bar him from volunteering the fact that for many cheap, generic medicines, co-pays sometimes are more expensive than if patients simply pay out of pocket and bypass insurance. The extra money -- what the industry calls a clawback -- ends up with the benefit companies…Clawbacks, which can be as little as $2 a prescription or as much as $30, may boost profits by hundreds of millions for benefit managers and have prompted at least 16 lawsuits since October. The legal cases as well dozens of receipts obtained by Bloomberg and interviews with more than a dozen pharmacists and industry consultants show the growing importance of the clawbacks.

The Nevada Senate Health and Human Services Committee heard a bill Wednesday that aims to restrict which medical professionals can administer Botox...The bill, sponsored by State Sen. Joe Hardy...would bar dental hygienists, medical assistants and aestheticians from administering botulinum toxin...one of the biggest reasons for restricting who can administer the powerful toxin is the lack of training some have in spotting infections...The bill was fiercely opposed by dental hygienists...it was unfair to categorize dental hygienists with the other professions included in the bill, claiming they have extensive training in anatomy around the head and neck...No states allow dental hygienists to administer Botox...

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

The pharmaceutical industry’s growing interest in orphan disease shows no sign of diminishing, and for good reason. The increased R&D investment in these indications in recent years has translated into a growing share of overall pharmaceutical sales...The drivers of this change include the favourable regulatory treatment of orphans, as well as market exclusivity and pricing advantages that make such drugs much more profitable than non-orphans. It is notable that the top 25 non-oncology orphan drugs in 2022 are expected to show a compounded growth of 18% over the next six years, almost three times the wider market average...Orphans...remain one of the brightest spots of pharmaceutical development, and the legislation framing them is widely claimed to have been a great success in public policy terms. However, there is a risk that before long orphans could face the same sort of pricing pressure as is common in non-orphan indications...

Middlemen who manage drug benefits for employers and insurers should be under greater government oversight of their pricing and billing practices to make health care cheaper, an independent pharmacists’ group said (National Community Pharmacists Association)...plans to lower prescription drug costs will only succeed if greater transparency is imposed on pharmacy benefit managers...Benefit managers engage in price negotiations that are often kept secret for competitive reasons, with manufacturers on one end and pharmacies on the other. Pharmacists have criticized these discussions, as well as so-called clawbacks -- extra profit for the PBM after co-pays for cheap, generic medicines exceed the price of the drug itself...PBMs...continue to operate in a virtual black box...As the outcry over drug pricing intensifies, the middlemen have gained more attention...

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval said Saturday he would take his concerns about the overhaul of the Affordable Care Act to Capitol Hill where lawmakers are mulling over various proposals to replace Obamacare...The nation’s governors, in town for their annual meeting, are expected to spend Monday talking with Republican leaders and members of Congress about repeal and replacement of the health care act...Many states, including Nevada, broadened Medicaid programs to take advantage of federal funds to help insure more elderly and poor. Officials in those states are concerned about how the federal government will continue its funding commitment for the expanded programs...Sandoval said congressional overhaul of the ACA is a top concern for governors and that the “conversation is ongoing.”...

The World Health Organization warned on Monday that a dozen antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” pose an enormous threat to human health, and urged hospital infection-control experts and pharmaceutical researchers to focus on fighting the most dangerous pathogens first...Many consider the new strains just as dangerous as emerging viruses like Zika or Ebola...the...European Center for Disease Prevention and Control estimated that superbugs kill 25,000 Europeans each year; the C.D.C. has estimated that they kill at least 23,000 Americans a year...New antibiotic candidates are in short supply...because 70 years of research have made it harder to find new ones, and because they are not very profitable for pharmaceutical companies...In the United States, although constant vigilance is crucial, the problem has actually declined in the last decade...

Pfizer Inc. said that it received two subpoenas from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Massachusetts related to charities that help Medicare patients afford co-payments for drugs, the latest company to disclose involvement in the probe...The...subpoenas...requesting documents related to the Patient Access Network Foundation and other organizations that provide financial assistance to Medicare patients. Pfizer donated more than $10 million to the PAN Foundation in 2016...including for funds related to kidney cancer and...acromegaly...A long list of drugmakers have now received subpoenas about their relationships with patient assistance charities, some related to how they help people in the Medicare drug program for the elderly afford the co-payments for drugs...As drug prices have surged, pharmaceutical companies’ large contributions to charities have given them a public-relations foil against backlash and helped keep patients from seeking lower-priced medicines. The seven biggest co-pay charities, which cover scores of diseases, reported combined contributions of $1.1 billion in 2014...

China has updated its list of medicines covered by national medical insurance, adding some new drugs with a focus on pediatrics and major illnesses such as cancer, hepatitis, and renal and cardiovascular diseases…The overhaul, the first since late 2009, saw the number of "Western-style" and traditional Chinese medicines included in the list grow by 15% to 2,535, among which 1,297 are Western-style meds, an 11% increase...The additions include some blockbuster meds like tenofovir, an antiviral drug to treat hepatitis B and HIV...and cancer drug gefitinib...China’s own non-small cell lung cancer med icotinib…The ministry (Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security) also put 45 drugs on a “to-be-negotiated” list, half of which are targeted cancer therapies...inclusions of new drugs would reduce the financial burden on patients and help support innovations in China's pharmaceutical market...The National Reimbursement Drug List names all the drugs covered by the insurance program, some in full and others partially. Patients must pay the full price out of pocket for those drugs outside the list, which means a huge financial burden, especially when new but more effective drugs are not covered..