- Federal judge dismisses hospital groups’ lawsuit against HHS over 340B drug feud (fiercehealthcare.com)
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by several hospital groups seeking to get the Department of Health and Human Services to clamp down on drugmakers restricting access to products...Federal Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued a ruling...that hospitals had to use a new dispute resolution process to settle the feud with the drugmakers, which the hospitals cannot sue individually under federal law for 340B violations...READ MORE
- 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 - Merck Ends Covid-19 Vaccine Program, Shifts Focus to Therapeutics (biospace.com)
Merck announced that it is going to stop developing its two COVID-19 vaccine candidates, dubbed V590 and V591, after poor responses in Phase I trials. They are shifting their attention to advancing two therapeutic drugs for COVID-19, MK-4482 and MK-7110...“We are grateful to our collaborators who worked with us on these vaccine candidates and to the volunteers in the trials,” said Dean Y. Li, president, Merck Research Laboratories. “We are resolute in our commitment to contribute to the global effort to relieve the burden of this pandemic on patients, health care systems and communities.”...READ MORE
- Becton Dickinson, ramping up syringe capacity, set to turn out 1B COVID-19 vaccine devices by year-end (fiercepharma.com)
With more than 1 billion BD injectors called for in the global fight against COVID-19, the company is looking at ways to support vaccination efforts up close and preparing for the future delivery of pandemic prophylactics...Becton Dickinson...last month surpassed 1 billion pandemic injection device orders globally...The company recently stumped up $1.2 billion to expand its pre-filled syringe capacity, sketching plans for a new plant in Europe, plus upgrades to six of the company’s existing sites in the U.S., Mexico, Europe and Japan. Those moves are expected to boost capacity by more than 50%...The company also teamed up with BARDA on a $70 million project to expand operations and dial up capacity for traditional needle and syringe devices at its Nebraska facilities. That upgrade, set to wrap in summer 2021, will provide the feds with priority access to “hundreds of millions” of injectors for COVID-19 vaccination efforts, plus supplies for future pandemics...READ MORE
- WHO authorizes AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine for emergency use (kold.com)
The World Health Organization has granted an emergency authorization to AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine, a move that should allow the U.N. agency’s partners to ship millions of doses to countries worldwide as part of a U.N.-backed program to tame the pandemic...the WHO said it was clearing the AstraZeneca vaccines made by the Serum Institute of India and South Korea’s AstraZeneca-SKBio...“Countries with no access to vaccines to date will finally be able to start vaccinating their health workers and populations at risk,” said Dr Mariângela Simão, the WHO’s Assistant-Director General for Access to Medicines and Health Products....READ MORE
- Vizient Report Highlights Drug Pricing Trends (drugtopics.com)
A new Vizient report highlights trends in drug pricing for pharmaceutical products used across multiple health system settings...Drug price increases remain prevalent in the oncology and rheumatology therapeutic areas, while use of other high-cost drugs appears to have surged in light of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. However, the report also points to an overall trend toward moderation of price increases and the projected effects of biosimilar and generic competition in the marketplace...According to the report, Vizient projects a 2.67% increase in the price of pharmaceuticals purchased by health systems, academic medical centers, pediatric hospitals, and non-acute practices during this time frame...READ MORE
- Vaccine experts are excited about mRNA’s success in COVID, but it’s not time to ‘walk away’ from traditional shots: panel (fiercepharma.com)
The COVID-19 pandemic has raised the profile of mRNA vaccines in a dramatic way in about a year. Looking forward, the technology holds more promise and could displace traditional shots in some diseases, experts said, but it's not time to give up on well-known vaccine platforms, either...researchers at Moderna...reached human testing for their mRNA vaccine in record time. And separately, in under a year of development, testing and manufacturing, Pfizer and its mRNA partner BioNTech were able to score an FDA emergency use authorization last December...In addition to being able to rapidly advance new vaccines in response to emerging threats, the “beauty” of the platform is that the production process is “universal,"...Still, it’s not time to go all-in on mRNA... While experts are clearly enthusiastic about the platform, that “doesn’t guarantee that mRNA will immediately work against all pathogens,"...READ MORE
- PwC joins Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre (outsourcing-pharma.com)
CPI, one of the founding partners in the Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre, has announced the signing of an agreement with PwC, making the company the latest partner in the collaborative effort. The Centre (established via a partnership among CPI, the University of Strathclyde, UK Research and Innovation, Scottish Enterprise and founding industry partners AstraZeneca and GSK) seeks to promote more innovative drug manufacturing processes and enable a more agile supply chain...PwC and the existing partners will work to maximize technological opportunities across the pharma supply chain. Efforts include...projects, intended to advance emergent and disruptive technologies. The program is partially funded by Innovate UK through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund and Scottish Enterprise via the Scottish Government...READ MORE
- While Pfizer and Moderna hold the lead, new data from J&J, Novavax show there’s ‘room for everyone’ in the market: analysts (fiercepharma.com)
With Novavax and Johnson & Johnson data now in hand, the world has efficacy numbers on at least five COVID-19 vaccine programs. That's plenty for analysts to parse—and they're busy doing not only that, but also sizing up the market as the field of top players grows...The upshot? Blockbuster sales to go around, but Pfizer and Moderna will continue to lead the pack, partly thanks to their ability to quickly deploy mRNA against new variants. And for Moderna, at least, that means almost $14 billion in projected sales just this year from one team of analysts...READ MORE
- Pfizer, AbbVie, BMS, Teva, Sanofi, Gilead and others ring in 2021 with nearly 600 price hikes (fiercepharma.com)
Pharma's routine January price hikes are here once again—and not even a global pandemic seems to be slowing the number of increases...Amid ongoing scrutiny from politicians and the public, though, the level of many of the price hikes seems muted compared with previous years...drug companies large and small had raised prices on nearly 600 medicines by an average of 4.2%, GoodRx reports...READ MORE