- Hard to swallow: emerging markets get tougher for drugmakers (finance.yahoo.com)
Emerging markets have lost their luster for Big Pharma making drug firms ever more dependent on the United States for growth just as American anger over high medicine prices is building...A few years ago, the developing world was seen as a savior as patent after patent expired across the United States and Europe, but emerging market sales growth at the top drug firms slowed to less than two percent in the latest quarter...Forecasts...now suggest the United States will account for 55 percent of sales growth between 2016 and 2020, with emerging markets only contributing 30 percent...Many companies' sales in developing economies come from so-called branded generics, or off-patent medicines that command a premium to those made by local suppliers because the Western drugmaker's name is a proxy for quality...That business is now under threat as governments promote cheaper unbranded products as a route to universal healthcare...There is a lot of emphasis on providing essential medicines, which is providing growth for cheap local generics but not necessarily for multinational companies…
- Allscripts subsidiary 2bPrecise looks to inject genomics into EHR workflow for precision medicine (healthcareitnews.com)
...2bPrecise (subsidiary of Allscripts) is conducting an early adopter program at the National Institutes of Health...The goal is to take clinical and genomic information and make it actionable, structured, machine-readable and machine-learning for physicians. And then take those results and inject the relevant information back into workflows...We focus on the last mile of genomics and cross-collating clinical info with genomics and bring it to the point-of-care...With NIH, we’re putting this to the test and demonstrating the value of genomics in clinical and research activity…People are recognizing genomics is needed, powerful and useful...What’s missing are regulations and reimbursement around this type of data. As healthcare continues to move into this space, I think we’ll see another spike in interest, with a huge level of interest and motivation to try to use genomics more…
- California governor decries ‘predatory’ pricing as he signs law to make EpiPen available (statnews.com)
For all intents and purposes, California Governor Jerry Brown held his nose...as he signed a bill that allows state agencies and businesses to keep EpiPen devices on hand for emergencies...While Brown readily acknowledged that EpiPen is a lifesaver for people with allergic reactions, he simultaneously issued two letters — one to the California State Assembly and the other to US Senate and House leaders — to complain about “predatory pricing” by the manufacturer, Mylan Pharmaceuticals...“I cannot take this action without registering my strong objection to the bill sponsor’s recently reported pricing maneuvers,” he wrote in one of the letters in which he referred to a successful lobbying campaign by Mylan to urge states to make EpiPen widely available...
- This Week in Managed Care: September 17, 2016 (ajmc.com)
Justin Gallagher, associate publisher of The American Journal of Managed Care. Welcome to This Week in Managed Care, From the Managed Markets News Network.
- Pharmacy Week in Review: September 23, 2016 (pharmacytimes.com)
Kelly Walsh, PTNN. This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.
- GSK cuts vaccine price for refugees, bowing to pressure (reuters.com)
GlaxoSmithKline is cutting the price charged for its pneumococcal vaccine when given to refugees, following complaints about the product's "exorbitant" cost by medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres...The British drugmaker said...it would provide Synflorix, which protects children against pneumonia and other diseases, at a discounted price of $3.05 per dose to recognized civil society organizations...In Greece, MSF said it had been forced to pay 50 pounds ($65) a dose in local pharmacies in order to vaccinate thousands of refugee children fleeing from conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan...GSK said its offer was made on the basis that others would not seek to reference the special price, which is intended solely to support refugee populations...Previously, the low price of $3.05 price has only been available to the world’s poorest countries.
- Behind the Sarepta drug approval was intense FDA bickering (statnews.com)
The run-up to Monday’s approval of a Sarepta Therapeutics drug to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy was marked by unusual bickering inside the Food and Drug Administration, where debate over a key scientific question morphed into a formal dispute, and the head of the drug review division was accused of being too intensely involved in the process for evaluating the medicine...the decision to greenlight the drug fell to the FDA Commissioner, Dr. Robert Califf...he deferred to Dr. Janet Woodcock, the controversial head of the drug review division, who pushed hard to approve the Sarepta medication but clashed with other FDA officials along the way...This has been a highly charged issue and has transformed the Sarepta drug into a litmus test for agency approval of new medicines, notably for diseases with unmet medical needs. Seen through that prism...approving the drug would be detrimental to the FDA approval process on a long-term basis.
- Lawmakers grill Mylan CEO over EpiPen steep price increases (msn.com)
U.S. lawmakers...blasted Mylan NV Chief Executive Heather Bresch for sharply increasing prices for the EpiPen emergency allergy treatment at a congressional hearing in which Republicans and Democrats questioned the reasons behind rising U.S. drug costs...The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform called Bresch to testify in the wake of public outrage over EpiPen, whose list price has risen to $600 for a pair of the devices compared with $100 in 2007...Lawmakers in turn described the actions as "sickening," "disgusting" and showing "blatant disrespect" for American families who can no longer afford the life-saving device for children susceptible to severe allergic reactions...At several points, they cut off Bresch's efforts to explain the intricacies of U.S. pharmaceutical pricing, including how health insurers and other payers take a percentage of treatment sales...
- Why Healthcare is a ‘Sitting Duck’ in Data Protection Measures (healthitsecurity.com)
Healthcare organizations and manufacturers are very vulnerable when it comes to their data protection measures, according to the Intel Security 2016 Data Protection Benchmark Study...While the gap between data loss and breach discovery is increasing, healthcare organizations are “sitting ducks,”...the typical data loss prevention approach is increasingly ineffective against new theft targets...Not only is data getting outside of company control, it has probably been used or sold before the theft is noticed...Discovering and preventing breaches internally requires a better understanding of who is behind these thefts, what they are most likely to steal, how they are getting the data out, and the most effective steps to take to improve data loss prevention systems and processes...Healthcare is likely a top target because it holds desireable information - PHI and intellectual property. At the same time, healthcare typically has weaker systems that can be easier for hackers to access...
- Drugmakers fighting state opioid limits as addiction crisis grows (reviewjournal.com)
The makers of prescription painkillers have adopted a 50-state strategy that includes hundreds of lobbyists and millions in campaign contributions to help kill or weaken measures aimed at stemming the tide of prescription opioids, the drugs at the heart of a crisis that has cost 165,000 Americans their lives and pushed countless more to crippling addiction...The drugmakers vow they’re combating the addiction epidemic, but The Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity found that they often employ a statehouse playbook of delay and defend that includes funding advocacy groups that use the veneer of independence to fight limits on the drugs...The pharmaceutical companies and allied groups have a number of legislative interests in addition to opioids that account for a portion of their political activity, but their steady presence in state capitals means they’re poised to jump in quickly on any debate that affects them.
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