- Pfizer Vs. Obama: The Treasury Tries To Stop Pharma’s Tax Dodge (forbes.com)Allergan down over 20% after Treasury inversion rule (cnbc.com)Don’t Try to Leave (blogs.sciencemag.org)Would Pfizer And AstraZeneca Both Revisit That $100 Billion Deal? (forbes.com)
Most experts in corporate taxes thought there was little President Barack Obama could do to force Pfizer, the largest drug company in the U.S., from moving its corporate address to Dublin, Ireland, in order to escape paying American taxes...Yesterday evening, Jack Lew, Obama’s secretary of the treasury, called Pfizer’s bluff, instituting new rules to make the move as difficult as possible. The punch hit, and investors are reeling...Now the move could intensify an election-year battle over what it means for companies to be American, and the fairness of the U.S. corporate tax code...Lew is peeling the Allergan onion. Until last year, the company called Allergan...was based–and paid taxes–in Irvine, Calif. Then it was bought by Actavis , a Dublin, Ireland-based drug maker...But wait! Actavis itself was built by a rapid succession of deals, starting when Watson Pharmaceuticals...bought Actavis...partly in order to move its tax domicile to Dublin, Ireland. Now, for the purposes of laws related to the Pfizer deal, the Treasury says many of those other deals don’t count...the Treasury’s new rules reek of overreach. Really? We’re going to redefine what counts as a share of a company as a regulatory action, so that we can make the law mean what we want it to?...Pfizer is going to have to be just as clever as the Treasury is here, and then some...expect a fight: Pfizer versus the Obama administration.
- Inventor Of Banned Drug Taken By Sharapova Insists It Protects Heart But Doesn’t Boost Performance (forbes.com)
Maria Sharapova has never met Ivars Kalvins, and it’s likely that she’s never even heard of the Latvian scientist, but the he has an offer for her…As pretty much the whole world knows by now, Sharapova announced last month that she had failed a drug test because she was found to have taken meldonium, which WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency, banned...What isn’t as well known is that Kalvins invented meldonium, a heart drug…This is like insurance...explaining that the drug ensures that the heart gets enough oxygen, even when pushed to the limits of its capacity, as in elite-level sports...Athletes have to work very, very close to this border of the physical capacity of the human body...If they cross this border, there is no way back. Their hearts are damaged, their muscles are damaged, etc...He predicted that the WADA ban could lead to sudden deaths of athletes whose hearts aren’t able to get enough oxygen, resulting in permanent tissue damage...some scientists say that meldonium increases athletes’ endurance besides improving their recovery after exercise and protecting their hearts from stress…His (Kalvins) and WADA’s conflict over whether meldonium boosts athletic performance seems to rest on their different interpretations of "improves physical capacity." Kalvins says the drug doesn’t enable athletes to push themselves further, but it helps their hearts recover when they do so. WADA, on the other hand...determined that meldonium was being used by athletes with the intent of enhancing performance...
- Pharmacy Technology Integration Challenge (pharmacypodcast.com)
We interview Jerry Fahrni Pharmacy Infomatics consultant about his blog post from January 27, 2016 titled: "Integration no longer optional for pharmacy technology" (podcast 28:03 min)
- Drug Maker Reconsidering $20 Million North Carolina Factory (nytimes.com)
North Carolina's governor met...with gay-rights advocates bearing a letter signed by more than 100 corporate executives urging him to repeal the nation's first state law limiting the bathroom options for transgender people...Some companies are already reconsidering doing business in the country's ninth-largest state...Braeburn Pharmaceuticals said it is "reevaluating our options based on the recent, unjust legislation" whether to build a $20 million manufacturing and research facility in Durham County. The 50 new jobs paying an average of nearly $76,000 a year were announced two weeks ago....A silent majority of North Carolina businesses may well approve of North Carolina's new law...A company "is not going to say so publicly, since that could lead to angry demonstrators picketing or surrounding its headquarters or places of business...Corporations opposing the law may be expressing core corporate values, but they also need to be perceived favorably by customers, especially affluent gay ones, and to motivate highly educated, high-value employees who value diversity...
- Florida joins nine states in restricting DXM access to adults (drugstorenews.com)
Florida recently became the 10th state to restrict the sale of cough medicines containing dextromethorphan to adults over the age of 18, a move lauded by industry...a law addressing the issue of cough medicine abuse among teens...limiting teen access to DXM is an effective way to prevent abuse. We are assured that this legislation will empower parents to prevent abuse among their children, while continuing to ensure access for the millions of families who responsibly use products containing DXM to treat common cough symptoms...
- Exclusive: Makers took big price increases on widely used U.S. drugs (reuters.com)
Major drug companies took hefty price increases in the U.S., in some cases more than doubling listed charges, for widely used medications over the past five years...Prices for four of the nation's top 10 drugs increased more than 100 percent since 2011...Six others went up more than 50 percent. Together, the price increases on drugs for arthritis, high cholesterol, asthma and other common problems added billions in costs for consumers, employers and government health programs...Routine price increases by bigger players may draw less attention, but they add up. Sales for the top 10 drugs went up 44 percent to $54 million in 2014, from 2011, even though prescriptions for the medications dropped 22 percent...At the top of the list was AbbVie Inc...which raised the price of...Humira (adalimumab) more than 126 percent...Amgen Inc and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, which raised prices for arthritis treatment Enbrel (etanercept) and multiple sclerosis drug Copaxone (glatiramer) by 118 percent.
- Brand matters: Interbrand’s best in pharma ranks Pfizer, Roche and Merck at top (fiercepharmamarketing.com)
Global brand consultant Interbrand, author of the annual Best Global Brands list, has turned its attention to pharma. InterbrandHealth looked specifically at the pharma category and sifted through 25 companies to get the "Best Pharma Brands," a baseline top 10 in the industry.
- Pfizer - ranked highest at almost $20 billion ($19.99 billion) in brand value
- Roche Group - at $15.47 billion
- Merck & Co. - at $13.88 billion
- Janssen at $13.87 billion
- Novartis at $13.5 billion
- Amgen at $13.46 billion
- Gilead Sciences at $13.36 billion
- Novo Nordisk at $10.21 billion
- AstraZeneca at $8.12 billion
- GlaxoSmithKline at $6.78 billion
Interbrand looked at three factors in determining the dollar figure for the brands: financial analysis, brand strength and role of brand. The third factor measures brand influence and how likely customers are to recommend it--in this case, how likely are doctors and healthcare providers to recommend or prescribe the brand's drugs.
- Insulin prices have skyrocketed, putting drug makers on the defensive (statnews.com)Expenditures and Prices of Antihyperglycemic Medications in the United States: 2002-2013 (jama.jamanetwork.com)
Here’s a sticking point for diabetics: the cost of insulin more than tripled — from $231 to $736 a year per patient — between 2002 and 2013...The increase reflected rising prices for a milliliter of insulin, which climbed 197 percent from $4.34 per to $12.92 during the same period. Meanwhile, the amount of money spent by each patient on other diabetes medications fell 16 percent, to $502 from $600...The analysis also found that the cost of various...oral diabetes drugs either dropped in price or did not rise nearly as significantly as insulin. Metformin...fell to 31 cents in 2013 from $1.24 per tablet in 2002. And the newer class of diabetes drugs known as DPP-4 inhibitors rose 34 percent since becoming available in 2006...some doctors say diabetic patients, who are typically 60 years old or more, have difficulty paying for drugs, especially those who have trouble once they hit the donut hole in the Medicare Part D program and have to cover costs themselves...The cost of therapy is huge...I have patients who tell me that they have to stretch out the use of their medicines...High costs can lead to reduced compliance...
- Samsung brings in the lawyers for biosimilars push (reuters.com)Samsung Bioepis files lawsuit against AbbVie on Humira patents (koreaherald.com)
Samsung Bioepis Co Ltd, which aims to become a force in the fledgling biosimilar drugs industry, has filed a lawsuit against the originator of the world's best-selling drug, to stop it blocking the launch of its own version...Samsung Group...along with...Biogen, filed suit...against AbbVie Inc, maker of rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira (adalimumab), which generated sales of $14 billion last year...patent for Humira loses its exclusivity in the United States in December 2016...AbbVie...has been filing new patents in a bid to push back sales of biosimilars...more than a dozen firms have challenged AbbVie’s strategy through patent authorities or the courts...We believe that AbbVie has been attempting to obstruct market entry of competing products by applying for a large number of overlapping patents around Humira, which could affect patient access to affordable medication...
- In Rare Turn, Competing Health Groups Agree on Drugs, Risk (morningconsult.com)
The strange dance between the pharmaceutical industry, insurers and the Obama administration has taken a new turn. When it comes to one of the wonkiest healthcare policies out there, all three seem close to agreement. They want prescription drugs to be included in determinations about whether a certain pools of patients are riskier than others...The determinations are important because insurers who take on riskier sets of patients are eligible to receive compensation under Obamacare. Right now, those determinations are made using just medical claims. Drug companies and insurers generally agree that prescription drugs should be included in the risk adjustment models. They currently are not... Improving risk adjustment by including data on whether beneficiaries are using certain classes of medicines could better compensate plans for taking on higher risk patients and so allow these plans to focus on helping patients manage their chronic conditions in a way that avoids costly complications...The goal is to create stability on exchanges regardless of the distribution of sick people. If it works, insurers, in theory, would be more willing to participate in the market and increase competition, which in turn could incentivize them to offer benefits that help less healthy people.