- Icahn raises white flag in Cigna-Express Scripts tiff (biopharmadive.com)Express Scripts Reminds Stockholders to Vote "FOR" the Merger with Cigna (bizjournals.com)
Activist investor Carl Icahn has given up his fight to block Cigna's proposed $67 billion acquisition of Express Scripts. Icahn just last week warned shareholders that the deal was among the "worst acquisitions in corporate history" in an open letter...Cigna responded to Icahn's criticism with a lengthy defense. In its response, Cigna called Icahn's opposition "misguided and short-sighted" and said it "demonstrates a clear lack of understanding of the dynamics of the healthcare industry."...Icahn had raised three primary arguments against the acquisition in his open letter to Cigna shareholders: The insurer is paying too much, it would be diving directly into a risky sector embroiled in a political debate over drug pricing, and would soon have to face off with Amazon, which is gearing up to take the industry by storm...Instead, the activist investor proposed an alternative to the acquisition: That Cigna engage in a multi-year partnership with Express Scripts until those regulatory and competitive concerns are ironed out.
- August 17 Pharmacy Week in Review: Lung Cancer in Women, Nation’s Best Hospitals Ranked (pharmacytimes.com)
Laura Joszt, host for Pharmacy Week in Review.
- Tuesday’s execution in Nebraska the 1st in US to use fentanyl (reviewjournal.com)
Nebraska is preparing to carry out its first execution since 1997 on Tuesday in a bewildering about-face driven largely by the state’s Republican governor...Carey Moore, is scheduled to be executed at the Nebraska State Penitentiary...with a never-before-tried combination of drugs. Moore was condemned to die for the 1979 shooting deaths of...Maynard Helgeland and Reuel Van Ness Jr., and is one of the nation’s longest-serving death row inmates...The combination of drugs for Tuesday’s execution has never been used to put a person to death, according to the Lincoln Journal Star. Three of the drugs — diazepam, fentanyl and cisatracurium — have never been used as part of an execution protocol. The fourth drug, potassium chloride, has been challenged as having the potential to cause serious pain for the inmate.
- Citing appeals court ‘anarchy,’ Amgen asks SCOTUS to weigh its PCSK9 patent spat with Sanofi (fiercepharma.com)
Amgen made an aggressive legal bid to push Sanofi and Regeneron's rival PCSK9 drug off the market when the two were first duking it out in 2015. It didn't work—but Amgen hasn't given up. It's aiming to take the battle to the U.S. Supreme Court instead...After falling short with its arguments in federal appeals court, Amgen is asking the Supreme Court to strike up a review of the case. Amgen claimed Sanofi and Regeneron stepped on its PCSK9 patents and initially won an injunction against their drug Praluent...Amgen now argues that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit incorrectly interpreted and ruled on patent law. The company says the court has created its own standard that has resulted in “jurisprudential anarchy.” Amgen markets the PSCK9 cholesterol drug Repatha in a head-to-head battle with Praluent; both products have fallen short of expectations, mostly because payers limited access to the high-priced drugs.
- FDA Approves First-of-its-Kind RNA Therapy (biopharminternational.com)
The new drug, Onpattro (patisiran), by Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, is in a new class of drugs called small interfering ribonucleic acid (siRNA) treatment...a first-of-its-kind RNA-based therapy for treating peripheral nerve disease (polyneuropathy) caused by hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis (hATTR) in adult patients...Polyneuropathy caused by hATTR is a rare, debilitating, and often fatal genetic disease characterized by the buildup of abnormal amyloid protein in peripheral nerves, the heart, and other organs...“This approval is part of a broader wave of advances that allows us to treat disease by actually targeting the root cause, enabling us to arrest or reverse a condition, rather than only being able to slow its progression or treat its symptoms...“New technologies like RNA inhibitors that alter the genetic drivers of a disease, have the potential to transform medicine, so we can better confront and even cure debilitating illnesses.
- Pfizer joins DOJ probe into claims pharma bribes funded Iraqi terrorists (fiercepharma.com)Veterans' lawsuit claims Big Pharma bribes in Iraq helped finance terrorism (fiercepharma.com)Roche, Johnson & Johnson pulled into Justice Department probe of alleged terrorist bribes (fiercepharma.com)
Pfizer has joined three of its Big Pharma peers in a Department of Justice probe examining allegations that the companies paid bribes to a terrorist-run health ministry in Iraq...The Justice Department's inquiries stem from a lawsuit, filed last fall, in which veterans and their families accused Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Roche and Johnson & Johnson of paying bribes to win business from the Iraqi ministry of health at a time when the ministry was controlled by terrorists...The suit alleges the companies paid bribes to terrorists that "openly controlled the Iraqi ministry in charge of importing medical goods." The plaintiffs contend the drug companies "obtained lucrative contracts from that ministry by making corrupt payments to the terrorists who ran it."
- Washoe County School District prepares to renew health insurance contract with Renown; Saint Mary’s contests the process (thenevadaindependent.com)Washoe County school board delays renewing Renown contract after legal concerns raised about pursuing alternatives (thenevadaindependent.com)
The Washoe County School District is poised to renew a contract...with Renown Hospital and its insurance arm to provide health care to teachers and other district employees, but the hospital’s biggest competitor, Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center, is crying foul over the process, saying it can provide care more cost-effectively and wasn’t given a fair shot to prove it can do so...Saint Mary’s Health Network, which includes the hospital, other health-care facilities and networked providers, submitted a proposal to the school district earlier this summer for a comprehensive health plan that it says could have saved the district anywhere between $5.4 million and $15.9 million in 2019. But the school district rejected the proposal as “non-responsive” because the district had only requested information on hospital services, not a full health plan, adding in a letter that it only sent out the bid in the first place in response to “constant badgering and lobbying” by Saint Mary’s.
- This Week in Managed Care: August 17, 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
- Nevada Medicaid approves policy requiring prior approval after 5 therapy sessions (thenevadaindependent.com)
Nevada Medicaid approved a requirement that therapists receive prior approval before providing more than five therapy sessions to a patient...The new policy, which takes effect on Oct. 1, will require psychologists, therapists and other mental health providers to submit written documentation to the state’s third-party vendor demonstrating the medical necessity of treatment and receive prior approval to continue providing both talk therapy and neurotherapy services after five sessions with a patient. The final policy is a scaled back version of earlier proposals from Medicaid to require prior authorization before the first session or after three sessions, both which received significant pushback from the mental health community over the last few weeks...The policy will only apply to patients enrolled in Medicaid’s fee-for-service program, in which Nevada Medicaid reimburses individual providers for services rendered, and not those who are covered under Medicaid managed care, where the state pays an insurance company a flat fee to provide health services to a patient. About one in four of the 650,000 Nevadans on Medicaid are enrolled in the fee-for-service-program.
- Three chambers of commerce join together to offer new association health plan (thenevadaindependent.com)Clark County chambers offer ‘very decent’ health insurance plans (reviewjournal.com)
Three chambers of commerce in Southern Nevada are banding together to take advantage of a new Trump administration rule that makes it easier for small businesses to collectively purchase health insurance...The Henderson Chamber of Commerce, Latin Chamber of Commerce and Boulder City Chamber of Commerce have partnered under the banner of the Clark County Health Plan Association to offer so-called association health plans to their members...The Department of Labor released a rule in June that loosened the rules on association health plans, exempting them from providing the essential health benefits required under the Affordable Care Act, eliminating restrictions based on geography and allowing companies in different industries in the same region to provide coverage together.