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Laura Joszt, PTNN. This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

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

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

The governor’s task force on the opioid crisis met for the second time...to receive a progress report on its efforts to rein in abuse and death resulting from prescription painkillers...Representatives of health care organizations and Nevada officials told members of the Governor’s Opioid State Action Accountability Task Force that progress was being made on four priorities identified by the panel at its first meeting...: prescriber education, treatment options, data collection and criminal justice interventions...Specifics included obtaining federal funding for three new treatment centers; development of informational presentations for schools and law enforcement; distribution of the opioid reversal drug naloxone to law enforcement; and creation of the Opioid Dashboard, a publicly available collection of state data related to the epidemic...At the task force’s third meeting in July, presenters promised to present updates on other task force goals, including identifying ways to compile real-time overdose data...

The head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said...it's time that health care catches up with other industries when it comes to providing consumers greater transparency about prices up front and easier access to their records and health data once they have received care..."We know that any other place in the economy you can know what things are going cost. Somehow in health care it's a big mystery," said CMS administrator Seema Verma...CMS issued a series of new proposals aimed at promoting greater interoperability of digital health-care records. They include forcing hospitals to post their prices online, and pushing them to transfer patients' discharge records to their doctors electronically, even if the doctors are not part of the same health system...Doctors who treat Medicare patients are already required to write prescriptions electronically. CMS now wants them to also make it easier for patients to access those records digitally...The administration's 2019 budget outline includes a proposal to give Medicare Part D plans for seniors more power to negotiate lower prices from manufacturers, and it initiates a pilot program that would allow state Medicaid programs to test drug formularies aimed getting more competitive prices...

Nicole Crisano, PTNN. This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

Nicole Crisano, PTNN. This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

...the European Medicines Agency announced that the text for the Seat Agreement between the agency and the Netherlands has been finalized. The agreement describes how EMA will be treated by the Dutch government when EMA relocates to Amsterdam. The agency also announced that the Dutch Council of Ministers had agreed to sign the agreement...The agreement will be signed after the legislative process on the relocation is completed by the European Council, the European Parliament, and the European Commission...According to EMA, the Seat Agreement allows EMA to function independently in the Netherlands. Similar agreements apply to other EU agencies located in the Netherlands...As this transition needs to be supported by EMA staff in the Netherlands, a timely signing of the agreement would make sure that EMA staff and their families have clarity on their treatment and can settle in the Netherlands...

The number of opioid pills prescribed peaked in 2011 and has since declined by 29 percent, according to a new report from the Iqvia Institute...The number of prescriptions accelerated its decline in 2017, with an even faster drop for high doses...More patients appear to be starting on medication-assisted therapies to treat opioid addiction...decline accelerated...helped by changes in regulation of opioid prescribing and in reimbursement policies from insurers...many of the programs that have been put into place in the past year or two seem to be having an impact...increased use of nonopioid pain treatments, like ibuprofen and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs...as well as public awareness about overuse and misuse of opioids...

Drugmakers may not be the only ones keeping less-expensive drugs off the market...The Food and Drug Administration has approved nine biosimilars, generic versions of biologic medicines, but only three are available...Manufacturers are using several schemes to "hamstring biosimilar competition," FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said... he worries pharmacy benefit managers have been "complacent participants" in the schemes...PBMs and insurers may stick with branded biologics because they receive discounts from manufacturers on these treatments. That can leave consumers paying for costly treatments when less-expensive ones are available while PBMs make more money on these discounts, known as rebates...Many of these practices persist because high list prices enable lucrative returns across the drug supply chain as the spread between list and net price is carved up and shared among participants...he (Gottlieb) applauded insurers who have recently pledged to pass manufacturer's drug rebates directly on to some of their members...This is a bold action that will help create a fairer, more transparent market...I hope that other insurers, employers, and manufacturers follow their lead. I also hope that your industry will continue to innovate to make it more transparent to pass along these rebates...