Biosimilar or Generic Competition
The Source Roundup: March 2018 Edition
Source Fellow March 1, 2018
By: Katie Beyer, Student Fellow Happy March! In this edition of the Source Roundup, we cover four academic articles and reports from January and February. The topics this month include: (1) recent state solutions to reduce prescription drug costs, (2) legal challenges to Maryland and Nevada’s prescription drug laws, (3) how the CVS-Aetna deal could reduce healthcare costs, and 4) economic and demographic trends behind increasing healthcare spending. Recent State Solutions Aimed at Reducing Prescription Drug Costs Medicaid spending on outpatient drugs increased 25%, from $22.4 billion in 2013 to …
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A Drug Rebate’s Tale: How a Class Action Lawsuit in the 90s Shaped Drug Pricing
Katie Gudiksen, Senior Health Policy Researcher February 24, 2018
Do you ever wonder why it is so hard to know what a prescription drug actually costs? How did we get a system where prices are obscured, even from insurers, and contracts prevent pharmacists from telling patients when they are paying more than they should be? How did the pharmaceutical industry wind up in a world of rebates and complicated contracts with pharmacy benefit managers that result in a lack of transparency for everyone? Setting the Stage: The Lawsuits that Laid the Groundwork To understand how we got …
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Source Shorts: White House Releases Report on Drug Pricing
Katie Gudiksen, Senior Health Policy Researcher February 13, 2018
On Friday, February 9, 2018, the White House released a report from the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) entitled “Reforming Biopharmaceutical Pricing at Home and Abroad”. The report identifies two seemingly conflicting goals of the current administration: 1) reducing domestic drug prices and 2) spurring economic investment in medical innovation. These goals appear to conflict since lower prices would likely mean lower profits for drug companies, resulting in lower investment in research and development. The report also accuses foreign governments of eroding global returns for investment in pharmaceuticals, stating: “nations …
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The Source Roundup: February 2018 Edition
Sammy Chang, Health Policy Researcher February 2, 2018
Happy February! In this edition of the Source Roundup, we cover five academic articles from December and January. The topics this month include: (1) oncologists’ bias against biosimilars, (2) effects of recent mergers and acquisitions on the health system, (3) initial results from Maryland’s global budget mandate, and (4, 5) recent changes to the 340B program. How Oncologists May Be Biased Against Biosimilars In Behavioral Economics and the Future of Biosimilars, a commentary in the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, authors Chad Nabhan and Bruce Feinberg …
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Do Drugs That Treat the Same Indication Compete with Each Other?
Katie Gudiksen, Senior Health Policy Researcher January 23, 2018
High drug prices and the rate at which they are increasing worry most Americans. A quarter of Americans report difficulties affording their medications. Recognizing the need to control spending on prescription drugs, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) held a workshop on November 8, 2017 entitled “Understanding Competition in Prescription Drug Markets: Entry and Supply Chain Dynamics.” At the workshop, Acting FTC Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen asserted that “competition is key to containing prescription drug costs”[1] and Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Dr. Scott Gottlieb said that …
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Crossing the Political Divide: Senate HELP Committee Hearings on Drug Prices
Katie Gudiksen, Senior Health Policy Researcher December 22, 2017
On December 12, 2017, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) held a bipartisan hearing on the cost of prescription drugs. This hearing was the third in a series of Senate HELP committee meetings on drug prices and was held in response to the release of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine’s report entitled “Making Medicines Affordable: A National Imperative”. At the hearing, Senator Murray (D-WA), ranking member of the Senate Health Committee, noted that the price of prescription drugs was one of the …
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Orphan Drug Act: Fostering Innovation or Abuse?
Source Fellow December 12, 2017
By: Grace Lee, Research Fellow Introduction Luke Whitbeck, 2, was born with Gaucher disease, a rare genetic disorder.[1] Before using the pharmaceutical drug Cerezyme,[2] “Luke frequently ran high fevers, tired easily, and was skinny all over, except his belly stuck out like a bowling ball.”[3] Fortunately, the drug effectively helped Luke manage his symptoms. His mom reports that “Luke now spends days playing with his big brother.”[4] Despite the bill of good health, the Whitbecks and their insurer struggle to pay for the high cost of the drug, which amounts …
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Academic Articles & Reports Roundup: October 2017
Sammy Chang, Health Policy Researcher November 1, 2017
Happy November! In this Roundup, we cover five articles from October. The topics this month include: (1) pharma-tribal cooperation and the patent system, (2) Medicare subpopulations with the highest preventable spending, (3) privacy protections in All-Payer Claims Database legislation, (4) medical spending on autism spectrum disorder, and (5) a game theory model to understand hospital competition. Pharma-Tribal Cooperation Undermines the Patent System The Association for Accessible Medicine paper Patent-Assignment Transactions Between Brand-Name Drug Companies and Native American Tribes Will Undermine A Healthy Patent System and Harm Patients arises from Allergen’s …
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Drug Money Part 4 – The Return of the CREATES Act: Fourth Time’s a Charm?
Katie Gudiksen, Senior Health Policy Researcher October 25, 2017
The Creating and Restoring Equal Access to Equivalent Samples Act (or CREATES Act) is the latest attempt by Congress to intervene to prevent anticompetitive behavior in the pharmaceutical industry. The intention of the CREATES Act is “to promote competition in the market for drugs and biological products by facilitating the timely entry of lower-cost generic and biosimilar versions of those drugs and biological products.”[1] A bipartisan group of Senators introduced the most recent version of the CREATES Act into the current session of Congress on April 27, 2017, and Sen. …
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Can Policies at the FDA Help Curb Rising Drug Prices?
Katie Gudiksen, Senior Health Policy Researcher October 20, 2017
In a recent blog post, Scott Gottlieb, the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), signaled that the FDA would take a more proactive approach to approving drugs to attempt to increase competition in the pharmaceutical market. In the post, Gottlieb acknowledged that the “FDA doesn’t control drug pricing, [but] our policies do affect competition in the market. This is the nexus of our current efforts on drug pricing.” Details of the Announcement In his blog post, Gottlieb describes two draft guidances to aid in the approval of generic …
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