About health insurance
Congress unveils $1.3T spending deal: 5 healthcare takeaways: The Senate passed the House version of the budget, which the President is expected to sign. To summarize its previously-reported healthcare provisions:
1. Provides federal funding for gun violence research for the first time in more than two decades.
2. Repeals the ACA's Cadillac tax, health insurer tax and medical device tax at a cost of nearly $400 million.
3. Delays Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital payment cuts for about five months.
4. Raises the national age for tobacco sales to 21.
5. Omits legislation to address surprise medical bills and cutting pharma costs.
Democrats Debate Whether ‘Medicare For All’ Is ‘Realistic’: Nothing new on healthcare from last night’s Democratic debate. This article is a nice summary of who said what (by now, predictable).
What Happens When a Health Plan Has No Limits? An Acupuncturist Earns $677 a Session: The gist of this article is in the headline. Well worth a read!
About pharma
Duke launches privately funded innovation company for drug discovery: “Duke University's Office of Licensing & Ventures partnered with healthcare investment firm Deerfield Management Company to launch Four Points Innovation, a private company aiming to accelerate drug discovery and development.” These types of deals represent an evolution of university-originated tech commercialization. Instead of doing only basic science research and transferring the tech to commercial companies, this step involves the actual product development.
New USMCA Deal Drops Exclusivity for Biologics: As part of the deal, the US dropped provisions requiring at least 10 years of exclusivity for biologics.
All hail drug reps: Most cancer docs rely on pharma salespeople for info, survey finds: Where do physicians get their information about new drugs? “Seventy-one percent of U.S. oncologists surveyed by Cardinal Health Specialty Solutions agreed sales reps play an important role in their new-product education.” But the reps ability to see these physicians is not as open as it once was: “48% allow full access to sales reps, while 45% allow access with limits.”
FDA Launches App to Identify New Uses for FDA-Approved Drugs: “The FDA launched CURE ID, an app-based web repository that would allow healthcare professionals to report their off-label uses of FDA-approved drugs.”
Low-cost breast cancer drug 'could save lives in low-income countries': “A cheap version of the groundbreaking breast cancer drug Herceptin has been approved by the World Health Organization, raising the possibility of lifesaving treatment for the first time for women in low-income countries…The WHO listed it as an essential medicine for all countries to buy, but it has been unaffordable in much of the world, with a price tag of about $20,000 (£15,000) per patient…With the drug now out of patent, the WHO has approved a biosimilar version – a cheap copy – of the monoclonal antibody made by a company in the Netherlands…The price will be 65% lower than Herceptin itself, which at about $9,000 is still a burden for lower income countries.”
CMS updates drug dashboards to increase pricing transparency: “The dashboards focus on average spending per dosage for prescription drugs paid for by Medicare Parts B and D as well as Medicaid. They also track the change in average spending per dosage over time, display the name of each drug's manufacturer and show information on drug uses and clinical indications…
The data showed that in 2018, total gross spending on prescription drugs was $168.1 billion in Medicare Part D, $33.3 billion in Medicare Part B, and $66.4 billion in Medicaid.
The proportion of prescription drugs with a unit price increase went down from 2017 to 2018 in both the Medicare Part B program and in Medicaid. In the Medicare Part D program, the proportion of prescription drugs with a unit price increase remained steady from 2017 to 2018.”
To check the data go to this CMS website.
How Patients Feel About Cancer Drug Development: This survey of more than a thousand people found, among other opinions, that:
88% would share their healthcare data if it helped develop therapies faster for treating cancer.
82% believe patients should be compensated for sharing health data, suggesting potential for profit-sharing in drug development.
69% would want a share of the profit if their or a family member’s data was used to help develop a new cancer drug.
Read the study for more insights.
Cigna’s Express Scripts And Big Blue Cross PBM In Major Deal To Tame Drug Costs: “Cigna’s Express Scripts pharmacy benefit management unit and a PBM owned by 18 Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans [Prime Therapeutics] have joined forces to tame drug costs for a massive client list that covers 100 million people…The collaboration will allow Prime’s member Blue Cross health plans to gain leverage through Express Scripts’ buying clout and large pharmacy network.”
About the public’s health
Plasma metabolite biomarkers of boiled and filtered coffee intake and their association with type 2 diabetes risk: Good news for some coffee drinkers. 2 cups of filtered coffee per day reduces risk for Type 2 diabetes. The reduction does not occur for less consumption of filtered coffee or for boiled coffee (like percolated).
Biocompatible near-infrared quantum dots delivered to the skin by microneedle patches record vaccination: The researchers developed a vaccine delivery system with dissolvable microneedles that imbed patterns of near-infrared light-emitting microparticles to the skin. The microparticles encode the vaccination information, including administration date, and can be read with a modified smartphone.
About healthcare IT
Identifying Potential Patient Safety Issues From the Federal Electronic Health Record Surveillance Program: [Full access to this JAMA article by subscription]“…findings begin to estimate the extent of vendor lack of adherence to certification standards and the potential for patient harm, with 3.7% of total product IDs having a nonconformity issue that could be a contributing factor to a patient harm event.” For example, one error gave a medication dose 10 times what was recommended. Clearly manual oversight is needed.
Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare: Excellent monograph from the National Academy of Medicine covering this important and emerging topic..