About pharma
Prices cut by an average of 53% under China's latest update to centralised procurement programme for generic drugs: What happens when a government starts negotiating pharma prices?
Study finds fewer than half of US clinical trials complied with new regulations on reporting results : “…compliance with US regulations requiring clinical trials to report results within one year of completion remains poor, with about one in three trials remaining unreported. The findings also indicate that studies backed by non-industry sponsors such as universities, hospitals and governments are more likely to breach the rules than those sponsored by industry, with US government-backed trials least likely to post results on time at the ClinicalTrials.gov registry.”
How the 8 biggest U.S. pharmas enriched their shareholders in 2019: These companies did well by taking advantage of new tax laws and buying back shares. The eight companies are profiled in more detail.
How Civica Rx became a force in the generic drug industry: A timeline: I have been reporting on CivicaRx since inception. This article provides a timeline of its development.
10 most expensive drugs for Medicare Part B and
10 most expensive drugs for Medicare Part D: The headlines speak for themselves.
About healthcare policy
Envisioning a Better U.S. Health Care System for All: Coverage and Cost of Care: This comprehensive policy paper from the American College of Physicians is well worth the read. “Part 1 of this paper discusses why the United States needs to do better in addressing coverage and cost. Part 2 presents 2 potential approaches to achieve universal coverage. Part 3 describes how an emphasis on value-based care can reduce costs.”
About healthcare IT
Hospitals Give Tech Giants Access to Detailed Medical Records: “Deals with Microsoft, IBM and Google reveal the power medical providers have in deciding how patients’ sensitive health data is shared.” This article from today’s print edition of the Wall Street Journal is a good summary of how our health data is being shared.
About health insurance
Supreme Court declines to hear case challenging legality of ACA: “The Supreme Court will wait for a federal appeals court to decide on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, meaning that a final decision on the law won’t come before the 2020 election.”
Supreme Court to hear Trump appeal in Obamacare contraception fight: “At issue is a challenge by the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the administration’s 2018 rule that permits broad religious and moral exemptions to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate and expands accommodations already allowed under the 2010 law dubbed Obamacare. The administration has asked the Supreme Court to reverse a nationwide injunction issued by a lower court blocking the rule from taking effect.”
Predicting Hospitalizations From Electronic Health Record Data: Insurance companies want to be able to predict hospitalizations to gauge future costs and hopefully prevent those events. Where can they find data for such predictions? “Prediction models using EHR-only, claims-only, and combined data had similar predictive value and demonstrated strong discrimination for which patients will be hospitalized in the ensuing 6 months.” Combined data was no better than either source alone.
Trump Administration to Soon Issue Guidance on Medicaid Block Grants: “The Trump administration plans to release guidance as soon as this month for granting states waivers to convert Medicaid funding to block grants.”
CMS-specified shoppable services accounted for 12% of 2017 health care spending among individuals with employer-sponsored insurance: This analysis for CMS by the Health Care Cost Containment Institute drew the same conclusions as a previous commercial insurance study. Only a small portion of healthcare expenses are shoppable and can, therefore, be controlled by patients making better decisions: “Our analysis shows that the 70 CMS-specified shoppable services totaled 12 percent of 2017 medical spending (excluding prescription drug spending from the denominator) among individuals with employer-sponsored insurance. These services made up 16 percent of out-of-pocket medical spending.”
About the public’s health
First U.S. case of potentially deadly coronavirus confirmed in Washington state: Since last month, public health authorities have been closely following the spread of this virus (in the same class as SARS) from its origin in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. Now it has reached the U.S. Screening is staring at such major airports as San Francisco (SFO), New York (JFK), Los Angeles (LAX) and Chicago (ORD). The difference between SARS and this viral outbreak is that this time there has been more transparency by the Chinese government.
About promising technology
Discovery of new T-cell raises prospect of ‘universal’ cancer therapy: “Cardiff [University] researchers have now discovered T-cells equipped with a new type of T-cell receptor (TCR) which recognises and kills most human cancer types, while ignoring healthy cells.
This TCR recognises a molecule present on the surface of a wide range of cancer cells as well as in many of the body’s normal cells but, remarkably, is able to distinguish between healthy cells and cancerous ones, killing only the latter.”