About pharma
U.S. states accuse 26 drugmakers of generic drug price fixing in sweeping lawsuit: “The lawsuit accused Novartis’ Sandoz unit, Teva Pharmaceuticals’ Actavis unit, Mylan, Pfizer Inc and other drugmakers of conspiring to rig the market between 2009 and 2016 for more than 80 drugs.
Attorneys general from 46 states, the District of Columbia and four U.S. territories said the defendants prioritized profit over the public interest, depriving millions of consumers of lower prices for needed medication.
Ten executives, including many sales and marketing directors, are also defendants in the 543-page complaint filed in a federal court in Connecticut.”
Cigna sues dozens of drugmakers in alleged price-fixing scheme: On a similar note: “The lawsuit, filed June 9 in a Pennsylvania district court, alleges the drugmakers conspired to fix, increase, stabilize or maintain prices of generic drugs, allocate customers and markets and rig bids for generic drugs in violation of federal and state antitrust and competition laws.”
What's the ROI on a COVID-19 vaccine? We have no idea, says Pfizer: The development cost and price of the vaccine are not yet known, so the projected ROI cannot be calculated. The interesting story here is how the vaccine is being developed and how it will be rolled out.
340B Program Reached $29.9 Billion in 2019; Now Over 8% of Drug Sales:”According to data provided to Drug Channels by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), discounted 340B purchases were at least $29.9 billion in 2019. That figure is an astonishing 23% higher than its 2018 counterpart. Since 2014, purchases under the 340B program have tripled.”
Pharmacist-Recommended Product Rankings: “Thousands of pharmacists nationwide were surveyed to pinpoint their recommendations on a range of over-the-counter products. U.S. News, in collaboration with Pharmacy Times, has compiled their responses to show how different brands stack up in more than 130 over-the-counter product categories.”
Personalized Mapping of Drug Metabolism by the Human Gut Microbiome: “The human gut microbiome harbors hundreds of bacterial species with diverse biochemical capabilities. Dozens of drugs have been shown to be metabolized by single isolates from the gut microbiome, but the extent of this phenomenon is rarely explored in the context of microbial communities. Here, we develop a quantitative experimental framework for mapping the ability of the human gut microbiome to metabolize small molecule drugs: Microbiome-Derived Metabolism (MDM)-Screen.”
About healthcare IT
Frequency and Types of Patient-Reported Errors in Electronic Health Record Ambulatory Care Notes: “In this survey study of 136 815 patients, 29 656 provided a response, and 1 in 5 patients who read a note reported finding a mistake and 40% perceived the mistake as serious. Among patient-reported very serious errors, the most common characterizations were mistakes in diagnoses, medical history, medications, physical examination, test results, notes on the wrong patient, and sidedness…
Older and sicker patients were twice as likely to report a serious error compared with younger and healthier patients, indicating important safety and quality implications. Sharing notes with patients may help engage them to improve record accuracy and health care safety together with practitioners.”
FCC Proposes $225M Fine for Spoofed Robocalls and State AGs Follow Suit: “Continuing its campaign against illegal robocalls, particularly the spoofed variety, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on June 9, 2020, proposed a $225 million fine – the “largest in the FCC’s 86-year history” – against Texas-based health insurance telemarketers for apparently making approximately 1 billion illegally spoofed robocalls.”
QR codes could provide patients way to keep them out of emergency rooms: Putting a QR code on a child’s cast so parents could scan it for instructions was found to reduce ER visits.
About the public’s health
Annual costs for diagnostic tests up to $25B, antibody tests up to $19B: “The estimated annual cost for diagnostic testing of COVID-19 will range from $6 billion to $25.1 billion, and the cost for antibody testing could vary from $5.2 billion to $19.1 billion, a new study found…
The estimates include both the costs for providing the test itself and any other affiliated healthcare costs like a trip to urgent care.”
Virologists vigorously debunk new study on origins of the novel coronavirus: “Despite overwhelming scientific consensus that the novel coronavirus came from nature, various scientific and pseudo-scientific claims have continued to fan the flames of a conspiracy theory that the virus was engineered in a Chinese lab.”
Coronavirus vaccine developers have a ‘bizarre’ problem. There’s not enough sick people:”The top teams rushing to develop coronavirus vaccines are alerting governments, health officials and shareholders that they may have a big problem: The outbreaks in their countries may be getting too small to quickly determine whether vaccines work..”
J&J moves up COVID-19 vaccine trial to second half of July: The successful trials are going so well that the company is moving up its timetable by two months.
Coronavirus Vaccine Candidates’ Pivotal U.S. Testing to Start This Summer: Other companies are also progressing rapidly on vaccine development.
Moderna, Merck execs see possible speed bumps in COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing:”…behind the scenes, execs at some of the leading players are intensely focused on the details needed to produce the candidates on a massive scale.
For instance? Sourcing raw materials and assembling the labor force needed to produce hundreds of millions of shots in record time, execs for Moderna and Merck said at BIO’s digital conference this week.”
Third of Americans Say They Won't Get a COVID-19 Vaccine, with Black Americans the Most Skeptical: Vaccine development and manufacturing are only the first parts to the solution. “Of the 1,003 U.S. adults who took part in the nationally representative telephone survey, 29 percent said they definitely would get a vaccine if and when one becomes available, while 35 percent said they are unlikely to or definitely would not.”
Association Between Adult Acne and Dietary Behaviors: “In this study, consumption of milk, sugary beverages, and fatty and sugary products appeared to be associated with current acne in adults. Further large-scale studies are warranted to investigate more closely the associations between diet and adult acne.”
Association of Low-Value Testing With Subsequent Health Care Use and Clinical Outcomes Among Low-risk Primary Care Outpatients Undergoing an Annual Health Examination: “Low-value care, or health care services that do not improve patient outcomes or for which harms appear to outweigh the benefits, is estimated to cost the US health care system between $75.7 and $101.2 billion annually.”
This study only looked at overuse of three tests: chest x-rays, an electrocardiogram (ECG) and Papanicolaou (PAP) test done as part of an “annual health exam.” The point of this study was to show that when these tests are done on low risk patients, a large number of unnecessary tests and consultations result.
About health insurance
18 Million Americans Lack Adequate Health Insurance While Facing Greater Risk of Severe Coronavirus, Study Finds: “More than 18 million Americans, most of whom are minorities and low-income individuals, are uninsured or underinsured while also being at increased risk of developing severe cases of COVID-19, a new study by researchers at Harvard Medical School and CUNY's Hunter College has shown.”
Certain Medical Care Arrangements: “This document contains proposed regulations relating to section 213 of the Internal Revenue Code (Code) regarding the treatment of amounts paid for certain medical care arrangements, including direct primary care arrangements, health care sharing ministries, and certain government-sponsored health care programs. The proposed regulations affect individuals who pay for these arrangements or programs and want to deduct the amounts paid as medical expenses under section 213.”
For a summary and analysis of the regulations, see: New Proposed Rule On Health Care Sharing Ministries And Direct Primary Care.