About pharma
Executive Order on Lowering Drug Prices by Putting America First: The President issued an executive order to peg federal drug pricing to lowest comparable medications in other OECD countries. The new part is inclusion of Medicare Part D, in addition to previous statements about Part B. Another online version does not include Part D. Before the order takes effect there is a mandatory 90 day comment period to change the regulations. Obviously that date will be well after the election.
Here is the essential portion of the order:
”Sec. 2. Policy. (a) It is the policy of the United States that the Medicare program should not pay more for costly Part B or Part D prescription drugs or biological products than the most-favored-nation price.
(b) The “most-favored-nation price” shall mean the lowest price, after adjusting for volume and differences in national gross domestic product, for a pharmaceutical product that the drug manufacturer sells in a member country of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that has a comparable per-capita gross domestic product.
Sec. 3. Ensuring the Most-Favored-Nation Price in Medicare Part B. To the extent consistent with law, the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall immediately take appropriate steps to implement his rulemaking plan to test a payment model pursuant to which Medicare would pay, for certain high-cost prescription drugs and biological products covered by Medicare Part B, no more than the most-favored-nation price. The model would test whether, for patients who require pharmaceutical treatment, paying no more than the most-favored-nation price would mitigate poor clinical outcomes and increased expenditures associated with high drug costs.”
Experts: Revamped OxyContin hasn’t curbed abuse, overdoses:”A panel of government health advisers said Friday there’s no clear evidence that a harder-to-crush version of the painkiller OxyContin designed to discourage abuse actually resulted in fewer overdoses or deaths.
The conclusion from the Food and Drug Administration advisory panel comes more than a decade after Purdue Pharma revamped its blockbuster opioid, which has long been blamed for sparking a surge in painkiller abuse beginning in the 1990s.”
Not enough Covid vaccine for all until 2024, says biggest producer: “Adar Poonawalla, chief executive of the Serum Institute of India, told the Financial Times that pharmaceutical companies were not increasing production capacity quickly enough to vaccinate the global population in less time.
‘It’s going to take four to five years until everyone gets the vaccine on this planet,” said Mr Poonawalla, who estimated that if the Covid-19 shot is a two-dose vaccine — such as measles or rotavirus — the world will need 15bn doses.’”
Taking a cue from traditional Chinese medicine for transdermal insulin delivery:”Researchers from Nanyang Technical University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) and the country's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) say they've developed a pressure device resembling a vise clamp that, when applied to a fold of skin, temporarily changes the skin barrier to form "micropores" that greatly increase its ability to absorb drugs.”
Americans' Views of U.S. Business and Industry Sectors, 2020: In this latest Gallup poll, the only sector on the list lower than pharma is the federal government.
Gilead to buy Immunomedics for $21 billion: Biggest business story of the day. Read the article for more details.
Exclusive: U.S. hospitals turn down remdesivir, limit use to sickest COVID-19 patients: “U.S. hospitals have turned down about a third of their allocated supplies of the COVID-19 drug remdesivir since July as need for the costly antiviral wanes, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) confirmed on Friday.” I would need to see hard data, as it might be HHS’s pushback on claims of a shortage of this drug.
About health insurance
Centene to expand ACA exchange footprint by nearly 400 counties in 2021: “Centene announced Friday a major expansion of its plan offerings on the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges, branching out into nearly 400 new counties across 13 states for 2021.”
Obamacare co-ops down from 23 to final '3 little miracles': These federally-funded community-based health insurance ventures were a spectacular failure. Read more in the article.
About the public’s health
WHO reports record one-day increase in global coronavirus cases, up over 307,000:”The World Health Organization reported a record one-day increase in global coronavirus cases on Sunday, with the total rising by 307,930 in 24 hours.
The biggest increases were from India, the United States and Brazil, according to the agency’s website. Deaths rose by 5,537 to a total of 917,417.
India reported 94,372 new cases, followed by the United States with 45,523 new infections and Brazil with 43,718.”
Trump officials interfered with CDC reports on Covid-19: A great piece of investigative reporting published in Politico. “The health department’s politically appointed communications aides have demanded the right to review and seek changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly scientific reports charting the progress of the coronavirus pandemic, in what officials characterized as an attempt to intimidate the reports’ authors and water down their communications to health professionals.”
How Many Lives Could You Save Wearing a Face Mask? This Calculator Tells You: ”In an effort to make this dynamic a little less abstract, two Ph.D. students in Poland have created an online calculator that uses statistics and variables to estimate how many infections one person may be able to prevent—and how many lives they might save—as a result of wearing a mask.”
About healthcare IT
Fitbit to launch first ECG app in U.S., Europe next month:”Fitbit’s latest smartwatch has now secured medical device clearances in the U.S. and Europe, unlocking the full use of its ECG app to help identify cases of the irregular heart rhythm known as atrial fibrillation.
With an FDA green light and a CE mark, the app for the Fitbit Sense will launch in the U.S. and certain European countries as well as in Hong Kong and India starting in October.”