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Drug-company sales representatives, grounded by the coronavirus pandemic, are blasting out emails and hosting video calls to pitch new treatments for a variety of ailments to doctors, a different way of doing things for a field force that had relied on visiting with physicians in person. On Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new cancer drug from Eli Lilly. The company plans to make the drug available within days—and to spread the word by having sales reps, working from home, email doctors and set up remote meetings with slide presentations, and to run ads promoting the new medicine on websites aimed at health-care professionals. (Loftus and Hopkins, 5/11)

Existing drugs may help us get through the coronavirus pandemic while we wait for a vaccine, but high pricing by pharmaceutical companies will probably mean that, even if these drugs are proven to be effective, many sick people will still be prevented from getting treatment. A study published this month in the Journal of Virus Eradication looked at nine of the drugs that have been identified as possible Covid-19 treatments and are in various stages of clinical trials globally. The team of researchers looked at how much each of the drugs is sold for in countries where data was available. Then they calculated what a generic version of these drugs might cost. (Chalabi, 5/11)

The drug Remdesivir has been hailed as a potentially life-saving treatment to fight the novel coronvirus. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases recently said, “Hospitalized patients with advanced COVID-19 and lung involvement who received Remdesivir recovered faster than similar patients who received placebo." But how much will it cost as more hospitals and doctors use it? (St. George, 5/11)

In a surprise move, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan vetoed state funding for a “Prescription Drug Affordability Board,” which was created last year to establish maximum prices that the state and local governments will pay for “high-cost” medicines. The entity is designed to function like rate-setting boards that regulate what public utilities can charge residents. The board emerged last year after the U.S. Supreme Court scuttled a state law that aimed to bar drug makers from “price gouging” consumers. The pharmaceutical industry opposed its creation by arguing it was a form of price controls and, ultimately, would have limited choices for state residents. (Silverman, 5/8)

Even as prescription drug costs remain an important pocketbook issue for many Americans, the Trump administration has taken a new step that will likely raise expenses for many patients, a move that consumer advocates find upsetting and puzzling. As part of a final rule setting standards for health benefits, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid will allow insurers and employers to exclude certain copay assistance programs, such as cards and coupons provided by drug makers, from counting toward deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums. The decision applies even when there is no generic alternative to a pricey, brand-name drug. (Silverman, 5/8)

Safety-net hospitals want CMS to stop trying to collect information about how much they pay for drugs eligible for discounts under the 340B drug pricing program, according to the hosipitals' lobbying group. CMS shouldn't launch its survey of drug acquisition costs during the COVID-19 pandemic because it will "create a heavy burden on hospitals" already struggling with limited resources, America's Essential Hospitals said in a letter to CMS on Wednesday. (Brady, 5/7)

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services proposed a major payment bump for hospitals administering the cutting-edge gene therapies known as CAR-T treatments late Monday. It’s a direct response to longstanding criticisms from the pharmaceutical industry, patient advocates, and hospitals that said Medicare’s subpar reimbursement rates for the new therapies — which can have list prices upward of $450,000 per patient — forced hospitals to choose between losing money or declining to offer the therapies at all. (Florko, 5/12)

An experimental drug to treat an inherited, progressive heart disease clearly improved the symptoms of patients, its maker, MyoKardia, said Monday. The full data have not yet been published or reviewed by outside experts. But cardiologists called the top-line results alone a big step forward for patients with the disorder, called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCM. In the disorder, the wall of the left ventricle, the chamber of the heart that pumps blood throughout the body, thickens and the heart’s pumping action becomes less effective. (Herper, 5/11)

When the pandemic struck, biotechnology chief executives suddenly faced questions about how to keep their workers safe, their research moving and their budgets intact.“ We had to as CEOs start to develop what we hoped to be best practices in totally uncharted territory, and we had to do it quickly,” said Kazumi Shiosaki, CEO of Twentyeight-Seven Inc., a Watertown, Mass., startup seeking to modulate RNA to treat cancer and other diseases. (Gormley, 5/6)

A star scientist in the world of single-cell genomics and computational biology is leaving academia to become one of the few women leading R&D at a biotech company. Aviv Regev, a core institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, will become head of Genentech research and early development effective Aug. 1, its parent company, Roche (RHBBY), announced Monday. She will join the Swiss biopharma company’s corporate executive committee and report to Roche CEO Severin Schwan. (Cooney, 5/11)

Gilead Sciences Inc., maker of the novel coronavirus treatment remdesivir, faces a challenge from advocates of drug-pricing controls who want to set an example for the pharmaceutical industry. Some lawmakers in Congress and advocacy groups aligned with Democrats are making the case to include in the next Covid-19 response package provisions to deny drugmakers such as Gilead exclusive rights to treatments and vaccines for the virus, as well as require price transparency for companies bringing new medicines to market. (Ruoff, 5/5)

AstraZeneca's diabetes drug, Farxiga, has become the first in its class to receive FDA approval as a treatment for heart failure. "It's great news for patients with this condition," said Dr. Mikhail N. Kosiborod, a cardiologist at Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute and vice president of research at Saint Luke's Health System, who investigated the efficacy and safety of the drug prior to its approval. Kosiborod said the newly approved drug -- which was initially developed as a diabetes drug -- will give patients "a new treatment option that's unlike any other heart failure medication. It works through a completely different mechanism of action and addresses all of the key objectives in treating patients with heart failure." (David, 5/8)

Cardinal Health allegedly paid kickbacks to veteran-owned small businesses to sell more radiopharmaceutical products, according to a recently unsealed False Claims Act lawsuit. The wholesale distribution giant would allegedly single out service-disabled and veteran-owned small businesses that were unqualified to handle drugs with small amounts of radioactive agents used for diagnosing and treating cancer via Positron Emission Tomography scans, among other applications. The whistleblower alleged that would give Cardinal unfair and illegal access to government contracts it would not have otherwise been entitled to, edging out other qualified small-business owners, according to the complaint filed in a Washington federal court in late 2017. (Kacik, 5/12)

A bill to address prescription drug price transparency — two years in the making — was sent to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz Saturday, marking another example of how the high price of pharmaceuticals has become a bipartisan issue. The bill, Senate File 1098, requires pharmaceutical companies to report pricing information to the state when those prices exceed increases set out in the bill. The bill also requires the Minnesota Department of Health to post the information on a public website. (Callaghan, 5/10)

In the latest fallout from a federal probe into generic drug price fixing, Apotex agreed to pay $24 million to resolve criminal charges of conspiring with other manufacturers, the fourth company to be charged as part of the long-running investigation. The company, which is based in Canada and is one of the world’s largest generic purveyors, admitted to working with several rivals to set prices for pravastatin, a commonly prescribed cholesterol medication, between 2013 and 2015, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. (Silverman, 5/8)