Biosimilars

This week, the top managed care news included the Trump administration giving governors the power to overhaul section 1332 waivers under the Affordable Care Act (ACA); CMS disclosed a breach in the portal that agents and brokers use to assist consumers signing up for health coverage under the ACA; about one-third of all US healthcare payments in 2017 were tied to alternative payment models.

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research and news reporting in the healthcare and mainstream press.

AARP and other groups reacted strongly to reports that the pharmaceutical industry was using efforts to combat the opioid crisis to roll back an agreement to close the coverage gap in Medicare Part D.

It’s been more than 100 days since President Trump and HHS Secretary Alex Azar announced the “American Patients First” drug pricing blueprint. Here are 5 actions the government has taken since its release.

Since biosimilars gained a US approval pathway as part of the Affordable Care Act, these follow-on drugs have been widely seen as a key way to address the problem of high-cost biologic drugs. However, cost savings have been disappointing as only 12 biosimilar products have been approved to date, and just 4 have become commercially available. That’s a reality that led FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, to call the US market for biosimilars “anemic.”

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, announced the release of the agency’s Biosimilar Action Plan; Philadelphia’s tax on soda and other sweetened beverages has been upheld by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court; a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by 19 states against the Trump administration over the decision to end cost-sharing subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.

https://www.pharmacytimes.org/on-demand/biosimilars-in-treating-cancer

On June 14, 2018, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 16 to 5 to report the Creating and Restoring Equal Access to Equivalent Samples (CREATES) Act to the Senate floor. Here are 5 key things to know about the proposed legislation.

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research and news reporting in the healthcare and mainstream press.

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN)’s 23rd Annual Conference, held March 22-24 in Orlando, Florida, brought together stakeholders from across the oncology landscape. Here are 5 key takeaways from the meeting.

Both Managed Care Cast, from The American Journal of Managed Care®, and Not So Different, the podcast series from The Center for Biosimilars®, offer in-depth discussions of current healthcare issues.

Nine physician groups sent a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar Wednesday expressing concern about drug pricing proposals related to Medicare Part B and Medicare Part D that they said would hurt patient care.

This week, the top managed care stories included Cigna's deal to buy Express Scripts; Seema Verma, Alex Azar, and Scott Gottlieb, MD, made the rounds at health conferences; an analysis finds FDA's accelerated approval pathway has been a success with hematology and oncology drugs.

Does meaningful competition currently exist in the pharmaceutical industry and is there enough transparency on price? This was the crux of the discussion at the 2018 National Health Policy Conference of America’s Health Insurance Plans in Washington, DC.

Last week, the European Crohn's and Colitis Organisation held its 13th annual congress in Vienna, Austria. At the meeting, researchers presented new data on using biosimilar anti–tumor necrosis factor therapies in treating Crohn disease and ulcerative colitis, 2 manifestations of inflammatory bowel disease. Here are 5 things to know about the research presented.

Coverage from the 59th Annual Meeting and Exposition of the American Society of Hematology, December 9-12, 2017.

This week, the top managed care stories included CMS unveiling a new voluntary bundled payment model; coverage from the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, including immunotherapy's impact on HIV treatment and biosimilars; and news that 2 key diabetes devices will be covered by Medicare.

This week, the investors and analysts turned their attention to presentations by business leaders at the 36th Annual JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, held in San Francisco, California. Executives from the pharmaceutical and healthcare worlds showcased their products, pipelines, and visions for the future.

It’s true, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) are complicated, admitted Tim Wentworth, president and CEO of Express Scripts, during his presentation at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, California. However, the company is built to succeed in the future of healthcare, he said.

AJMC®TV interviews let you catch up on what’s new and important about changes in healthcare, with insights from key decision makers—from the clinician, to the health plan leader, to the regulator. When every minute in your day matters, AJMC®TV interviews keep you informed. Access the video clips at ajmc.com/interviews.

With the increasing emergence of less expensive biologic alternatives, some health systems are making the switch. For a large healthcare system, the arrival of a cheaper alternative to filgrastim prompted the conversion to using tbo-filgrastim as the preferrred granulocyte-colony stimulating factor. The results were shared in a study published by the Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy.

Clay Alspach, JD, principal, Leavitt Partners, explains how biosimilars will be affected by changes in the FDA under Scott Gottlieb's leadership.

The “nocebo” effect, a phenomenon that occurs when a patient’s negative perception of a therapy causes a treatment to have a worse outcome than would otherwise be expected, has become a topic of increasing interest in the world of biosimilars as some patients begin to transition from familiar, high-cost biologics to new, lower-cost biosimilars.

A review of some of the presentations at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) 2017 Annual Meeting, in San Diego, California, where the discussions ranged from clinical progress witnessed in 2017 for the treatment of inflammatory conditions to reimbursement models in the rheumatology space.

Biosimilars for core therapeutics in cancer are starting to come out, and community oncologists need to understand what that means for their business, as well as what proposed policy changes could mean for reimbursement, explained Tesh Khullar,

Among the most anticipated sessions at the 2017 meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in San Diego, California was “The Great Debate: Biosimilars…to Switch, or Not to Switch? That Is the Question.”

At this year's Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) Nexus conference, a few trending topics resurfaced across the meeting's agenda, with important implications for pharmacists, payers, and beyond.