Diabetes

Vermont's Attorney General has sued the Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma, for allegedly directing a deceptive opioid marketing campain; drug manufacturer Eli Lilly has offered a half-priced, generic version of Humalog insulin; asthma rates for children fell in Los Angeles after air quality improved.

The May issue of The American Journal of Managed Care® (AJMC®) featured research on diabetes drug cost-effectiveness, patient-centered medical homes, and value-based insurance design. Here are 5 findings from research published in the issue.

This study evaluates the long-term cost-effectiveness of treatment involving combination therapy with dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP-4) inhibitors and sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors compared with an alternative with sulfonyureas prior to insulin initiation on a background of metformin.

Every week, The American Journal of Managed Care® recaps the top managed care news of the week, and you can now listen to it on our podcast, Managed Care Cast.

This week, the top managed care news included HHS announcing a finalized rule requiring the disclosure of drug prices in television ads; a report finding high satisfaction with employer health coverage despite the cost; a study finding heart failure is surging among young adults.

Every week, The American Journal of Managed Care® recaps the top managed care news of the week, and you can now listen to it on our podcast, Managed Care Cast.

This week, the top managed care news included CMS Administrator Seema Verma calling for more disruption to the healthcare system; former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, reflecting on the agency’s record of innovation; liraglutide demonstrating promise for youth with type 2 diabetes.

The Trump administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) is urging federal courts to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act; a Florida hospital is suing Aetna over the insurer’s Readmission Payment Policy; diabetic amputations disproportionately affect black and Latino individuals.

The move comes a month after FDA issued a Complete Response Letter on the drug, despite pleas from patient advocates to approve a new treatment option in type 1 diabetes.

Here are the top 5 articles for the month of April.

Some large employers and policy makers advocate for retail competition that relies on providers competing on healthcare performance. Using diabetes care in Minnesota as an example, researchers examined whether the public reporting of care measures encouraged health systems to improve their clinics’ diabetes care performance in the latest issue of The American Journal of Managed Care®.

Every week, The American Journal of Managed Care® recaps the top managed care news of the week, and you can now listen to it on our podcast, Managed Care Cast.

This week, the top managed care news included CDC clarifying its opioid guidelines for chronic pain; pharmacy benefit managers testifying before a Senate committee; Sanofi expanding its insulin savings program starting in June.

The findings represent the first in a new wave of renal outcomes trials in the sodium glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitor class, a game-changing group of type 2 diabetes drugs with many benefits beyond lowering blood glucose.

The program comes as Congress has singled out the cost of insulin in its scrutiny of drug prices. Patients with type 1 diabetes cannot survive without the hormone, and press reports have highlighted the plight of young adults who ration insulin after they reach age 26 and cannot stay on family insurance plans.

Today we’re speaking with Tom Milam, founder and president of TrueLifeCare. As a former chief operating officer for a national diabetes supply, education, and support company, Milam created programs for people with diabetes that served more than 100,000 members nationwide. His experience also includes a federal appointment providing advisory service to Medicare. His extensive experience and knowledge within the diabetes space allows Tom to offer us an expert view of CMS’ Competitive Bidding Program.

Previous research overstated the generalizability of the Exenatide Study of Cardiovascular Event Lowering trial results by omitting the restriction on the percentage of patients without a prior cardiovascular event.

The authors of the manuscript “Generalizability of Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonist Cardiovascular Outcome Trials Enrollment Criteria to the US Type 2 Diabetes Population” respond to a letter to the editor.