A consequence of one of President Joe Biden’s first executive orders (EOs) is that some low-income patients may have to wait at least two more months to get the out-of-pocket relief they were promised for insulin and injectable epinephrine.
Busting a logjam of inadequate data sharing methods and communications between pharmas and health authorities around the world is the impetus behind the creation of nonprofit Accumulus Synergy Inc., whose common, cloud-based platform is designed to make the regulatory process easier for everyone involved. The coalition’s initial membership is a Who’s Who of big pharma: Amgen Inc., Astellas Pharma Inc., Bristol Myers Squibb Co., Glaxosmithkline plc, the Janssen Pharmaceutical Cos. of Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly and Co., Pfizer Inc., Roche Holding AG, Sanofi SA and Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.
Antibody development for treating COVID-19 continues producing positive results, the latest being from Eli Lilly and Co.’s bamlanivimab (LY-CoV-555), which reduced nursing home residents’ risk of contracting symptomatic COVID-19 by 80%, according to new data from its phase III Blaze-2 study.
One of the side effects of COVID-19 is the acceleration of a shift in health care delivery that is changing how drug and device companies market their products to doctors. There’s no going back to the commercial model where having a sales rep call on a doctor was the way to market a product, Rita Numerof, CEO and co-founder of Numerof & Associates, said during a Jan. 21 webinar on the impact the pandemic has had on drug and device detailing.
When it comes to leveling the playing field for foreign-based biopharma and medical device companies, China has made a lot of promises, but delivering on those promises is what matters. Throughout its annual assessment for Congress of China’s commitment to World Trade Organization principles, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) noted the many promises China has made over the years that have yet to be kept.
Vericiguat became the first oral soluble guanylate cyclase stimulator to win FDA approval for use in heart failure patients. The drug, branded Verquvo, was developed by Merck & Co. Inc. as part of a $1 billion deal with Bayer AG. But its commercial potential could be hampered by its modest clinical efficacy and increasing competition in the space, as well as difficulties launching a new drug during a pandemic.
The 39th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference was sans Celgene Corp.'s annual tradition of kicking off the conference with preliminary revenue and earnings from the previous year, but plenty of other companies stepped up and offered preliminary results of their own. Unfortunately, some companies continued to face headwinds selling drugs during the pandemic as patients avoided their doctors' offices.
COVID-19 undoubtedly will be the top U.S. health care priority for the 117th Congress and the incoming Biden administration, but that doesn’t mean prescription drug prices are no longer an issue. A raft of new-year price increases, many for already costly drugs, is ensuring drug pricing remains high on the congressional agenda.
With so much ire in Congress directed toward U.S. prescription drug prices in 2019, it’s not surprising that prices remained relatively stable that year. That’s not to say there weren’t price hikes. In its second report on unsupported price increases, the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) identified nine of the 100 top-selling drugs that had list price increases more than double the rate of medical inflation in 2019 and that accounted for the largest increases in U.S. spending on drugs.
HONG KONG – Tapping into synergies it sees between the U.S. and Chinese biotech industries, Suzhou, China-based Ascentage Pharma Group Corp. Ltd. is aiming to get its most advanced candidate, HQP-1351 (olverembatinib dimesylate) to market this year for patients with TKI-resistant chronic myeloid leukemia.