The COVID-19 pandemic has done little to encourage bipartisan comity in Washington, and the Oct. 2 hearing of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis reflected that partisan tension. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar noted, however, that the department is doing its best to cooperate with oversight of the vaccine program by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), but that the nearly three dozen GAO requests for oversight have come at a difficult time.
Attributing recent reductions in certain U.S. prescription drug prices to intense congressional scrutiny rather than a biopharma industry commitment to affordability, Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) said Congress must put more guardrails in place and restructure how the industry does business.
Rather than the in-your-face, blame-and-shame show that was expected, the Sept. 30 drug pricing hearing before the U.S. House Oversight Committee was more a reminder of the policy differences between Democrats and Republicans on how best to make prescription drugs more affordable.
The governor’s signature brought California a step closer to realizing state officials’ dream of having their own generic and biosimilar drug label. In signing the California Affordable Drug Manufacturing Act into law Sept. 28, Gov. Gavin Newsom touted the legislation as a way to break down market barriers to affordable prescription drug prices. “Our bill will help inject competition back into the generic drug marketplace – taking pricing power away from big pharmaceutical companies and returning it to consumers,” he said.
The U.S. pathway for legally importing certain prescription drugs from Canada to take advantage of lower prices is closer to opening for business with the FDA issuing a final rule and guidance on making it happen.
Before authorizing or licensing any COVID-19 vaccine, the U.S. FDA will hold a public advisory committee meeting on that vaccine, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said at a Sept. 23 hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
The U.S. FDA has posted another draft version of the intended use rule, this time with a fix for the so-called knowledge problem. This latest draft would eliminate mere knowledge of off-label use as a trigger for amendments to the product label, a provision the agency said in a Sept. 22 statement will “provide greater certainty and predictability for regulated parties.”
Spurred by reports of biopharma executives exercising stock options in conjunction with announcements about COVID-19 vaccine developments and government contracts, U.S. lawmakers want to close the loopholes that make such actions legal.
A Sept. 16 Senate hearing revisited the Trump administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the CDC took the opportunity to post a vaccine distribution plan. CDC director Robert Redfield advised the committee, however, that sufficient quantities of vaccine to cover everyone in the U.S. might not be available until the third quarter of 2021, adding that now is the time to stand up a distribution network for a vaccine that will require cold-chain storage.
Given the minimal accountability written into the 340B prescription drug discount program, a few biopharma companies recently began taking oversight into their own hands by demanding data claims or refusing to extend the mandated discounts to contract pharmacies.
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