Allison Inserro

October 14, 2019

No matter which piece of a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report or a similar one from CMS actuary that observers seize on, both documents indicate that HR 3, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act of 2019, would save federal spending and improve health, at least in the short term, and also have a dramatic impact on the prescription drug industry.

October 11, 2019

The bill prohibits these agreements between brand name and generic drug manufacturers by making them presumptively anticompetitive if the nonreference drug maker receives anything of value from the other company. The bill would make violating these provisions punishable by civil penalty.

October 10, 2019

Major drug companies poured hundreds of millions of dollars into nonprofit patient advocacy groups last year, as a fight over federal legislation to curb rising pharmaceutical prices is underway, Bloomberg Government reports.

October 09, 2019

A trio of health policy experts, writing in The New England Journal of Medicine, recently analyzed 3 proposals to redesign Medicare Part D in an effort to curb the effect of rising drug prices on beneficiaries.

October 09, 2019

A recent preliminary study examined whether adults treated with anti–tumor necrosis factor agents (anti-TNFs) had reduced the risk of Alzheimer disease, and found that patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and psoriasis who were treated with anti-TNFs had a lower risk of developing the incurable neurocognitive disorder.

October 04, 2019

There are some health policy experts who believe that price transparency will work to bring down healthcare spending. In a recent article in JAMA, Gilbert Benavidez, MPH, and Austin Frakt, PhD, say that the notion has rarely worked, but they suggest there are 2 ways that it might.

October 02, 2019

The case over whether drugmakers can be compelled to disclose pharmaceutical prices in direct-to-consumer (DTC) television advertisements continues in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, with HHS appealing and AARP and the AARP Foundation filing an amicus brief this week in Merck & Co. Inc. et al v US Department of Health and Human Services et al.

October 01, 2019

Step therapy, which requires that patients try the payer’s preferred treatment before the one a physician recommends, jeopardizes the health of patients with cancer by delaying treatment and creating unnecessary barriers, according to a recent position statement from the Community Oncology Alliance (COA).

September 30, 2019

The FDA has approved another indication for reference rituximab (Rituxan), this time for children with rare vasculitis diseases.

September 27, 2019

The bill would amend the Employee Retirement Income Security Act to require group health plans to provide an exception process for step therapy so that patients can access treatment without delays.