Jackie Syrop

October 28, 2017

CVS Health is considering a possible $66 billion takeover of Aetna, and Amazon appears to be positioning itself for possible development as a PBM.

October 27, 2017

As AbbVie’s best-selling Humira faces oncoming biosimilar competition, the drug maker is developing a new innovator product that could help it retain a hold on the market; new results from 3 phase 3 clinical trials show AbbVie’s investigational interleukin-23 inhibitor, risankizumab, to be more effective than adalimumab (Humira) or ustekinumab (Stelara) in patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis.

October 26, 2017

Advances in research suggest that neurotransmitters other than serotonin and noradrenaline may be involved in the pathogenesis and treatment of major depressive disorder, and have pointed to inflammation as an important factor.

October 25, 2017

A new report by the RAND Corporation estimates the potential future cost savings gained from the use of biosimilars in the United States at $54 billion over 10 years, and examines future policy issues surrounding this important market.

October 24, 2017

Drug prices in several disease areas outpace other healthcare expenditures and result in inadequate availability of essential medicines globally, according to a recently published review.

October 20, 2017

The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that, at present, it will not proceed with its proposal to use biological qualifiers (BQ) to assign international nonproprietary names to biosimilars.

October 19, 2017

A Dutch study reports that 24% of patients who switched from originator infliximab to CT-P13, an infliximab biosimilar, discontinued the biosimilar by their 6-month follow-up, mainly for reasons researchers termed “subjective” health complaints.

October 19, 2017

While no one argues that orphan drugs that treat rare diseases can be expensive, the drugs’ reputation for being budget-busters is not borne out by a data presented in a recent report by Quintiles IMS Institute.

October 18, 2017

Switching patients from originator biologics to biosimilars is associated with the potential for a “nocebo” effect, a phenomenon that occurs when a patient’s negative expectation causes a treatment to have a more negative effect than it otherwise would—essentially, the opposite of the placebo effect.

October 17, 2017

Anti–tumor necrosis factor drugs are expensive, and there are a limited number of choices for IBD treatment, highlighting the need to use every existing agent optimally.