Samantha DiGrande

January 07, 2019

The Community Oncology Alliance (COA) recently formed a standing Biosimilars Committee for which The Center for Biosimilars® advisory board member, Kashyap Patel, MD, a practicing medical oncologist at Carolina Blood and Cancer Care in South Carolina, was named chair alongside co-chairs immediate past president of COA, Jeff Vacirca MD, FACP, and Michael Diaz, MD, incoming COA president.

January 05, 2019

In October 2018, HHS Secretary Alex Azar proposed requiring drug companies to include the list price of a drug paid for by Medicare or Medicaid in direct-to-consumer (DTC) television advertising. Since the rule was announced, it has drawn feedback from stakeholders across the spectrum. The proposal, for which a comment period recently closed, received more than 140 comments on the Federal Register from payers, providers, patient advocacy groups, and others, varying in support of the proposal to raising concerns.

January 03, 2019

After several pharmaceutical companies agreed to halt drug price increases in 2018 after receiving pressure from the Trump administration, the industry has kicked off 2019 with price increases on more than 250 prescription drugs.

January 02, 2019

The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) is apprehensive that “without substantial changes, the demonstration program could disrupt patient access to care, worsen the rheumatology workforce shortage, and exacerbate geographic disparities in access to medical care.”

January 01, 2019

Hu5F9, an immune checkpoint inhibitor blocking CD47, has showed promise in working together with rituximab to eliminate non-Hodgkin lymphoma cells. A recent study looked to evaluate the drug in combination with rituximab in a clinical setting.

December 31, 2018

Data on the risk of tuberculosis (TB) reactivation with infliximab therapy in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) who are from countries where TB is particularly prevalent, such as India, remains limited. A recent study sought to evaluate the rate of tubercular reactivation with infliximab in a cohort of patients with IBD.

December 29, 2018

Vedolizumab is approved by the FDA for the treatment of moderate to severe Crohn disease or ulcerative colitis, both forms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), who have had an inadequate response or loss of response to immunomodulators, tumor necrosis factor inhibitors, or corticosteroid therapy.

December 26, 2018

Over the course of 2018, The Center for Biosimilars® provided coverage of conferences in the United States and abroad. Here is a look at our top 5 conference coverage articles from 2018.

December 25, 2018

A recent study evaluated the impact of adding bevacizumab to chemotherapy treatment for patients who were newly diagnosed with ovarian cancer. The results, published in Gynecologic Oncology, found that while the addition of bevacizumab greatly improved progression-free survival (PFS), it did not improve overall survival.

December 25, 2018

A recent study sought to investigate the overall survival (OS) advantage of the addition of trastuzumab to chemotherapy for patients with human epidermal growth factor 2-positive early breast cancer.