jpm
Too much JPM is never enough
As Trump gets ready to take the reins of the U.S. government, two top officials from his first wild ride in the White House pointed to a range of ways the new administration could reshape key areas of health policy, Jonathan Wosen reports.
Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb and former CMS Administrator Seema Verma said the Trump administration could influence vaccine policy, reform PBM business practices, and cut costs in Medicaid and Medicare Advantage.
They got into the weeds at times, especially on vaccination policy. Read the full article here.
nih
Better access for NIH-funded products
The NIH adopted a policy that requires companies to ensure that patients have good access to products based on NIH research, Ed Silverman writes.
Americans have complained for more than a decade that high prices make it difficult to afford drugs, and they can get especially angry when they learn of expensive drugs invented with the help of taxpayer dollars.
Did the NIH go far enough?
ftc
Parting blow
Ed also tells us about a Federal Trade Commission report that is very critical of drug middlemen, the second such interim report in less than a year.
The report covers well-trodden ground with a focus on specialty generic drugs.
PBMs generated more than $7.3 billion in revenue by dispensing medicines to treat cancer, HIV, heart disease, and other serious illnesses at prices that exceeded their estimated acquisition costs between 2017 and 2022, according to the report. One Wall Street analyst criticized the report for limiting its study to data on specialty generics, which accounts for 0.9% of the drug market. The FTC said specialty generic drugs represent a large and growing amount of spending by plan sponsors and patients.
