Alex Azar, the president’s nominee to head the Dept. of Health & Human Services, has nearly a decade of experience in the pharmaceutical industry – and that experience is either predictive of his inability to act on lowering drug prices or will serve him well as HHS chief, depending on who you ask. At Azar’s […]
Policy
Report: Drugmakers may have ducked $1.3B in Medicaid rebates
Without calling out any drug companies by name, the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General revealed this week that 10 potentially misclassified drugs may have resulted in $1.3 billion in lost rebates to Medicaid between 2012 and 2016. The issue of ducking rebates came to the public’s attention earlier this […]
Governor passes law to keep birth control free in Massachusetts
Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker signed a law on Monday requiring health insurers to cover at least one kind of every type of FDA-approved birth control. The new law protects health care services and rights for women across the state, “irrespective of what goes on in Washington,” the Republican governor said at the bill’s signing, according […]
Trump’s opioid public health emergency highlights differences with FDA
President Donald Trump yesterday declared the opioid epidemic a national public health emergency – a move that he said will help “liberate our communities from this scourge of drug addiction.” The president, surrounded by lawmakers and advocates, said that the government’s plan to fight the opioid epidemic would include “really tough, really big, really great […]
CDC: Overdose-related deaths in 2016 surpassed death count from peak of AIDS crisis
More than 63,000 people died from a drug overdose last year – that’s more than the number of deaths caused by AIDS in 1995, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Between 2015 and 2016, the number of people who died from a drug overdose involving illicitly-manufactured fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, more […]
Ethics watchdog: Rep. Collins broke rules by advocating for biotech
There’s “substantial reason to believe” that Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) broke federal law and congressional rules by sharing insider information to spur investment and by meeting with government researchers to advocate for Innate Immunotherapeutics (ASX:IIL) – an Australian biotech that he’s invested in. The Republican lawmaker recruited a number of investors for the company, including Dr. […]
Update: Industry panels disintegrate in wake of Trump remarks
A pair of industry panels convened by President Donald Trump disintegrated today in the wake of his latest comments on the racist violence in Charlottesville. After Merck (NYSE:MRK) CEO Kenneth Frazier announced on Monday that he planned to leave Trump’s manufacturing advisory panel, a wave of executives followed in his path. Today, reversing from a statement […]
Merck CEO Frazier leaves Trump council
Merck (NYSE:MRK) announced today that chief executive Kenneth Frazier plans to resign from President Donald Trump’s American Manufacturing Council, citing the president’s mild-mannered response to a white nationalist rally in Virginia on Saturday. The “Unite The Right” gathering turned deadly when a car mowed down a group of counter-protesters, killing at least one person and injuring […]
Trump declares national emergency over opioid epidemic
President Trump said yesterday that he is preparing to declare the opioid epidemic a national emergency. This is a reversal from an announcement made earlier this week by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who said that they would not declare a state of emergency. “The opioid crisis is an emergency, and I’m saying […]
Drugmakers talk competition & innovation with FDA leaders
Drugmakers, payers and patient advocates convened at the FDA’s White Oak campus yesterday to present before a panel of regulatory leaders about competition and innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. The meeting, which was titled “Administering the Hatch-Waxman Amendments: Ensuring a Balance Between Innovation and Access,” opened with FDA commish Scott Gottlieb, who announced that the […]
