Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released 5 years of pricing data for a list of more than 5,000 drugs this week. The data illustrate that a handful of cost-driving drugs experienced price hikes in 2015, which cost taxpayers millions in added Medicare spending. The price of some drugs went up almost 500%, with name-brand […]
Wall Street Beat
Clearside Biomedical prices $36m IPO
Clearside Biomedical (NSDQ:CLSD) today priced its $36 million initial public offering, floating 4 million shares at $9 apiece and including a 30-day underwriters option for 600,000 more shares. Alpharetta, Ga.-based Clearside said it plans to use theIPO proceeds to fund a pivotal Phase III trial of its suspension formulation of corticosteroid triamcinolone acetonide, Zuprata, for […]
BioDelivery reacquires license to buprenorphine film
BioDelivery Sciences International (NSDQ:BDSI) said today that it reacquired the license to the Belbuca (buprenorphine) buccal film from Endo Pharmaceuticals. Malvern, Penn-based Endo Pharmaceuticals licensed the worldwide manufacturing and marketing rights to the opioid patch from BioDelivery in 2012. Belbuca, a once-daily opioid, is indicated for the management of severe pain. The small, peppermint-flavored film works by […]
Trump comments send pharma, biotech shares down
(Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday took aim at drugmakers, promising in a magazine interview that “I’m going to bring down drug prices,” and shares of U.S. pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies fell. In a cover story for Time magazine, which named him its Person of the Year, Trump said that “I don’t like what […]
Aerie completes enrollment of phase III trial for intraocular pressure eye drops
Aerie Pharmaceuticals (NSDQ:AERI) said today that it completed enrollment for its 2nd phase III registration trial, Mercury 2, evaluating its Roclatan once-daily eye drops for intraocular pressure resulting from glaucoma or ocular hypertension. The company’s Roclatan solution is a fixed dose combination of its drug Rhopressa (netarsudil ophthalmic solution) and latanoprost, a widely prescribed prostaglandin […]
Mylan to cut 10% of workforce in restructuring efforts
Mylan (NSDQ:MYL) shares dropped 5% this morning after it said in regulatory filing that it expects to cut less than 10% of its global workforce as a result of its restructuring efforts. The Canonsburg, Penn.-based company has about 35,000 employees, according to Reuters, and wrote in the SEC filing that it will implement restructuring programs in specific […]
UK slaps Pfizer with record $107m fine over price hikes
The U.K.’s Competition & Markets Authority reportedly fined Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and Flynn Pharma a record amount for the companies’ massive price hikes to their unbranded versions of anti-epilepsy drug Epanutin. The British anti-trust watchdog fined Pfizer and Flynn Pharma $107 million (£84.2 million) and $6.5 million (£5.2 million), respectively. New York City-based Pfizer used to market the phenytoin sodium anti-epilepsy […]
Tax holiday could ignite more pharma M&A
(Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to incentivize U.S. companies to repatriate their swelling overseas cash piles could spur a new wave of dealmaking in a pharmaceutical industry seeking to buy its way into growth. For years, big U.S. drugmakers have turned to acquisitions of foreign companies to put their overseas cash to work, […]
Novo Nordisk joins Allergan in pledge to limit price hikes
Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO) president Jakob Riis said this week that the company will limit annual price hikes of its products’ list prices to single-digit percentages, joining Allergan (NYSE:AGN) CEO Brent Saunders who released a “social contract” 3 months ago with the same goal. “We hear from more and more people living with diabetes about the challenges […]
Sanofi throws hat in the ring with J&J’s in Actelion pursuit
Sanofi (NYSE:SNY) is reportedly considering a bid for Actelion Pharmaceuticals (VTX:ATLN), competing with an offer made to the Swiss biotech by Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ). Bloomberg reported that Sanofi is working with advisers to assess its options and has made its interest known informally to Actelion. The French drugmaker has not made a formal comment on the matter […]
