Opinion: Are Price Controls the New Black?
May 1st 2007In march, us rep. rahm "Mr. Television" Emanuel (D-IL) reintroduced legislation aimed at what he calls "driving down the price of prescription drugs." But the only thing such legislation would accomplish would be the "driving down" of pharmaceutical innovation.
Toolkit: How To Be a Better Partner
May 1st 2007Pharma industry alliances are increasingly critical to success. They are gaining on R&D in terms of importance, especially since many companies are falling short in their internal pipelines and need to look outside for promising compounds. Today, nearly two-thirds of the top 20 pharma and biotech companies have established alliance-management functions. These usually cover deals in the discovery, development, and marketing space.
Washington Report: Pathways for Proteins
May 1st 2007The push is on to establish an approval pathway for generic versions of biotech therapies. The Hatch-Waxman Act of 1984 established a process whereby generic-drug manufacturers could obtain approval for a product based on the innovator company's data. But Hatch-Waxman doesn't apply to biologics regulated by the Public Health Service Act, and generics makers-as well as some Big Pharma companies and small biotech firms-want Congress to give the Food and Drug Administration authority to set up a similar process for these products as well.
Thoughtleader: Thomas Nagle, Monitor Group
May 1st 2007Over the past 20 years, drug companies went from having carte blanche to set drug prices to operating in an ever more tightly controlled environment. Instead of doctors calling the shots, government and private payers are becoming increasingly vocal about which drugs they will and will not cover. Frustrated patients, in turn, are getting anxious about their out-of-pocket costs and access to the medicines they need.
Global Report: If It Ain't Broke
April 1st 2007If the uk's office of fair trading (OFT) is to be believed, Brits are overpaying for their medicines to the tune of ?500 million a year. That's the conclusion the OFT came to in its long-awaited report on the Pharmaceutical Pricing Regulation Scheme (PPRS), the arcane method by which drug prices are set in the United Kingdom.
Washington Report: Medicaid Sets the Pace for Pharma Pricing
April 1st 2007All the hoopla about Medicare drug prices is overshadowing the real action in pharmaceutical pricing: a less-noticed exercise that aims to reduce reimbursement for medicines purchased by state Medicaid programs. Retail pharmacists say the proposed changes will put them out of business, and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) fear an end to discount negotiations.