Radar on Drug Benefits
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Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs Strikes First Deals with Insurer, Outside PBM
Mark Cuban Cost Plus Pharmacy, the online pharmacy and generic manufacturing startup backed by the eponymous billionaire investor, recently struck its first deals with a health plan, Pennsylvania’s Capital Blue Cross, and a PBM, Rightway Healthcare Inc. The direct contracting deal represents a major step for the startup, which has done most of its business so far as a direct-to-consumer retailer — and one drug pricing expert tells AIS Health, a division of MMIT, that the deals help Cost Plus moves toward its ambitious, disruptive goals. -
Payers May Balk at Newly Approved ALS Drug’s $158K Price
The FDA on Sept. 29 approved Relyvrio (sodium phenylbutyrate/taurusodiol), making it only the third medication to treat patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). While ALS advocates and some clinicians applauded the agency’s decision, other providers have questioned the drug’s effectiveness, and some experts believe the drug is not cost-effective with its approximately $158,000 annual wholesale acquisition cost (WAC).
For instance, the nonprofit Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) found that Relyvrio, which was formerly known as AMX0035, would be cost-effective if it was priced at between $9,100 and $30,600 per year. And Bruce Booth, a former scientist who’s now a partner at the Atlas Venture biotechnology venture capital firm, wrote on Twitter that the $158,000 price for Relyvrio was “even more egregious than I thought!”
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New Bill Takes Aim at CMS’s National Coverage Determination Powers
The FDA’s controversial accelerated approval of Biogen Inc.’s Aduhelm (aducanumab) has yielded new fallout, as members of the U.S. House of Representatives have introduced a bill seeking to unwind CMS’s national coverage determination that limited access to the Alzheimer’s treatment — and prevent CMS from issuing restrictive NCD decisions on future drugs.
D.C. insiders tell AIS Health, a division of MMIT, that the bipartisan bill’s fate will likely depend on the outcome of the upcoming midterm elections. They add that the NCD bill represents a renewed effort by the pharmaceutical industry to flex its lobbying muscle after it faced an unprecedented defeat with the passage of Medicare drug price negotiation as part of the Inflation Reduction Act.
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Number of Highly Rated PDP Contracts Shrinks in 2023
Only 9% of Medicare beneficiaries who sign up for a stand-alone Prescription Drug Plan (PDP) in 2023 will be in contracts rated 4 stars or higher, compared to 42% in the 2022 plan year, CMS recently estimated based on current enrollment figures. The average star rating for stand-alone PDP plans declined to 3.25 in 2023 from 3.70 in 2022, with only two PDP contracts receiving a 5-star rating. The change in distribution is largely due to adjustments in measure scores, and “the unusual circumstance of nearly all contracts qualifying for the regulatory adjustment for extreme and uncontrollable circumstances” driven by the pandemic, which led to higher than normal 2022 Star Ratings distributions, CMS explained in a fact sheet accompanying the release of the 2023 Star Ratings. -
News Briefs: CMS to Hire “Small Army” of Drug Pricing Staff
After Michelle McMurray-Heath, M.D., resigned from her position as president and CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, the major industry trade group said on Oct. 11 that Rachel King, co-founder and former CEO of GlycoMimetics, Inc., agreed to serve in those roles on an interim basis while BIO searches for a permanent successor. Before her departure, McMurray-Heath was on leave following disagreements with some board members over whether BIO should engage on social issues not directly connected to health care policy, which the molecular immunologist opposed, The Wall Street Journal reported. Her exit also comes in the wake of Congress’ passage of major drug pricing reforms as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, representing a rare defeat for the powerful pharma lobby.
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