Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
From Cahan, Kocher, and Bohn in the Health Affairs blog: Since passage of the 2010 “Biosimilars” Act aimed at stimulating non-inferior innovation and competition in therapeutics markets, only 17 agents have been approved, and only seven have made it to market. Why haven’t biosimilars been more attractive? Blackstone et al. (2013) cites 3 key issues:…
While at the national level, there has been much press about President Trump’s aim of compelling pharmaceutical companies to disclose prices on TV ads (since blocked in the Judiciary), at the state level changes are also afoot. A number of states are making moves to compel pharmaceutical companies to disclose drug prices. Others are compelling…
Consider the case of two drugs, Drug A and Drug B. Both drugs treat patients with the same disease. Further, assume they are close substitutes. When Drug A loses it’s patent and generics can enter the market, one would expect Drug A’s market share (brand + generic) to rise. In fact, Drug A’s market share…
A number of politicians have called for the ability to import drugs from Canada and other developed countries. For instance, Bernie Sanders said: “I believe we should be able to import into the United States from Canada, and from other countries, FDA-approved medicine, which would substantially lower prices.” However, Canada does not want the U.S.…
Many European countries use external reference pricing (ERP) to help set their drug prices. External reference pricing caps the prices of drugs at some average or weighted average of the drug price in other countries. The comparison countries typically are either in close proximity or of similar GDP/capita level. The advantage of reference pricing is…
In many cases, the answer is ‘no’. At least that is the findings from a paper by Ryan and Sood (2019). As reported in FiercePharma: Sood and Ryan reviewed 166 drug pricing laws passed between 2015 and 2018 and found that 35 bills in 22 states included transparency mandates. Only seven of the laws were…
FDA faces an near existential crisis: digital. New digital technologies have the capability to improve the way care is delivered to patients. The question is, how do we make sure it is safe? The FDA is certainly good at making sure drugs and devices are safe; in the case of digital however, it is less…
Clinical trials are the hallmark of the drug development process. In most cases, life sciences firms are required to conduct randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to examine their treatment’s safety and efficacy relative to standard of care. While RCTs do a great job at measuring causal inference, there as a number of limitations. First of all,…
Not surprisingly, the answer is yes, but not by as much as one might guess. In part due to a measles outbreak at Disneyland, California outlawed non-medical exemptions for vaccinations. An NBER working paper by Richwine et al. (2019) provides background on the situation in California prior to enacting the ban. Prior to the policy…
That is the title of my recent piece in STAT News. Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration announced the creation of Project Facilitate. This pilot program facilitates access to innovative treatments for cancer that have not yet been approved by individuals who aren’t able to enroll in clinical trials. This move suggests that the…