Patent exclusivity and biosimilars: what’s a reasonable compromise?

The biotech industry, through the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), has been arguing in favor of a 12-year exclusivity period for new biological agents from the initial date of approval.

Hyperbole, hysteria, and health care reform

The idea that we might all try to cooperate and collaborate in the interests of developing a new and better health care system that serves the needs of all Americans appears to be vanishing rapidly out of the windows of buildings in Washington. Perhaps the best we can now hope is that the pragmatism for which President Obama is frequently lauded will manage to win out over some of the hyperbolic pontificating so commonly indulged in by the talking heads who love to hear themselves speak.

A sad case all around …

I need to state a theoretical conflict of interests up front. I am a member of the Board of Directors of the International Myeloma Foundation. So, having said that …

Fred Baron, a well known Texas-based lawyer and the former finance chairman of John Edwards’s presidential campaign, has progressive multiple myeloma. I am not aware of the details of his case, but I have to assume that he has failed most forms of standard therapy currently on the market. On his behalf, his family had sought permission from Biogen Idec (the manufacturer) for him to be treated with the drug Tysabri (natalizumab).

Grasping the health care cost nettle

So between Bernadine Healy’s recent article in U.S. News and World Report (“Is healthcare Armageddon next?”) and Bob Ehrlich’s response to that article (“The health bubble“) in DTC Perspectives, could it be possible that we are finally deciding to grasp the viscious health care cost nettle that is set to sting us all if we continue to do nothing?

Is UK’s NHS offering a “new model” for pharmaceutical pricing?

A report from London in today’s Daily Telegraph suggests that:

The Government is urging pharmaceutical companies to lower their initial prices for new drugs, with the promise that the [National Health Service] will pay more for them if evidence proves greater effectiveness.

I’d have more to say but I can’t stop laughing

So you’ll be glad to know it’s not just the health care and the pharmaceutical industries that have some fundamental problems with their communication issues and how these lead to a lousy public image ….

Relative reputation: a comparative view of the healthcare industry

Every year at about this time (since the late 1990s), Harris Interactive conducts a poll in which they ask consumers whether they think specific industries are doing a good job (or not). The results of the 2008 poll were just published.

Sharing in a glass half full

An insightful article by Robert Goldberg of the Centers for Medicine in the Public Interest, entitled “The future of drug development,” appeared today on the FiercePharma web site.

NICE … or not so nice? The economics of perception.

Yesterday the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) concluded that £35,000 a year (about US$70,000) for new drugs that have been proven to have efficacy in the management of advanced renal cell carcinoma (kidney cancer) is more than the National Health Service (NHS) can afford.

What’s really driving the Roche bid for Genentech?

Roche’s current business arrangements with Genentech give Roche all non-US marketing and development rights to Genentech’s product line through 2015. While that may seem a long way off to some people, Genentech apparently has as many as 100 products in it’s current development pipeline, and as these products move into clinical trials, the ability to project and capitalize on their revenue potential will be crucial to Genentech and to Roche.

Will downturn in scripts drive home the message?

IMS Health data for the first quarter of 2008 in the US apparently suggest that:

• the number of scripts dispensed is growing at its slowest rate in at least a decade
• the rate of prescription growth has fallen steadily since early 2007
• the number of scripts dispensed may actually have fallen in 2Q08

Talking to national payers

Now this looks like a bright idea! Let’s actually talk to the ultimate payers and give them some idea what we’re thinking of moving through the development pipeline so that the payers can tell us up front what they might be prepared to pay for.

Reputation, expectation, and social stature

Well, the good news is that the pharmaceutical industry’s reputation appears to be better than President Bush’s. What’s the bad news? Its “job approval rating” is only slightly better than the President’s!

Drugmakers “not believable?” Why would anyone be surprised?

When you have a clear conflict of interests, you have to work 20 times as hard if you want to be believable! But rather than seeking transparency and fostering trust, all too many pharmaceutical companies have continued to conduct “business as usual.”

A European Commission study has now found that healthcare professionals and payers are “mostly suspicious” of drugmakers as sources of information about drugs. Nearly half of the responders said pharma has too many conflicts of interest to be appropriate sources of general information on medications. This can’t really be a surprise … can it?

“Differential pricing” in emerging markets: Part II

Apparently someone in the major media has finally picked up on the strategic initiatives evolving at at least a couple of the major pharmaceutical companies to use differential pricing strategies and focused marketing teams to penetrate the emerging pharmaceutical markets from China, India, and Indonesia to Columbia, Panama, and Brazil. We first blogged about this back in March this year.

An article in this week’s Economist provides some different perpsective on this issue, and identifies GSK and Novartis as potential leading players in this field. However, there is clearly both interest and skepticism out there. To what extent the skepticism is driven by self-interest on the part of local companies that feel threatened by such initiatives is something that should be considered.