Shingrix Uptake May Be Slowed By Part D Cost Sharing With Chart: Current Market Access to Shingrix
Since GlaxoSmithKline plc’s Shingrix (zoster vaccine recombinant, adjuvanted) launched in early 2018, a steady number of adults ages 50 and older have been getting the shingles vaccine. But a confusing patchwork o...
News Briefs
✦ The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on Aug. 7 sided with a PBM trade group in a legal challenge to a 2017 North Dakota law that regulates such firms. In Pharmaceutical Care Management Association v....
Pandemic Complicates, Doesn’t Stop Push to Lower Drug Costs
With a presidential election looming and the COVID-19 pandemic still raging, it might stand to reason that drug pricing reform efforts would be on the backburner. However, there are indications that policymakers rem...
Payers, Manufacturers Await Federal Vaccine Rollout Plan With Chart: How Close Are We to a Coronavirus Vaccine?
As the many COVID-19 vaccines under development barrel toward clinical trials for safety and efficacy (see infographic,below), questions remain about how they will be distributed when they become available. Payers a...
Care Deferral Dings OptumRx 2Q Earnings, Big RFP Wins
Although the steep decline in health care utilization tied to COVID-19 lockdowns proved to be an overall boon for UnitedHealth Group during the second quarter of 2020, that was not the case for the company’s PBM s...
Prime Signed Value-Based Deal With EMD Serono for Mavenclad
Prime Therapeutics LLC recently unveiled that it had signed a value-based agreement for a relatively new multiple sclerosis (MS) drug with a complicated treatment regimen and high price tag.
In early June, the PB...
News Briefs
✦ Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina is offering certain customers up to a 33% discount on their copays for 90-day orders of maintenance medications. The policy, which became effective July 15, applies t...
DOJ, Drugmakers Renew Disputes Over Charitable Foundations
Two lawsuits — one against federal health regulators by a drugmaker and the other against a drugmaker by the Dept. of Justice — represent the latest salvos in the dispute over whether and how drug company-suppor...
IngenioRx Buys ZipDrug in Bid to Boost Adherence, Convenience
In what one expert calls a “logical” move for a PBM vying for business from cost-conscious payers, Anthem, Inc.’s IngenioRx said on July 6 that it acquired ZipDrug, a company that focuses on improving patients...
Scant Details, Comment Period for VBP Proposal Draw Concern
A new proposed rule (85 Fed. Reg. 37286, June 19, 2020), which CMS touted as a way to tweak Medicaid’s best-price provision to encourage more value-based purchasing (VBP) for expensive drugs, has drawn considerabl...