News Briefs
✦ The Association for Accessible Medicines (AAM) filed an amicus brief May 13 in support of the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009 (BPCIA) remaining law if the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is inva...
Groups Call on CMS to Modify Medicare Home Infusion Benefit
As people are urged to stay home during the COVID-19 pandemic, CMS has been relaxing a series of health care service policies in support of this need. But one change it hasn’t made is to allow home infusion to be ...
Amid COVID-Spurred Shifts in Home Infusion, Model May Morph
With numerous hospitals focused on the COVID-19 pandemic and many areas under stay-at-home mandates, home infusion is more important than ever. Changes within the industry already have been seen, and the current sit...
Biosimilars May Be Impacting Payers’ Medical Benefit Spend
Over the past decade, commercial per-member per-month (PMPM) drug spend under the medical benefit has almost doubled, according to Magellan Rx Management, a division of Magellan Health, Inc. The company just rele...
Some Payers Say They May Allow Off-Label Use of Jelmyto
On April 15, the FDA approved the first drug for patients with low-grade upper tract urothelial cancer, UroGen Pharma Ltd.’s Jelmyto (mitomycin). It offers patients a nonsurgical option for a condition that often ...
Prime Studies Show High Costs Among Asthma, HAE Biologics
Prime Therapeutics LLC recently released the results of two studies focused on two classes of high-cost biologics, asthma and hereditary angioedema (HAE). Both conditions have seen new therapies recently and may be ...
SDMC Pharmacist, Integrated Data Can Produce Savings
High cost is only one characteristic of specialty drugs that makes managing them so important. They fall under both the pharmacy and medical benefits, they have complicated treatment regimens, and they have fraud, w...
New FDA Specialty Approvals
✦ April 8: The FDA granted an additional approval to Pfizer Inc. subsidiary Array BioPharma Inc.’s Braftovi (encorafenib) in combination with Lilly USA, LLC’s Erbitux (cetuximab) for the treatment of adults wi...
News Briefs
✦ Ontruzant (trastuzumab-dttb) launched on April 15. Merck & Co., Inc. will commercialize the Herceptin (trastuzumab) biosimilar in the U.S. per a deal with Samsung Bioepis Co., Ltd. Ontruzant is available in ...
Specialty Pharmacies Have Many Roles to Play During Outbreak
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues its assault on the globe and the U.S. passes 12,000 deaths from it, all eyes are on the health care industry. While the public looks to pharma manufacturers for potential treatment...
