Drug Prices, Biosimilars, Gene Therapies Will Be 2020 Trends
As far as overall industry themes expected in 2020, drug pricing will remain a hot topic. Following a year in which FDA approvals of biosimilars hit double digits for the first time with 10, it’s not much of a sur...
Pipeline Boasts First-in-Class Entries, Drugs in Crowded Areas
More and more of the pharma pipeline consists of specialty drugs. Going forward in 2020, areas that may see a lot of activity include biosimilars, orphan drugs and gene therapies, as well as potentially the first FD...
Multiple Myeloma, Multiple Sclerosis, Breast Cancer Drugs Are Among Those Going Off Patent in 2020
AIS Health asked various industry experts about what specialty drugs are expected to see patent expiration — and potentially generic or biosimilar competition — in 2020. Here’s what Martin Burruano, R.Ph., vic...
CLL Has Many Effective Drugs, And Costs Are Expected to Rise
Among the different forms of leukemia, chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is one of the most common in adults. The FDA has approved multiple treatments for the condition, making it a potential target of value-based ...
Many Payers Will Parity Prefer Xtandi, Chemotherapy in mHSPC
In December, the FDA gave another indication to Pfizer Inc. and Astellas Pharma Inc.’s Xtandi (enzalutamide) for the treatment of men with metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer. Many commercial payers ha...
As Step Therapy Use Grows, Opinions Vary on Its Usefulness
Step therapy has long been a go-to utilization management strategy for payers, as it is often applied to specialty drugs. But as more and more costly medications come onto the market, the practice has become near...
New FDA Specialty Approvals
✦ Jan. 8: The FDA expanded the label of Keytruda (pembrolizumab) to include the treatment of people with bacillus Calmette-Guérin-unresponsive, high-risk, non-muscle invasive bladder cancer with carcinoma in situ...
News Briefs
✦ Pfizer Inc. unveiled its launch strategy for three biosimilars. Zirabev (bevacizumab-bvzr) launched Dec. 31 at a wholesale acquisition cost (WAC) of $61.343 per 10 mg, a 23% discount to that of reference drug Av...
Diplomat and BioScrip Deals Illustrate Changing Industries
As independent specialty pharmacies and infusion providers continue to be squeezed by various market pressures, 2019 saw an end to two long-time industry presences. In August, BioScrip, Inc. and Option Care Enterpri...
Multiple Oncology Biosimilars Could Prompt Preferencing
An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Neupogen (filgrastim) and Neulasta (pegfilgrastim) are Pfizer Inc. treatments. They are Amgen Inc. products. This version has been corrected. So far, biosim...
