Bionest

One-and-Done Pricing Challenges

As more gene and cell therapies come to market, a big challenge facing both drug developers and payers is designing and instituting appropriate pricing models for these one-time, potentially curative treatments. Innovation should be rewarded, and a curative — or at least, very long-lasting — treatment is likely to save significant dollars in the typical...

Bionest

Drug Pricing: A Key Political Issue for 2019?

Drug pricing is clearly going to be one of the major topics of discussion — and a key political issue — in 2019. Drug makers began the New Year with price increases in the United States on more than 250 prescription drugs. In response, House Democrats, led by the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee,...

Bionest

Happy New Year — Some Thoughts on the Year to Come

Welcome to 2019. We hope you enjoyed the holidays and look forward to meeting and greeting many of you next week in San Francisco for Biotech Week. Several members of the Bionest team will be in attendance, and if you’d like to get together, we look forward to hearing from you.   Last year, we...

Bionest

A Crowded Field for Migraine Therapies, Where Recently There Were None

Back in March, when we first wrote about migraine drug development, there were no approved therapies addressing the underlying mechanisms of these painful, sometimes chronic, headaches — the most prevalent neurological disorder worldwide. Now, three such drugs have reached the market.   The three drugs — Aimovig (erenumab) from Amgen/Novartis, Ajovy (fremanezumab) from Teva Pharmaceuticals,...

Bionest

First RNAi Drug Hits the Market — At a Very High Price

On August 13, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Alnylam’s Onpattro (patisiran), rapidly followed by that product’s approval in Europe three weeks later.  Onpattro, which we previously wrote about, is the first RNAi-based treatment to reach the marketplace. It is intended to treat peripheral nerve disease caused by a rare genetic condition called...

Bionest

The Growing Influence of ICER

We have previously written about the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER), the independent watchdog whose mission is to offer an objective evaluation of the clinical and economic value of prescription drugs, medical tests, and other healthcare innovations.   Many European nations have governmental or quasi-governmental agencies, like the United Kingdom’s NICE (the National...

Bionest

U.S. Drug Spending: Where the Money Goes

Two recently published analyses are providing a more in-depth picture of prescription drug spending in the United States. Such evaluations illustrate the complexities facing policy makers and regulators seeking to help reduce patient and payer drug costs. In addition, they point to somewhat hidden issues regarding the pricing and reimbursement of generic drugs that can...