U.S. Opioid Prescriptions Are Declining
Over the past decade, the federal government, state
governments, medical societies, health systems and insurers
have issued clinical guidelines and policies designed to
reduce opioid prescribing. Higher doses, longer days supply,
and long-acting prescription opioid formulations are
associated with increased risk of long-term opioid use and
overdose.
Plos One, August 10, 2022
Senate’s Medicare drug pricing may ripple into
private marketCongress is on the verge of
passing historic drug pricing legislation that would allow
the government to restrict prices for drugs covered by
Medicare, but experts disagree on whether drugmakers will
shift those costs to the private market. The reconciliation
package the Senate passed Sunday includes drug pricing
provisions that Democrats have been pushing for decades,
including a framework for Medicare to negotiate prices
directly with manufacturers, limit price increases to
inflation and cap out-of-pocket drug costs for consumers.
Roll Call, August 10, 2022
How companies are shaking up how we pay for old
drugsStarting today, prostate cancer
patients taking a prescription drug called abiraterone will
pay what could be thousands of dollars less a month for a
generic version from a company called CivicaScript. Why it
matters: It's the first drug to be manufactured and sold by
CivicaScript — a subsidiary of the hospital-owned nonprofit
Civica Rx that's trying to reshape the economics of drug
development.
Axios, August 3, 2022
Newly launched U.S. drugs head toward record-high
prices in 2022Drugmakers are launching new
medicines at record-high prices this year, a Reuters
analysis has found, highlighting their pricing power even as
Congress moves to cut the $500 billion-plus annual bill for
prescription drugs in the United States. At the same time,
some pharmaceutical manufacturers are disclosing less
information about the pricing of those treatments, which
have come under greater scrutiny in recent years, Reuters
found.
Reuters, August 16, 2022
The coming public-private drug pricing divide
Democrats are on the cusp of their most significant health
policy victory since passage of the Affordable Care Act, but
the legislative wrangling it took to get here came at a
steep cost: The prescription drug pricing reforms included
in the health, tax and climate package are limited to
Medicare and exclude the millions of Americans with private
insurance.
Axios, August 15, 2022
Mount Sinai Announces the Formation of CastleVax
Inc.The Mount Sinai Health System in New
York, NY, has launched CastleVax, Inc. (“CastleVax”), a
clinical-stage vaccine research and development company.
CastleVax is devoted to the commercial development of the
Newcastle disease virus (NDV) vaccine platform technology
originally developed in the laboratories of Peter Palese,
PhD; Adolfo García-Sastre, PhD; and Florian Krammer, PhD, at
the Icahn School of Medicine at
Mount Sinai.
Mount Sinai Press Release, August 9, 2022
Innovations at Retail Pharmacies AccelerateWith more than 258.1
million total doses of the COVID-19 vaccine1 and an
estimated 40 million flu vaccinations seasonally dispensed
at retail pharmacies, U.S. consumers have grown accustomed
to—and very comfortable with—the idea of receiving health
services at their local pharmacies. According to the J.D.
Power 2022 U.S. Pharmacy Study, the evolution toward health
and wellness services—in addition to medication
management—may be the key to the future of the retail
pharmacy industry as it contends with growing threats from
online retailers.
Business Wire, July 28, 2022
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