According to our recent payer coverage analysis for tardive dyskinesia treatments, combined with news from key healthcare influencers, market access is shifting in this drug landscape.

To help make sense of this new research, MMIT's team of experts analyzes the data and summarizes the key findings for you. The following are brief highlights. To read the full piece, including payer coverage, drug competition and prescriber trends, click here.

Topics: Specialty, Market Access, Payer, Branding & Marketing

The FDA’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy initiative — under which the agency requires pharmacy manufacturers to develop a REMS program for certain therapies in order to manage risks while still allowing people to have access to it — may present challenges to many stakeholders. But manufacturers in particular may use REMS to their advantage, AIS Health reported.

 

According to Glenn Carroll, principal at Deloitte, one of the top challenges that manufacturers may grapple with is the "increasing complexity of developing and administering" REMS. He says, "many of the REMS being developed today are more rigorous to implement than what we’ve seen in the past."

 

Topics: Specialty, Industry Trends, Provider, Payer

For years, clinicians have mostly prescribed generic prescription drugs to treat migraines. But a new class of relatively high-cost specialty biologic products is threatening to upend payers' calm, AIS Health reported.

 

Current migraines treatments supported by clinical evidence "include beta blockers, tri-cyclic anti-depressants and some seizure medications," according to Mesfin Tegenu, R.Ph., president of PerformRx, LLC. The situation changed in mid-May, when Amgen, Inc and Novartis AG's Aimovig got the regulatory greenlight in the U.S., and two more calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) inhibitors — Teva Pharmaceuticals' fremanezumab and Eli Lilly and Co.'s galcanezumab — are under FDA review, says an Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) report on migraine treatments.

 

Topics: Specialty, Industry Trends, Market Access, Payer

According to our recent payer coverage analysis for Crohn's disease treatments, combined with news from key healthcare influencers, market access is shifting in this drug landscape.

To help make sense of this new research, MMIT's team of experts analyzes the data and summarizes the key findings for you. The following are brief highlights. To read the full piece, including payer coverage, drug competition and prescriber trends, click here.

Topics: Specialty, Market Access, Payer, Branding & Marketing

The Trump administration has touted competition as one way to bring down drug prices. With this goal in mind, the FDA recently released a pair of draft guidance documents aimed at helping generics get onto the market sooner while still upholding the focus on safety, AIS Health reported. 

One of the documents, titled Development of a Shared System Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) (83 Fed. Reg. 25468, June 1, 2018), offers recommendations for developing a shared system REMS for multiple drug products. 

Topics: Specialty, Industry Trends, Payer

Earlier this year, Intermountain Healthcare teamed up with other health systems to start building a not-for-profit generic drug manufacturing business, with a goal to create "what we think…[is] a first-of-its-kind societal asset," said Dan Liljenquist, vice president of Intermountain Healthcare's Enterprise Initiative Office.

 

"Essentially, we're going to set this up where the governing members of this organization are going to act more like public service commissioners and build a public-utility-type model for the manufacturing and distribution of essential generic medications," he said.

 

Topics: Specialty, Industry Trends, Data & Analytics, Payer

Amazon recently unveiled its plan to purchase PillPack — a tech-enabled startup that offers pre-sorted dose packaging and home delivery of prescription drugs for those taking multiple medications — yet industry analysts do not appear convinced that the acquisition will have a significant effect on PBMs or health insurers, at least not in the short term, AIS Health reported.

 

Credit Suisse's A.J. Rice wrote in a research note, "We do not expect any material impact on our financial expectations for the MCOs we cover and thus we make no change to our estimates or ratings." 

 

Topics: Industry Trends, Market Access, Provider, Payer, Branding & Marketing

While tumor testing occurs following an oncology diagnosis, that may not be the only time testing for a mutation is needed. For example, within epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutant non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), many patients will develop another mutation, T790M, that can lead to treatment resistance and disease progression. Avella Specialty Pharmacy has an initiative, known as "Know Your Next Steps," designed to educate people about the importance of the test and the fact that there is a therapy available to treat this certain subsection of patients, AIS Health reported.

Topics: Specialty, Industry Trends, Payer

Although multiple myeloma is a relatively rare cancer, numerous therapies to treat it are available, AIS Health reported. Because of these products' efficacy, they have made the disease manageable — and, as a result, costly.

 

"The mainstays of treatment for multiple myeloma are considered specialty medications and therefore placed into a specialty tier," says Raechele McMahan, vice president and general manager, enterprise specialty pharmacy at Prime Therapeutics. "The therapies are also subject to utilization management, which primarily consists of prior approval."

 

Topics: Specialty, Industry Trends, Market Access, Payer

According to our recent payer coverage analysis for epilepsy treatments, combined with news from key healthcare influencers, market access is shifting in this drug landscape.

To help make sense of this new research, MMIT's team of experts analyzes the data and summarizes the key findings for you. The following are brief highlights. To read the full piece, including payer coverage, drug competition and prescriber trends, click here.

Topics: Specialty, Market Access, Payer, Branding & Marketing