According to our recent payer coverage analysis for hemophilia 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: Market Access, Branding & Marketing, Specialty, Payer

CMS on Nov. 26, 2018 issued a proposed rule making changes to the Medicare Advantage and Part D programs that would take effect in 2020. Key provisions in CMS’s latest drug pricing rule include a proposal to extend new flexibility to plan sponsors in the area of so-called six "protected" drug classes and the required implementation of a new electronic real-time benefit tool (RTBT), AIS Health reported.

Under CMS's Contract Year 2020 Medicare Advantage and Part D Drug Pricing Proposed Rule, plans would be able to: 

Topics: Industry Trends, Provider, Payer

As they look to win over employer clients this year, PBMs should be prepared to face stiff competition and embrace emerging trends such as value-based formularies and rebate-free models, benefits consultants tell AIS Health.

"I've heard more interest about RFPs and going out, looking for or market-checking vendors than I have in a while — particularly on the PBM side," says Suzanne Taranto, a principal and consulting actuary for Milliman, Inc.

Topics: Industry Trends, Payer, Provider

According to our recent payer coverage analysis for PCSK9 inhibitors, 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: Market Access, Branding & Marketing, Specialty, Payer

The Orphan Drug Act (ODA) offers multiple incentives to manufacturers that bring a drug to market with an orphan designation. A recently released U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report revealed that while the number of applications both received and granted for this designation has grown, FDA reviewers were not consistently recording or evaluating required information that is mandated to consider granting this designation, AIS Health reported.

The report, titled Orphan Drugs: FDA Could Improve Designation Review Consistency; Rare Disease Drug Development Challenges Continue (GAO-19-83), shows that from 2008 to 2017, both orphan designation applications received as well as orphan designations granted rose.

 

Topics: Payer, Specialty, Market Access, Product Release

A new report concludes that if Vermont undertakes wholesale importation of prescription drugs from Canada, such a program could achieve cost savings for the state's commercial payers. But achieving benefits requires an emphasis on program mechanics, and Vermont's own effort is far from a done deal — with the state's largest health insurer pointing out that administrative costs and hurdles, which may be significant, are not quantified in this feasibility study, AIS Health reported.

The state's 14-page report on the preliminary design of the "Canadian Rx Drug Import Supply Program," written with the National Academy for State Health Policy’s (NASHP) technical assistance, estimates savings of $1 million to $5 million annually, based on just 17 high-spend drugs identified for two of the state’s three major carriers.

 

Topics: Payer, Specialty, Data & Analytics

As 2019 gets under way, public outrage over high prescription drug prices does not appear to have abated, especially in light of recent news reports indicating manufacturers are raising prices on hundreds of drugs this month, AIS Health reported.

Yet there are plenty of reasons why this concern over drug prices might not result in any significant legislative or regulatory action, experts tell AIS Health. And whatever does occur might benefit health plans and PBMs more than challenge them.

Topics: Industry Trends, Payer, Specialty, Provider

According to our recent payer coverage analysis for multiple sclerosis 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: Market Access, Branding & Marketing, Specialty, Payer

In November 2018, reports emerged that retail pharmacy giant and health insurer— Walgreen Co. and Humana Inc. — are in preliminary talks to take equity stakes in each other.

Walgreens and Humana are already collaborating on a pilot project in which the insurer opened senior- focused primary care clinics in two Walgreens stores in the Kansas City, Mo., region. Now the companies are in “wide-ranging” talks about either expanding that venture or taking stakes in each other, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Topics: Industry Trends, Payer, Provider

A small study suggests it might be possible to shorten the length of expensive drug treatment for chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV), potentially cutting treatment time in half for 50% of patients. But managed care pharmacy clinicians say the results are far from ready to implement widely, and it’s possible the new approach might not even save money, AIS Health reported.

The study, conducted at Loyola University Chicago and three medical centers in Israel, involved only 22 patients. It used a technique called modeling-based response-guided therapy, which estimated how long it would take to completely eliminate the hepatitis C virus.

 

Topics: Payer, Specialty, Product Release, Data & Analytics