The specialty pharmacy and infusion therapy spaces have certainly seen their share of merger and acquisition (M&A) activity over the years. Some challenges within those industries may have helped slow down 2018 activity a bit, observes Reg Blackburn, managing director at The Braff Group. And for 2019, we may see more of the same, AIS Health reported.

As far as specialty pharmacy trends in 2018, Blackburn points out that "the largest specialty pharmacies continue to get even larger. Payer- and chain-owned dominate. Most new entity growth is coming from large academic hospitals starting their own specialty pharmacies."

 

Topics: Specialty, Industry Trends, Product Release, Data & Analytics

With the FDA approving multiple novel new therapies over the past couple of years, we should expect to see more of the same moving forward. But that innovation is not cheap, and the pharmaceutical industry likely will continue to offer products at higher price points than ever before, AIS Health reported.

As payers struggle to rein in high specialty drug prices, many have turned to copay accumulator programs, and this trend shows no signs of slowing. "There was an increased focus on copay accumulator programs in 2018," comments Amy Nash, Pharm.D., president of RelianceRx, the specialty pharmacy affiliate of Independent Health. She tells AIS Health she expects to see "further refinement of copay accumulator programs from payers and additional strategies from pharma to prevent them."

 

Topics: Specialty, Industry Trends, Product Release, Provider, Payer

According to our recent payer coverage analysis for type 2 diabetes 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

Biosimilars are one way that payers had hoped to bring down spending on pharmaceuticals, but as of yet, these products have had little impact in the United States. As of mid-January, the FDA had approved 17 biosimilars, but only a handful actually are available in the U.S. However, the products may pick up more traction in 2019, with some significant ones potentially coming to market, AIS Health reported.

According to Lynn Nishida, R.Ph., vice president of clinical product at WithMe Health, "More biosimilars are in the pipeline, but, sadly, expect continued issues of patent litigations that delay marketing of biosimilars soon after their approval or force biosimilar manufacturers to consider launching products at risk" before a lawsuit has been settled, potentially setting themselves up to be responsible for paying damages if they lose the case.

 

Topics: Specialty, Product Release

According to our recent payer coverage analysis for neutropenia 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 specialty pharmacy and infusion therapy spaces have certainly seen their share of merger and acquisition (M&A) activity over the years. Some challenges within those industries may have helped slow down 2018 activity a bit, observes Reg Blackburn, managing director at The Braff Group. And for 2019, we may see more of the same, AIS Health reported.

As far as specialty pharmacy trends in 2018, Blackburn points out that "the largest specialty pharmacies continue to get even larger. Payer- and chain-owned dominate. Most new entity growth is coming from large academic hospitals starting their own specialty pharmacies."

 

Topics: Specialty, Industry Trends, Data & Analytics

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: Specialty, Market Access, Payer, Branding & Marketing

Blockbuster pharmaceuticals scheduled for launch in 2019 are expected to have a significant impact in treating certain cancers, spinal muscular atrophy, inflammatory conditions and some mental illnesses, according to Express Scripts Holding Co. With specialty medications managed through the pharmacy benefit now accounting for 41% of health plans' total pharmacy spend, the PBM asserts it is crucial for plans to understand the product pipeline and create strategies to manage new, costly drug therapies, AIS Health reported.

On the new drug front, Prime Therapeutics, in its December 2018 monthly update on the specialty pipeline, cites an annual wholesale acquisition cost (WAC) of $203,100 for Pfizer’s Daurismo (glasdegib), an oral drug approved by the FDA in combination with intravenous low-dose cytarabine to treat newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia in elderly and certain other adult patients. The Blues-affiliated PBM also points out that Loxo Oncology's Vitrakvi (larotrectinib), approved by the FDA to treat adult and pediatric patients with certain solid tumors, has an average annual WAC for an adult patient of $393,600.

 

Topics: Specialty, Product Release

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: Specialty, Market Access, Payer, Branding & Marketing

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: Specialty, Market Access, Product Release, Payer