The Pluses, Minuses of Drugmakers' Discount Cards

While discount cards can assist patients in covering out-of-pocket expenses, their use by drug manufacturers to steer users to more expensive drugs ultimately drives up costs in the healthcare system. Many coupons and discount cards are targeted at expensive brand name medications; while they allow the patient to afford their established copay, the insurer is paying the balances of a significantly more expensive drug than the generic or preferred brand – oftentimes, leading to higher premiums the following years. Further, these discounts are usually limited to a certain number of fills or restricted timeline and cannot be used by patients in federal health plans.

Read Drug Discovery & Development's article on it here.

Fearing Zika, FDA Asks Two Florida Counties to Halt Blood Donations

After travel and sexual transmissions were ruled out for four Zika cases in Florida counties of Miami-Dade and Broward, fears of infected mosquitos in the United States are mounting. Because the virus does not present symptoms in many cases, it is possible that more people are infected – and may have donated blood after being bitten. The FDA has issued a warning that blood collections in the counties should not resume until they are able to properly test the blood and screen donors; they also recommend that neighboring and other at-risk counties consider taking the same actions.

Read NPR's article on it here.

Pfizer to Buy Allergan in $160 Billion Deal

Pfizer’s announcement that it will buy Allergen (the producer of Botox) will shift the manufacturer’s headquarters to Ireland and help reduce their incurred domestic taxes by an estimated 8%. The deal will make Pfizer the largest company in the industry, as well as mark the largest instance of an international acquisition to lower a U.S.-based company’s taxes – and has earned direct criticism from President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump. Both companies saw a drop in their stock prices after the announcement.

Read Reuter's article on it here.

Protein Sciences Reports Flublok Vaccine Now Available Nationwide

Flublok will now be available for walk-in vaccinations at Target, Mariano’s, Roundy’s, and Brookshire’s nationwide; with the suggestion that patients call ahead to confirm availability at other pharmacies. Flublok is the only vaccine on the market that is free of formaldehyde, antibiotics, gluten, gelatin, egg protein, latex, thimerosal and other preservatives. Further, Flublok resulted in nearly 50% fewer influenza cases in older adults than an alternative egg-based influenza vaccine.

For more information, read the full news release here: www.drugstorenews.com.

DrugGoes From $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight (www.nytimes.com)

Daraprim, a 62-year-old drug used to treat the life-threatening parasitic infection, toxoplasmosis, experienced a dramatic price hike after being acquired by the start up Turing Pharmaceuticals, run by former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli. While Shkreli maintains that the cost hike will fund new research in treating toxoplasmosis and is now in line with the costs associated with treatment for other rare disease, physicians and members are not pushing for drug reformulation as the associated side effects of Daraprim can be easily managed. The price increase is in line with Shkreli’s developing reputation for questionable profit acquisition in the drug arena: in 2011, he started another company whose primary focus was acquiring old drugs and increasing their prices; prior to that, he worked to stall drug approvals made by companies whose stock he was short selling.

Shkreli is not alone in the business of, seemingly, questionable drug price hikes: this year alone, Cycloserine, a tuberculosis drug, and Isuprel and Nitropress, both heart drugs, experienced dramatic price increases after they were acquired by other drug companies. Even Daraprim’s price increased from $1 a tablet to $13.50 after it as acquired by CorePharma, prior to Turing’s acquisition this year.

Reuters.com: Kmart Pays $1.4 Million to Settle U.S. Charges Over Medicare Inducements

Kmart is accused of allowing Medicare beneficiaries to use manufacturer coupons to reduce pay and provide access to expensive brand medications instead of the preferred generic options, as well as offering gasoline discounts based on prescription volume. The practices violate the False Claims Act, which prohibits offering Medicare users benefits to influence pharmacy utilization, forcing the company to pay $1.4 million to the government to settle the suit.

Merck & Co. is entering the Hepatitis C market by targeting hard-to-treat and advanced stage patients; this approach opens up a new market space for the drug manufacturer instead of competing with Gilead Science’s Harvoni and/or Sovaldi or AbbVie Inc.’s Viekira Pak for patients in earlier stages of the disease. The advantage of Merck’s treatment beyond those currently available is its tolerance by patients with ‘substantial renal insufficiency,’ an important feature, as a large portion of patients on dialysis are Hep-C infected and no other treatment for this population exists today. Gilead is currently testing its drugs on patients with severe renal insufficiency, but is only approved for patients with mild or moderate kidney impairment (as is Viekira Pak). Merck is also investigating the additional avenue for identity by gaining approval for various subtypes of the virus: Genotypes 1, 4 and 6.  All three makers are currently working to develop a single treatment for all six subtypes of the disease.

You can learn more by reading the www.bloomberg.com article, MerckTargets Toughest Cases to Gain Hepatitis C Foothold