I recently participated in the 9^th France/USA AGIPHARM Conference.  This year’s event was held in Geneva at the Globe of Science and Innovation, CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research).  CERN is best known these days as the location of the particle accelerator used for the creation of the fictional “antimatter bomb” featured in Angels and Demons.

 There were no angels or demons – but there was a fair amount of intellectual acceleration.  Here are a few highlights:

* Edouard Croufer (Director, Healthcare & Chemical Practice, Arthur D. Little), declared that the pharmaceutical industry needed a new model – that Pharma needs to move from “find a molecule and market it” to “identify a need and find a solution.”  When I pointed out to him that the latter was precisely what the industry is currently doing, he … agreed!  Nothing like having the strength of yor convictions. As Henri Poincaré said, “To doubt everything, or, to believe everything, are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection." Croufer also pointed out that 21^st success for medicines would be realized through “speed and intensity.” Amen.

* Francois Meyer (Director, Haute Autorité De Santé) made a rather revolutionary statement for the head of a national reimbursement authority when he stated that “we must move beyond clinical trials” to make true 21^st century healthcare technology assessments.  He also spoke to the need to include outcomes data in reimbursement decisions – or rather in the revisiting of  already-decided reimbursement decisions.  Or as he put it, “comparative efficacy in real life.” Heady stuff.

* Relative to the development of public/private partnerships, Patrice Jaillon (President of GIP CENGEPS – the French National Trial Management Center for Healthcare Products) called for a “climate of confidence and trust.”

* All well and good until Noel Renaudin (President of the CEM – the comité économique du medicament), the Grand Fromage of healthcare reimbursement in France, remarked that the CEM needed to keep industry “on a short leash.”

Particle accelerators are, after all, about high-speed collisions.

Officials said Saturday that the White House, lawmakers and the pharmaceutical industry had struck a deal to have drug companies pay $80 billion to help narrow a gap in coverage in the prescription drug program for Medicare. The officials said that the agreement would have drug companies pay part of the cost of brand name drugs for lower and middle-income older people in the "doughnut hole." That term refers to a feature of the current drug program that requires beneficiaries to pay the entire cost of prescriptions after initial coverage is exhausted but before catastrophic coverage begins.

Obama seized on the deal as evidence that his efforts are gaining momentum.

"Key sectors of the health care industry acknowledge what American families and businesses already know — that the status quo is no longer sustainable," the president said, and noted: "We are at a turning point in America's journey toward health care reform."

So drug and biotech companies are finally being permitted what they wanted to do all along but were banned from doing -- giving seniors a discount to give them a seamless drug benefit.  That makes sense since the decision about what drug to take should be what works, not the price or cost.  At least that is what the evidence says.  And making that decision on clinical evidence leads to value based benefit designs which focus on overall health outcomes...

All to the good.  And the rationale, in part, to Medicare Advantage pay more for prescription drugs. 

But what is Obama proposing to fill the nearly $2 trillion gap to shove 25 million people into  public health plans.

"Obama has proposed cuts in Medicare spending on hospitals, prescription drugs and other services, but a political consensus is far from certain."

He has proposed eliminating Medicare advantage, which has primarliy benefited the chronically ill and minorities...  Leaving them with what?  

So just as the private sector provides seniors with a solution that moves us towards a preventive approach to health care Obama is pillaging the one part of Medicare that provides just that to prop up a health plan that cannot even support paying for preventive care....

The cynicism is breathtaking and the mainstream media is too busy fawning to take note. Real health care reform is within reach but not the way the President wants to take us...

Read article here.

FDA Issues Safety Communication about an Ongoing Review of Stimulant Medications Used in Children with ADHD
June 15, 2009