Latest Drugwonks' Blog
Good story in Congressional Quarterly on President Obama’s nomination of Rob Califf to be the next FDA Commisisoner.
Unfortunately, since CQ is a subscription-only service, I can only provide some snippets:
Califf, according to several former FDA officials, is a believer in new technology and involving the voice of the patient in the drug development process.
"He understands what the future of health care looks like," said Peter Pitts, who led FDA external relations during the George W. Bush administration.
Califf previously was a top official at Duke University's School of Medicine. During a 30-year career at Duke, he was in charge of the Translational Medicine Institute, whose goal is to speed up the development, testing and approval of drugs and devices.
At the time of his appointment, the FDA hailed Califf, a cardiologist, as "one of the top 10 most cited medical authors." Shortly before taking his FDA position, Califf oversaw a vast long-term study that revealed that a cholesterol-lowering drug could help prevent heart attacks in some patients who cannot tolerate a more common cholesterol-reduction method, statins.
But during his years at Duke, Califf developed close ties to players in the pharmaceutical industry. Some believe these relationships will be an asset for someone who needs industry buy-in for his agency's policies. If Califf is confirmed, Pitts said, it "means the FDA can be both the regulator of industry and its colleague in innovation."
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee would hold a hearing on Califf's nomination.Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the committee chairman, said in a statement that the panel will move promptly on the nomination.
"Dr. Califf has impressive credentials," said Alexander. "The FDA affects nearly every American and needs the certainty of a strong leader. I look forward to hearing from Dr. Califf specifically on how we can move medical discoveries more rapidly through the FDA and other agencies and get safe treatments and drugs into Americans' medicine cabinets."
If Califf is confirmed, he may only have a little more than a year on the job. But FDA observers say that he's already worked hard to earn a rapport with different branches of the agency and policymakers.
Former FDA official Frank Sasinowski, now a consultant, said Califf will be able to "go into congressional hearings and people will understand that he has an appreciation of what it takes to drive innovation and get new therapies out to patients."
If you are a CQ subscriber, the full article can he found here.
President Obama has made the most important healthcare decision of his administration. (No, not that.)
The nomination of Rob Califf to be the next Commissioner of the FDA signals the beginning of a new era at the agency that regulates more than a quarter of the US economy. Welcome to the era of entrepreneurial regulation.
Entrepreneurial Regulation means that the FDA can be both regulator of industry and its colleague in innovation. Expedited pathways are Entrepreneurial Regulation. Breakthrough Designation is Entrepreneurial Regulation. The Super Office of Pharmaceutical Quality is Entrepreneurial Regulation. More aggressive use of the Reagan/Udall Foundation is Entrepreneurial Regulation. Patient Focused Drug Development is Entrepreneurial Regulation.
It’s more than time for the FDA to take its place in the center of the healthcare ecosystem.
There are many issues facing the FDA and not just in drugs. Food safety, device reform, dietary supplement regulation. It's a long list. Califf knows the issues and the players -- most importantly those inside the agency. His nomination is both timely and savvy -- particularly with PDUFA reauthorization under way.
Califf’s nomination is an n-of-1 opportunity. When considering who could replace Peggy Hamburg, Rob Califf was the short list.
Put up your Dukes? In more ways than one.
I've just returned from Singapore where I spent some quality time with Raymond Chua (the director of the Singapore HSA -- their version of the FDA) and his senior staff. We covered a wide variety of issues ranging from "what's new at the USFDA?" (Answer -- a lot!), global regulatory convergence, and much in between (such as Singapore as a regulatory “third way” in addition to the FDA and EMA).
The HSA directorate was particularly interested to discuss the USFDA's expedited review pathways (breakthrough therapy designation, accelerated approval, priority review, etc.) and some of the ways they’re impacting regulatory policy (i.e., adaptive clinical trial design, senior staff commitment, earlier sponsor/agency interaction). Per Raymond, the HSA is "pathway agnostic" -- an interesting concept that deserves more discussion and consideration in White Oak. He was also keen to learn more about the USFDA's new "Super Office" of Pharmaceutical Quality. (For more on this, see here.)
When it comes to 21st century drug and device regulation, Singapore is a place to study for best practices as well as innovation in both cogitation and action.
The Merlion roars loudly and proudly on behalf of it’s nation’s public health. And there's much the rest of the world can learn from both it's practices and world view.
(And the eats are pretty spectacular too. I recommend the Chili Crab.)
He thinks Australia and Switzerland are good examples of how to do price controls right.
In fact, there are several studies of both pricing systems. In Australia life expectancy increased by 11 months for people who had access to new drugs faster. mean age at death increased more for diseases with larger increases in mean drug vintage. Life expectancy for people who had older medicines didn't budge.In Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee recommended only two of twenty-six drugs with a cost per life-year saved greater than $57,000. Only one of twenty-six submissions with a cost per life-year saved less than $32,000 was rejected. Australia ranked 18th out of 20 comparable OECD countries in access to new medicines, with cancer patients waiting over two years after a drug is approved
In Switzerland a study concluded that 17000 life years were gained in 2012 due to the kind of cancer drugs Emanuel claims are NOT cost-effective. In fact the cost per life-year before age 75 gained from cancer drugs was $21228. Moreover, the study found that by delaying access to these medicines as part of the price control program, Swiss cancer patients died sooner than they had to. Finally, another study concluded that Swiss heart patients who used newer cardiovascular drugs in 2003 lived longer than people who used older cardiovascular drugs. (Meanwhile, in the US generic versions of patent medicines are less expensve than the price controlled brand products in Europe.)
Americans with heart disease and cancer live longer than patients in other countries even though many spend more on on these diseases. The price controls Emanuel pushes would save less than .5 percent of total US health spending. They would drive up total costs and make life shorter and more painful for millions.
First there was Orphan Medical (Caronia), then Amarin. Now Pacira Pharmaceuticals has filed a lawsuit against FDA seeking declaratory judgment that the agency may not prohibit them from providing "truthful and non-misleading" information about the use of Exparel bupivacaine.
Pacira is seeking preliminary and permanent injunctions to prevent FDA from taking action against them on the basis of proposed "truthful and non-misleading" speech. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
FDA approved Exparel in 2011 for postoperative pain management. In September 2014, FDA sent Pacira a warning letter asking the company to stop promoting it for use in surgical procedures other than bunionectomies or hemorrhoidectomies. The agency letter also disputed Pacira's claim that Exparel provides pain control "that lasts for up to 72 hours" as an overstatement of efficacy that was "false and misleading."
Pacira argues that, even if the indications it promoted were considered off-label, they still have the right to promote "truthful and non-misleading" information about the drug under the First Amendment and cited the recent district court opinion allowing Amarin to engage in "truthful and non-misleading speech" to promote off-label use of Vascepa.
What do the Caronia, Vascepa, and Pacria cases have in common? Well, for one thing all the plaintiffs are small companies, largely dependent on the sales of a single product for their revenues. Suing the FDA used to be considered a high-stakes gamble, but recent rulings – and the lack of action on the part of the agency to put forward new draft guidance – seem to have changed the risk/benefit analysis. At least for small companies.
(And the odds-makers of Wall Street think so too. Pacira gained $2.71 to $60.18 on Wednesday.)
Can lawsuits by Big Pharma be far behind?
As far as anything from White Oak … Car 54 where are you?
When did taking a hedge fund manager at his word become the hallmark of business journalism??
How about if reporters wrote that "the fact that the Ayatollah also planned to use funds to finance terror, he has said, is incidental to the real of achieving world peace."
As for objectivity, Seifert has been a critic of drug prices over the years, claiming that "The free market approach is no longer working to ensure price competitiveness through generic drugs."
That leaves either price controls, which Seifert supports or Kyle Bass wiping out biotech valuations by using a factless assault on the patents of such company.
I can see how price contols would reduce prices. But how exactly does shorting biotech stocks reduce drug prices? Why not challenge patents directly under Hatch-Waxman?
Because the alternative process is, in the right hands, a process that rewards extortion.
The Inter Party Review was designed by Congress to make it easier for a handful of tech companies to swat away frivilous challenges to their patents. Instead, rather than fulfilling its original intent of weeding out weak patents, IPR’s and the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB) have become “patent death squads” as they strike down 77% of the patent claims under review. The IPR process is being used to undermine confidence in the patent system. A recent article estimates the resulting cost to the U.S. economy as over $1 trillion."
As Peter noted in a recent WSJ op-ed Kyle Bass is leading the way in destroying confidence in patents. As Barron's observed (Seiffert might want to tape this article on the wall above his computer to remind himself of what good reporting is) Bass teamed up with Erich Spangenberg, CEO of IPNav, to challenge what they argue are questionable patents held by pharmaceutical companies to stifle competition from the generic marketplace. (It’s worth noting that Bass’ new partner, Spangenberg, has been described as the world’s most notorious patent troll. IPNav says it has generated over half a billion dollars in licensing revenue in patent-infringement penalties for its clients, which include individual investors, corporations, and universities.)
Bass's greed (and Peter's article) has led to Congress closing this loophole and the board that does the reviews to tighten up it's requirements. A while ago, Seffert predicted that the board's rejection of the Bass attempt to invalidate Acorda Therapeutics patent for it's drug, Ampyra was just a temporary setback.
He wrote: "But according to Lana Gladstein, a partner in the Intellectual Property Department at Nutter McClennen & Fish, the ruling was very narrow, and baed on the fact that the supporting evidence Bass submitted was insufficient. It has no bearing on his attempts to knock out patents held by Biogen (Nasdaq: BIIB) for its top-selling drug, Tecfidera, nor by Shire (Nasdaq: SHPG) for its drug for short bowel syndrome, Gattex." Or I guess his efforts to shake down Celgene or any other companies.
Too bad for Seiffert, Bass has been 0 for whatever in this extortion racket.
Kyle Bass will soon have to find another way to make up for what might huge losses from his investment in oil stocks (pre-price decline) and GM..
Perhaps he can take comfort in the fact that one journalist is in his corner and still regards anything -- no matter how sleazy or destructive -- that knocks down drug prices as a victory.
Previously, the WSJ stated the approval was akin to " firing the starting gun on a new industry" that will reign in drug spending.
More like shooting blanks.
First, it is important to remember, as the FDA noted in it's approval, that " ZARXIO has not been determined to be interchangeable." Which means: No switching.
Second, a biosimilar requires a Phase III trial. Prior to obtaining approval, Novartis-Sandoz had to conduct the PIONEER study (the official title is A Randomized, Double-blind, Parallel-group, Multi-center Phase III Study Comparing the Efficacy and Safety of EP2006 and Neupogen® in Breast Cancer Patients Treated With Myelosuppressive Chemotherapy) The trial was initiated in 2011 and the results of the study were submitted in 2014. Several studies estimate it takes 8-10 years and anywhere from $100 million to $250 million to produce one biosimilar. (That does not include the capital costs of failure, delay, etc. ) That timeline is no different than innovative drugs. That fact should squash the conspiracy theorists like Public Citizen or Donald Light and Hagop Kantarjian who claim that's what a new biotech costs to develop since a biosimilar takes NO risk in investing in preclinical and early human studies.
Third, biosimilars will require the same post market surveillance expected of innovator products. My colleague Peter Pitts has articulated the need for this -- and for monitoring marketing claims -- better than anyone.
For these reasons, biosimilars have not been a profitable business. That will change as more biotech products go off patent. But don't expect deep discounts as long as the costs of development increase.
Instead, it is possible that companies producing biosimilars will seek to increase profit margins by developing therapies that add value. Turning an injectible into an oral treatment is one way. Reformulations and drug combinations are others. Companies will likely seek to create niches using diagnostics and finding additional uses for products.
Which raises the possiblity of authorized generic versions. Or not. My guess is that Amgen will compete on price and seek additional indications for Neupogen.
Biosimilars will not save the gazillions estimated by the media. Rather, they will promote the kind of competition one sees in smartphones and tablets: similar functions, different consumer experiences as a result of incremental, but useful, changes in technology.
That's innovation. And that's good for patients.
A group of cancer doctors has apparently decided to rewrite the Hippocratic Oath.
The ancient pledge charges physicians with applying “all measures that are required” for the benefit of the sick. The docs heading up the American Society of Clinical Oncology want to add a caveat — “unless those measures are too expensive. Then just let the patient die.”
The oncologists’ group has developed a “conceptual framework” that relies on cost-benefit analysis to determine the most “valuable” treatments for different patients.
Sounds innocent enough. But healthcare outcomes cannot be reduced to cost-benefit calculations. By focusing on the cost of a treatment — rather than the benefit it could deliver — the oncologists are allowing dollar signs to dictate whether a patient lives or dies.
Under ASCO’s framework, new treatments will be judged “based on clinical benefit, side effects and cost.” Those are the exact same measures health insurance companies use in limiting patient access to treatments. Indeed ASCO wants insurers to use its calculator to “evaluate the relative value of new treatments” as they develop “benefit structures, adjustment of insurance premiums, and implementation of clinical pathways and administrative controls.”
Such “controls” could include shifting drugs to the highest cost-sharing tier of an insurance plan or requiring patients to try older, cheaper drugs before gaining access to the most cutting-edge therapies.
Never mind that the Obama Administration has warned “placing most or all drugs that treat a specific condition on the highest cost tiers discourages enrollment by individuals based on age or based on health conditions” is discriminatory.
The oncologists are effectively asking insurers to discriminate against cancer patients — in direct contradiction of the Affordable Care Act’s intent.
ASCO’s framework openly ignores what really matters — benefit to patients.
Consider how the framework attempts to dictate how long a person “should” live. It claims that patients “overestimate the benefits of treatments that sometimes extend life by only weeks or months.”
In other words, ASCO has concluded that a treatment that can keep patients alive for weeks or months has no real value.
The framework assigns zero value to any treatment that doesn’t increase survival by 20 percent. Right off the bat, numerous treatments for pancreatic, brain, lung, and stomach cancer today would be deemed worthless by the formula.
That 20 percent figure is completely arbitrary. Consider the case of someone with lung cancer who is alive today because of the accumulation of treatments that never made that arbitrary threshold. Cardiologists hailed a just approved drug that reduces the risk of death from heart failure by 20 percent as revolutionary.
Under ASCO’s framework, sorry — not good enough.
Between 1987 and 2000, various AIDS therapies increased patient life expectancy by less than 20 percent a year. Had ASCO’s framework been in force then, thousands of AIDS patients who benefited from those treatments would not be alive today.
ASCO defends its guidelines by claiming that expensive new treatments have sown “unrealistic patient and family expectations that lead clinicians to offer or recommend some of these services, despite the lack of supporting evidence of utility or benefit.” The American healthcare system can’t afford limitless spending on cancer treatments, the group says.
It’s true that spending on cancer drugs has risen. In 2014, it topped $100 billion. But that figure represents just 1 percent of U.S. healthcare spending.
What’s more, these medicines work — and are worth their price tags.
Successful drug therapies reduce overall medical costs by diminishing the need for future doctor visits and hospital stays. According to a study from the Center for Value and Risk in Health, specialty drugs often cost more than traditional drugs but “also tend to confer greater benefits and hence may still offer reasonable value for money.”
Successful treatment does more than just lower health costs and offer patients priceless extra time with loved ones. It also benefits the nation. According to one study, cancer survivors have contributed $4.7 trillion to the economy since 1990, simply by living and working longer.
Indeed, according to a Health Affairs study, “current technology assessments, which often determine access” to cancer therapies “may be missing an important source of value to patients and should either incorporate hope into the value of therapies.”
By valuing treatments based on what they cost insurance companies rather than the benefit they provide to patients and their families, the ASCO framework violates both the letter and spirit of the Hippocratic Oath. It should be scrapped before it puts patients in danger.
Ray and C-Path has done more to advance personalized medicine than most. C-Path – working closely with pharma and the FDA -- have led the development of tools and markers that are now routinely used in clinical trials to more quickly and accurately developed tools matchpatients to treatments that deliver the most benefit relative to risks.
When C-Path was first launched it was difficult to bring together patients, researchers, private companies and regulators. Under Ray’s stewardship and with the quiet but essential support of the FDA (especially Janet Woodcock) the collective intelligence C-Path brought together has been instrumental in transforming the clinical trial landscape around the world
And the best is yet to come: As current C-Path CEO Marsha Brumfield has written: “the boundaries are expanding with the growing realization of the substantial benefit that can result from new discoveries (such as biomarkers, modelling tools and clinical outcome assessments (COAs)). Even clinical data, traditionally considered proprietary, are contributed to pooled databases to help solve prespecified research questions.
The tools and methods created through sharing information precompetitively are changing the landscape of clinical trial design, enabling trials to be more optimally designed and executed. “
Peter and I are proud to have had Ray as a ‘rabbi’ and an ally in promoting personalized medicine. We look forward to working with him and C-Path in the years ahead.
HHS's Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has issued draft guidance on the 340B program that addresses some of industry's concerns with the program. Per BioCentury, the guidance includes a clearer definition of 340B-eligible patients.
The 340B program is intended to provide discounted outpatient drugs to hospitals that serve a disproportionate share of poor and uninsured patients. The 340B hospitals can then dispense the discounted drugs to their non-Medicaid outpatients and use the savings to pay for the care of indigent patients. However, the number of 340B-eligible entities and discounted drugs sold to those entities has grown over the last several years, and industry has said some hospitals are not using the money to pay for charity care and are dispensing the discounted drugs to individuals who are not patients of the hospital.
In the draft, HRSA clarifies which patients would be eligible for 340B: those who receive care at the hospital and who have received a prescription from a provider directly affiliated with the hospital. The rule notes that a patient would be ineligible if the drug is dispensed while they are still an inpatient; if the only service provided by the hospital or provider is to dispense or infuse the drug to the patient; if the patient's physician has credentials or privileges at the hospital but who is not an employee of the hospital; or if the patient is an employee of the hospital but may get care elsewhere.
Additionally, if patients of the covered entity choose to have their prescription filled at a pharmacy not affiliated with the hospital, the drug would be ineligible for the discount. The guidance also would allow manufacturers to audit covered entities if the manufacturer "has reasonable cause" to believe that the entity is providing duplicate discounts to Medicaid patients or diverting drugs to ineligible patients.
The draft guidance will be published in the Federal Register on Friday. Comments are due October 27th.
Center for Medicine in the Public Interest is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization promoting innovative solutions that advance medical progress, reduce health disparities, extend life and make health care more affordable, preventive and patient-centered. CMPI also provides the public, policymakers and the media a reliable source of independent scientific analysis on issues ranging from personalized medicine, food and drug safety, health care reform and comparative effectiveness.
