Drug pricing
Concurrently, a preprint from the industry-backed Vital Transformation found a 50% drop in company investments into small-molecule drug development.
According to BMO Capital Markets, Medicare coverage of Lilly’s Zepbound opens the door to using secondary indications to secure CMS coverage for obesity drugs.
The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review flagged five drugs whose prices were raised in 2023 with no evidence to support it. Meanwhile, the makers of these drugs have been reporting double-digit sales growth for many of these products.
A week after dining with Trump and his team at Mar-a-Lago, leaders at Pfizer and Eli Lilly have publicly stated that they intend to collaborate with the incoming administration on key issues affecting the pharma industry.
The EPIC Act has been proposed with bipartisan and industry support to give small molecule drugs the same protection against price negotiation as biologics, but concerns over how to balance the federal budget could prevent a short-term fix to the IRA.
The payment scheme will tie gene therapy payments to improvements in health outcomes—and could potentially boost the uptake of these sickle cell disease treatments.
Eli Lilly topped the list of the 20 biggest pharmas by market cap with a more than 39% improvement year-to-date in its share price. Other companies have not been so lucky.
GSK’s departure comes as the industry anticipates the incoming Trump administration and as it continues to grapple with the threat of the BIOSECURE Act and losses of legal challenges to the IRA’s drug price negotiation program.
The Big Pharma companies made a last-ditch effort asking a U.S. appeals court to reconsider their lawsuits against the Inflation Reduction Act’s Medicare drug price negotiations, which they contend infringe on their constitutional rights.
While some analysts say Donald Trump is a wild card when it comes to drug pricing, many argue his presidency would be more positive for the industry overall, as Kamala Harris has her price-cutting sights squarely on Big Pharma.
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