Fact-checking a presidential claim on drug prices

Amazing news! Drug prices declined in 2018 — according to our commander-in-chief, anyway. Problem is, the claim by President Trump the other day is demonstrably false.

As STAT's Casey Ross points out, it’s true that a record number of generic drugs have been approved under Trump's administration, thanks to regulations aimed at speeding these drugs to the market. But reports show again and again that price increases are continuing across the board. The percentage of these hikes may be seeing a nominal decrease — but that’s a far cry from an overall decline in drug prices.

Read more.

Don't over-promise and under-deliver

It’s extraordinary when a novel lab discovery yields drugs that show honest-to-goodness efficacy in real, live humans. It’s also very rare, as one biotech founder admits — and if the tech’s overhyped, the failures can be particularly shattering to the patient community. 

Harvard undergraduate Nathaniel Brooks Horwitz gives an honest account in the Washington Post of the rapid rise and rapid failure of his biotech startup, Nivien Therapeutics. The company, launched out of his cofounder’s dorm room, attracted immediate publicity — with frothy media coverage buoying the hopes of many patients with pancreatic cancer.

This summer, however, Nivien’s experimental drug failed in a clinical trial, leaving many patients he corresponded with disappointed. Although there’s an “allure and danger” to believing that an early-stage concept might sprout into something curative, entrepreneurs need to be cautious about makes promises to patients, Horwitz concludes.

"Rereading an article about Nivien, I saw how easily a person with cancer could misintrepret the headline — and how I, like too many entrepreneurs, had not provided enough caveats about the potential of our work,” he writes. 

Read more.

Investors, simmer down: Blockbusters takes years

Biopharma investors may be getting a little spoiled by the spoils of blockbuster drugs: They're asking companies to queue up a new slew of fancy therapies even before the current crop of top sellers have hit peak profitability, Bloomberg writes.

This is an issue, for instance, with the new $74 billion Bristol-Myers Squibb merger with Celgene. Although Celgene’s still minting billions off its blockbuster Revlimid, Bristol is now on the hook for coaxing a new money-maker out of the Celgene assets. Revlimid will make tens of billions for a few more years before the drug goes off patent, but investors want more.

“They need blockbusters. It’s a perpetual chase,” one fund manager said. “The assumption is that every year you’re going to find a fantastic product; it doesn’t work like that.”

Read more.

Who should Congress call?

Later this month — assuming the government, you know, opens again — the House Oversight Committee plans on holding a “broad review of the skyrocketing prices of prescription drugs.” Its chairman, Elijah Cummings, has indicated in the past that he’ll likely ring up biopharma execs, querying 'em on why medicine prices keep going up and up and up. Who do you think Cummings might call first?

Ian Read, Pfizer. Despite pressure from Trump, Pfizer charged ahead with plans to increase the price on 41 prescription drugs this year.

Lars Jørgensen, Novo Nordisk. Insulin prices keep ballooning, and Nordisk is behind many of these products.

Heather Bresch, Mylan. Epi-Pens are STILL expensive.

Stephen Ubl, PhRMA. An excellent tour guide: he speaks for the broader biopharmaceutical industry.