CER Daily Newsfeed

How Johnson & Johnson Is Enhancing Patient Safety

(3/12, Omar Ford, Packaging Digest) reports “...[Jijo James, Chief Medical Officer for Johnson & Johnson MedTech and Interventional Oncology:] We’re also using RWE to drive leadership and partnership through the Medical Device Innovation Consortium and our partnership with NEST, the National Evaluation System for Health Technology. We partnered with them to figure out how to best use RWE to drive patient access. Through that partnership, we secured the first-ever FDA-approved label expansion based exclusively on comparative effectiveness from an RWE study.” Full

Evidence Growing That GLP-1RAs May Reduce COPD Exacerbations and Risks for Other Lung Diseases

(3/17, Richard Mark Kirkner, Medscape) reports “...The latest evidence of the potential of GLP-1RAs to improve COPD comes from a comparative effectiveness research study of almost 400,000 patients with diabetes taking glucose-lowering medications from three major US insurance claims databases. The study found that patients taking GLP-1 RAs as well as sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT-2is) had a lower risk for moderate or severe COPD exacerbation than patients taking dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors (DPP-4is).” Full

The Impact of Cost Sharing on High-Value Care

(3/14, Pearl Steinzor, The American Journal of Managed Care) comments “...[Michael Chernew, PhD] highlighted that states play a crucial role in shaping health care policy, particularly through state employee health plans, marketplace regulations, and data infrastructure initiatives. While they lack the broad regulatory power of federal programs, states have led efforts to eliminate low-value care and reinvest in high-value services. Moreover, reductions in Medicaid funding or eligibility may prompt states to experiment with how to achieve greater value with fewer resources, something discussed during other sessions of the V-BID Summit.” Full

Employers Get Big Drug Discounts Through Program For Hospitals That Serve Poor Patients

(3/15, Joseph Walker, The Wall Street Journal) reports “...Companies such as Rescription, MakoRx and Liviniti are selling pharmacy-benefit plans that save employers money by funneling workers to those 340B hospital pharmacies instead of traditional drugstores. The workers get the discounted 340B price under these plans. Hospitals participate because it expands their customer base and they receive fees for dispensing prescriptions, the companies say...Extending those discounts instead to employers pushes the envelope even further, critics say. ‘It is a blatant abuse of the program,’ said Adam Fein, president of the research group Drug Channels Institute, and a critic of PBMs and the 340B system.” Subscription Required

The Death of QALYs Is Greatly Exaggerated

(3/17, Peter J. Neumann, Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health) comments “...The US Congress has prohibited [QALY] use in some circumstances, including Medicare’s drug price negotiations. Many have criticized the metric on various grounds. But new data from the Tufts Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Registry shows that the number of English-language, published cost/QALY articles continues to rise, reaching 1300 new studies in 2023. The studies span a wide range of treatments and diseases. The number of US-based published cost/QALY articles dipped slightly in 2023 but still comprised almost 300 new studies.” Full

German Agency’s 2025 Plan Highlights EU HTA Reg, Long Covid & Smoking Cessation Drugs

(3/17, Francesca Bruce, Pink Sheet) reports “...The G-BA, Germany’s top federal health care decision-making body, has published its 2025 work plan, which includes measures to ease the country’s implementation of EU-level joint clinical assessments, which introduced in January under the EU Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Regulation. It will also make a decision on whether clinical guidelines can include off-label treatments for long-Covid-19.” Subscription Required