CER Daily Newsfeed

Value Viewpoint: May 23, 2025

(5/23, Kimberly Westrich, LinkedIn) comments “...ICER released the protocol for their new annual Launch Price and Access Report on Monday...Unfortunately, there is no opportunity for public comment on the protocol. If there were, I might flag a couple of considerations right off the bat: The launch price analyses receive more attention than the access analysis, with the former including data from 2022-2024, and the latter only including data from 2024. The report will use ICER’s Health Benefit Price Benchmarks and Vanness’ (2021) framework to estimate “over-spending” at the population level. There are limitations to Vanness’ model, and this application is questionable.” Full

Trump's Drug Price Plan Seeks Leverage With FDA Withdrawal Power

(5/27, Nyah Phengsitthy, Bloomberg Law) reports "...Pulling or modifying approvals under the order would likely trigger procedural and constitutional challenges if manufacturers viewed the agency’s decision as one based on the drug’s price, attorneys say...‘Trying to tie this into the price of the drug—which FDA has kept separate in its evaluation of new drug products and figuring out whether or not they’re going to come to market—would just violate that premise all around,’ said Reshma Ramachandran, an assistant professor at Yale School of Medicine." Full

Trump's Drug Price Plan May Hinge on Congress

(5/27, Caitlin Owens, Axios) reports "...The EO ‘lacks a clear legal mechanism for implementation, a positive for the industry,’ Capstone analysts wrote. ‘Ultimately, any substantive price-setting beyond the Inflation Reduction Act's Medicare negotiation will be tested in litigation.’ ‘To disrupt reimbursement within Medicaid, Medicare Part D, or outside government insurance programs, Capstone believes that the administration would be unable to implement policy without Congress,’ they added." Full

On US And Foreign Drug Prices, ‘Most Favored Nation’ Policy Is An Unreasonable Answer To A Reasonable Question

(5/23, James C. Robinson, Health Affairs Forefront) comments “...Reductions in cost sharing and prior authorization would benefit patients, reduce the stress on prescribing physicians, and moderate the administrative complexity of the US pharmaceutical system. They would partially offset, through higher sales volumes, the revenues lost to manufacturers from lower unit prices, and reduce manufacturers’ need for costly patient and physician support programs that counter the access impediments created by insurers.” Full

States Considering Laws To Protect 340B Contract Pharmacy Should Consider Tradeoffs

(5/27, Sayeh Nikpay, Health Affairs Forefront) comments “...[R]ecent efforts to uncover fees charged by contract pharmacies and other third parties in the program raise a difficult question: should preserving contract pharmacies be a policy priority when recent reports show that many of these arrangements benefit large pharmacy chains and intermediaries as much—or more—than the patients Congress ultimately intended to help with 340B has created over 30 years ago? In this Forefront article I describe three potential policy tradeoffs that state policymakers should consider before enacting state laws to preserve contract pharmacy arrangements.” Full

US Most Favored Nations Policy: Higher Drug Spending In Germany Is ‘Difficult To Imagine’

(5/27, Francesca Bruce, Pink Sheet) reports “...Germany’s federal health care decision-making body, the G-BA, tells the Pink Sheet that German drug prices are fair and speculation of price rises in the market due to the US MFN policy is fear mongering.” Subscription Required

Why Hympavzi Secured English Funding For Hemophilia B But Not Hemophilia A

(5/27, Pink Sheet) reports “...Pfizer told the Pink Sheet it would work with the health technology assessment institute, NICE, with the hope of making Hympavzi available to patients with hemophilia A via the National Health Service.” Subscription Required