News from Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Articles
In Setback for Biopharma, Senate Version of Trump's Tax Bill Drops Orphan Cures Act
(6/17, Angus Liu, Fierce Pharma) reports “...[A]dvocates for the industry argue that the law causes unintended consequences by disincentivizing investment in post-approval clinical trials of rare disease therapies. An analysis performed by the National Pharmaceutical Council found that post-IRA, the percentage of drugs with an initial orphan designation that went on to receive a second designation decreased by 48%—from 12.1% to 6.3%—despite a steady increase pre-IRA.” Full
Head-to-Head Study Shows Bariatric Surgery Superior to GLP-1 Drugs for Weight Loss
(6/17, American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, Medical Xpress) comments “Sleeve gastrectomy and gastric bypass were associated with about five-times more weight loss than weekly injections of GLP-1 receptor agonists semaglutide or tirzepatide, at the end of two years, according to a new head-to-head real-world study presented today at the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) 2025 Annual Scientific Meeting.” Full
HTA Expert Warns of Escalating Measures if Pharma Fails to Tame Prices
(6/17, Francesca Bruce, Pink Sheet) reports “...Too many “uninformative” drug trials fail to justify the excessively high prices of many medicines, while there is too much evidentiary uncertainty in European pricing and reimbursement systems, warned Anja Schiel from Norway’s NOMA.” Subscription Required
Press Releases
Mapping the Open Source Revolution in Health Economics
(6/17, ISPOR Press Release) “...‘Health economic models underpin health technology assessment, which is used to assess the value of an intervention for a given disease,’ noted author Raymond H. Henderson, PhD, Senior Health Technology Assessment Manager, Salutem Insights Ltd, Ireland. ‘A subset of health economic models is open source models, which are defined variably as models that are fully transparent, providing unrestricted access to the model’s source code along with permission for open use, or that are publicly accessible, along with their underlying code and a detailed report outlining the model’s objectives, methods, structure, and results.’” Full
Journals
Mapping the Landscape of Open Source Health Economic Models: A Systematic Database Review and Analysis: An ISPOR Special Interest Group Report
Raymond H. Henderson, PhD, et al.
June 2025, Value in Health
Comparative Effectiveness of Interventions to Facilitate Deprescription of Benzodiazepines and Other Sedative Hypnotics: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Dena Zeraatkar, et al.
June 17, 2025, BMJ
Access in All Areas? A Round up of Developments in Market Access and Health Technology Assessment: Part 8
Sreeram V Ramagopalan, Annie Jullien Pannelay
June 17, 2025, Journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research