Coulda, woulda, shoulda. On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary committee had a hearing on prescription drug prices. It became clear that comparisons to international prices remain a focus but so is patent abuse. I am not sure that’s a fair characterization. What companies are doing is legal and I’m not sure they’d be doing their fiduciary…
Crab cakes and … horse racing. That’s what Maryland does. Mine will come with a side of Smith Island cake which I’m making tomorrow morning. Wish me luck. Odds aren’t stacked. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that the Medicaid rule won’t contain the stacking provision. A little odd to pre-announce it,…
Last week MedPAC, the Medicare advisory committee to Congress, had a really interesting session on generic drug pricing in the Medicare prescription drug program (Part D.) There is always so much focus on branded drugs that an opportunity to flip the script and learn about the 90% of prescription drug utilization in Part D (and…
Confession. I think Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs is underwhelming at best and, at worst, the death of independent pharmacies. I’ve been following it since inception, and I just can’t get excited about it – at least not yet. Cost Plus Drugs dispenses about 3,000 generic drugs. There is the transparent price, a 15% markup,…
It was one of those rare weeks in Washington, DC where the weather was just perfect. I mean not if you suffer from allergies, but for everyone else. Same Same. Last week we had the State of the Union, this week we had the President’s Budget release. For what it is worth, the budget is…
Last week I did an explainer on what pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) are and where the pain points were and why there was a focus on PBM reform. There is a lot of buzz around PBM bills on Capitol Hill last year with lots of bills in motion but, for now, I’d thought I’d hone…
There is a lot of talk about pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) reform. How PBMs aren’t transparent with pricing and can charge patients more at the point of sale than the drug costs the PBM. But I realized today that perhaps some background on PBMs and how we found ourselves here could be helpful for some…
It took my until 5 pm on Thursday to figure out why there was a frog on the Microsoft tool bar. Leap year. Frog. Leap. Sigh. I prefer not. Congress seems to have hit the pause button (at least temporarily) on pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) reform. And that sort of felt okay because, realistically, things…
Gross to Net, a Saga. As soon as I saw Adam Fein’s Drug Channels article on Gross to Net in Part D redesign, I knew it would throw off my day. It was just catchy enough to cause a buzz and get the attention of Heads of Market Access at pharmaceutical companies and start the…
Honestly? Not a lot caught my eye this week. Maybe we were all heads down getting stuff done before a long weekend? You say MPPP, I say smoothing. Late yesterday afternoon the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released Draft 2 guidance for the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan. I’ve heard Michael Ward from Alliance for…