Quick Hits Today: EU Pharma Rules, Accumulators, Cuban Tweets, and More

Another short one today, as I’m about to drive a UHaul trailer 1,600 miles as the first step in the multi-part process of becoming a coastal elite (lol). I’m all ears for any towing tips y’all might have. 

But didn’t want to go into the weekend without acknowledging: 

• The European Parliament passed new regulations governing the pharmaceutical industry. It’s not the last step in the process -- the European Council needs to vote on the proposal, and then there’s another round of negotiation -- but it’s an important one. Industry seems to be relieved without being happy: there has been a small bite taken out of data exclusivity, but nothing too onerous beyond that. Of course, one of the points of this exercise was to keep European pharma competitive, and I just don’t see how that’s happening here. 

• I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the biggest threat to PBMs remains Mark Cuban, not because his pharmacy empire is a uniquely genius solution, but because he remains the best communicator on this topic in the country. Case in point: this tweet, which makes the case for Humira biosimilars better than any policy wonk or biosimilar partisan has. 

• At the end of the day, the United States remains the world leader in getting innovation to the population way more quickly than any other nation. (And yes, we probably pay a premium for that access.) Here’s a report out of Canada that shows that Canadians are generally about three years behind Americans in getting access to new medicines. 

• ICER’s newest draft report, on a novel treatment for COPD, is now out. The medicine isn’t yet approved, so there’s no price to anchor this to, but it sure feels like there’s a solid value-based price in the offing. Too often, with diseases where there are well-established, imperfect generic medicines, there is a bias toward “good enough” and away from encouraging full access to new approaches. COPD patients deserve better, and I’m hoping they get it. 

• I don’t think this Marketplace coverage of the copay accumulator issue has any particularly novel elements to it, but the more the public gets educated on that kind of thing, the better off we all will be. 

• A quick reminder that there is a huge constituency for Medicare coverage of obesity meds. The latest evidence is this letter -- from 30+ patient and physician groups, largely in the CV and diabetes space -- detailing the importance of access.