Industry news

Biotechs jockey for gene therapy lead with hemophilia data ‘snapshots’

John Carroll / FierceBiotech

Generally it takes a readout from a completed trial to gain any important insights into the potential of an experimental drug. Unless you’re in a field like gene therapy, where the responses of even tiny numbers of patients are used to grab the spotlight in a market that’s seemingly insatiable for news. Add in a horse race environment on the data front, with competitors looking to establish a clear lead in a hot field, and the rivalry heats up on a patient-by-patient basis.

Drugmakers eye volume growth as China cuts prices by up to 67 percent

Adam Jourdan and Ben Hirschler / Reuters

Chinese health authorities announced price cuts of up to two-thirds for three drugs on Friday in the latest move to reduce the cost of healthcare for patients in the world's second-biggest economy.

Life expectancy increased by 5 years since 2000, but health inequalities persist

World Health Organisation

Dramatic gains in life expectancy have been made globally since 2000, but major inequalities persist within and among countries, according to this year’s “World Health Statistics: Monitoring Health for the SDGs”. Life expectancy increased by 5 years between 2000 and 2015, the fastest increase since the 1960s. Those gains reverse declines during the 1990s, when life expectancy fell in Africa because of the AIDS epidemic and in Eastern Europe following the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

Pipelines full of orphan drugs but more work to be done

Brian Orelli / BioWorld

About 30 million Americans, roughly 10 percent of the population, has one of the 7,000 known rare diseases, defined as affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S. And rare diseases unfortunately affect children disproportionately, making up half of all cases globally.

PBMs: The 'shadow' players in the drug pricing skirmish?

Mari Serebrov / BioWorld

With the U.S. drug pricing system as transparent as the darkest shadows, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) have stayed out of the political spotlight on the escalating cost of many drugs.

How Big Pharma Uses Charity Programs to Cover for Drug Price Hikes

Benjamin Elgin / Bloomberg

In August 2015, Turing Pharmaceuticals and its then-chief executive, Martin Shkreli, purchased a drug called Daraprim and immediately raised its price more than 5,000 percent. Within days, Turing contacted Patient Services Inc., or PSI, a charity that helps people meet the insurance copayments on costly drugs. Turing wanted PSI to create a fund for patients with toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that is most often treated with Daraprim.

Industry hits back at idea of pharma levy in superbug fight

Ben Hirschler / Reuters

The drug industry hit back on Thursday at a proposal to charge firms a levy to help fund development of new antibiotics and said the idea, set out in a high-level UK review of drug-resistant superbugs, would "undermine goodwill".

Real-time Data Tracking in the Clinical Trial Supply Chain

Sanjay Vyas / PharmExec.com

It’s 2016: airplanes, ships, trains and even cars send a constant mass of sensor data to central servers.  Almost 50% of the world’s population uses a smartphone. We communicate with these mobile computers continually, globally.

Registries and the Future of Medicine

Brian Kelly / PharmExec.com

Payers, providers, patients and pharmaceutical companies all want to understand the value of specific treatments – and patient registries can help them do that. These online data platforms give patients and providers a single place to record information about diagnosis, condition and treatment experience.

Biopharma Supports Nearly 4.5 Million US Jobs, Says Report

Pharmaceutical Executive

The biopharma industry supported nearly 854,000 direct jobs and another 3.5 million jobs and more than $1.2 trillion in economic output in the United States in 2014, according to new research prepared for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).