BACK of the BOOK
Inside the Mind of a Pharma CEO
“Drug pricing is a very complicated topic because we invest in highrisk activity. This is very high-risk activity when you’re discovering and
developing new drugs. … When we price a drug, we price it based on
the value it will bring into that marketplace, and also how its price
compares to the other therapies currently on the market. There’s
been a lot of discussion about drug pricing. What we have to do is we
have to shift that conversation away from the price toward the value.
Like, what exactly is the value of this drug that is going to result in a
positive outcome? And is society willing to pay for that drug?”
—Joseph Jimenez, CEO of Novartis,
in an interview with The Washington Post
Bring Back House Calls
“My patient had been hospitalized four times in six months – in part
because we didn’t know what was going on at his home. Neither
doctors nor hospitals have tried very hard to tackle [the readmission]
problem. We don’t ensure that patients released from the hospital
obtain their medications and know how to take them. Most of the time
we don’t communicate with patients’ primary-care physicians. And of
course, we almost never visit them at home. … The key to improving
the hospital-to-home transition is a better understanding of the home
component. For doctors, patients’ homes shouldn’t be a black box.”
—Sandeep Jauhar, MD, a cardiologist at North Shore-LIJ Medical Group,
on using house calls to help solve high hospital readmission rates in
The New York Times
The Less-than-Thrilling
Start of the Biosimilar Era
The introduction of biosimilar drugs in the United States was expected
to offer a new weapon against rising drug prices, but, so far, they aren’t
quite living up to the hype. In The Wall Street Journal, several experts
spoke about the challenges facing these new drugs, including public
awareness and safety concerns:
“A large educational effort is required. The naming of biosimilars doesn’t do
us any favors. ‘Similar’ already implies difference, which is a key concern.”
—Carol Lynch, head of Biopharmaceuticals & Oncology Injectables at
Sandoz International, manufacturer of the biosimilar filgrastim-sndz
“My research has shown that there is a general belief among physicians,
payers, patients, and biosimilar developers that the branded industry is
still putting out mixed messages about what biosimilars are.”
—Duncan Emerton, market researcher at FirstWord Pharma
“If I write ‘Neupogen’ on a
drug chart, the pharmacist
will cross this out and write
filgrastim [the generic name
for all of the versions]. I
don’t see it as a problem.”
—Johnathan Joffe, MD, a medical oncologist at Huddersfield Royal
Infirmary, Huddersfield, England
ASHClinicalNews.org
Learning to Talk with Patients
about Care Costs
In response to the changing health-care environment and the
emphasis on providing high-value care, medical schools are now
integrating discussions of cost, value, and effectiveness into their
curricula. In a report from NPR’s All Things Considered, instructors talk
about the change:
“In the everyday teaching they get about clinical medicine, what
medications to prescribe, what’s the name of this diagnosis, we’re going
to add a layer to every discussion about the value part of that as well. …
We’re teaching students and residents how to start these conversations
with older mentors: ‘I value your experience and why you’re saying this,
but I also read this journal article that tells me that maybe we should be
using this antibiotic instead of this one, or doing this test instead of this
more expensive test. What are your thoughts on it?’”
—Reshma Gupta, MD, on how to approach conversations about value
“[Medical students] are so busy trying to master the basics of
medicine, the science and the interpersonal skills, that I think it feels
sometimes like this is one more issue they’re being asked to master,
when they have so much on their plate already.”
—Paul Lyons, MD, on the difficulties of getting students to
“buy in” to the concept
“Most of the time, a
positive test actually
means we have to do
more tests. Does that
actually serve the patient
at all? Now they’re just
worried because they have
this abnormal test that
stresses them out, maybe
for nothing.”
—Isaiah Roggow, a medical student, on learning about how to decide
whether a test is necessary given its price tag
ASH Clinical News
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