Week in Review

Opioid epidemic

  • The federal government, led by the National Institutes of Health and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, will award $350 million in grants over three years to research sites in Kentucky, Massachusetts, New York and Ohio focused on reducing opioid overdose deaths by as much as 40 percent.
  • CVS Health Corp. will pay $535,000 in fines for allegedly filling dozens of prescriptions for Percocet, an opioid painkiller, that its pharmacists should have realized were forged. The forged prescriptions were filled at Rhode Island drugstores between September 2015 and June 2017.
  • The Justice Department charged 60 medical professionals across Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and West Virginia on allegations they were involved in illegally prescribing more than 32 million opioid pain pills.

Trump administration

  • Finalized rules from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will attempt to encourage the use of lower-cost generic treatments by permitting health insurers to institute co-pay accumulator programs beginning in 2020, blocking drug manufacturer coupons from applying to patients’ annual out-of-pocket maximums when a generic is available. CMS will also cut recalculate the amount that subsidized Affordable Care Act enrollees must pay toward premiums for the benchmark plan, a change that would increase out-of-pocket maximums for enrollees.
  • The Food and Drug Administration sent letters dated April 5 to 12 companies — including Walmart Inc., Kroger Co. and 7-Eleven Inc. — that have allegedly sold tobacco products to minors. The companies have been given 30 days to provide the agency with detailed plans to reduce the illegal sale of tobacco to teenagers.
  • House Democrats are investigating the Trump administration’s decision to extend Title X dollars to an anti-abortion group, Obria, which does not provide contraception, while cutting funding for Planned Parenthood.

Medical milestones

  • Gene therapy cured 10 newborn babies afflicted with severe combined immunodeficiency disease, or “bubble boy disease,” a rare genetic disorder in which infants’ immune systems are dysfunctional, according to a report published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
  • Researchers at Tel Aviv University successfully created the first 3D-printed heart, reprogramming human cells to become stem cells that make up a heart complete with cells, blood vessels, ventricles and chambers. The hope is that once the team can train the cells to pump, it can transplant the prototype — the size of a rabbit heart — into animal models and eventually develop it for humans.

Public health

  • An additional 90 cases of measles were reported in the United States in the week ending April 11, bringing the total number of cases to 555 less than five months into 2019. Measles was eliminated as an endemic disease in 2000, and the severity of this year’s outbreak is second only to the 2014 outbreak, when 667 cases were reported over the entire year. 
  • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) plans to bring forth legislation next month raising the age to buy tobacco products, including vaping devices, from 18 to 21. Eleven states have already taken this initiative, which McConnell says comes as smoking among young adults reaches epidemic levels.

Drug prices

  • Top pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer Inc., AbbVie Inc. and Amgen Inc. are bowing to pressure from the Trump administration and posting information about the prices of their prescription drugs online, nearly one year after the president called for drugmakers to include list prices in television advertisements in his blueprint to reduce drug prices.

Medicaid expansion

  • The Montana Legislature passed legislation to extend Medicaid expansion for another six years, maintaining health coverage for about 96,000 low-income residents, and Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock said he will sign it into law.

Earnings reports

  • Johnson & Johnson reported net income of $3.75 billion in its first-quarter earnings report, down 14 percent year-over-year, with sales rising from $20.01 billion to $20.02 billion. Although thousands of lawsuits alleging the company’s talc-based products caused consumers’ cancer have led to significant legal expenses, prescription drug sales have bolstered earnings, with surges in revenue for anti-inflammatory treatment Stelara and multiple myeloma treatment Darzalex.
  • UnitedHealth Group Inc., the first insurer reporting quarterly results, saw revenue rise 9.3 percent to $60.3 billion in the first quarter of 2019, with net income growing 21.6 percent to $3.6 billion. The revenue growth was attributable to success in both its care delivery and insurance businesses, with sales in pharmacy benefit manager Optum Inc. hitting $26.4 billion, and the number of people covered by UnitedHealthcare plans rising 1.8 percent from the prior-year period to 49.7 million.

What’s Ahead

  • The House and Senate are both in recess this week.
  • On Monday, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma will announce a new value-based approach to transform primary care.
  • Verma will also deliver the keynote address at the Spring 2019 Conference of the National Association of Accountable Care Organizations on Thursday.
  • The Trump administration will file its opening brief in the lawsuit aiming to strike down the ACA by May 1.

Events Calendar (All Times Local)

04/22/2019
Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit
Kaiser Family Foundation forum on the Trump administration’s HIV initiative 10:00 am
World Class: A conversation with author Dr. William A. Haseltine 5:00 pm
04/23/2019
Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit
04/24/2019
12th Annual FDA/AdvaMed Medical Devices and Diagnostics Statistical Issues Conference
Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit
Health Affairs: Health and Housing Needs for US Seniors in the “Middle Market” 9:00 am
Association for Women in Science Innovation and Inclusion Summit 12:30 pm
04/25/2019
12th Annual FDA/AdvaMed Medical Devices and Diagnostics Statistical Issues Conference
Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit
2019 Annual Congress of Enhanced Recovery and Perioperative Medicine
FDA Antimicrobial Drugs Advisory Committee Meeting 8:30 am
04/26/2019
2019 Annual Congress of Enhanced Recovery and Perioperative Medicine
FDA Antimicrobial Drugs Advisory Committee Meeting 8:30 am
Investing in Interventions that Address Non-Medical Health–Related Social Needs 8:30 am
View full calendar

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