Availability and Coverage of New Drugs in 6 High-Income Countries With Health Technology Assessment Bodies.

This cohort study analyzes review times and approval outcomes of health technology assessments conducted in 6 high-income countries for novel therapeutic agents approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Medicare drug price negotiation: The complexities of selecting therapeutic alternatives for estimating comparative effectiveness.

Under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are able to negotiate prices for topselling drugs in the Medicare Part B and D programs. In determining initial price offers, CMS will compare the prices and clinical benefits of the drugs subject to negotiation to the prices and clinical benefits of therapeutic alternatives. Despite the central role that the selection of therapeutic alternatives will play in the price negotiations, the available guidance published by CMS provides few details about how the organization will undertake this process, which will be particularly complex for drugs approved for more than one indication. To better inform the selection process, we identified all US Food and Drug Administration-approved indications for the first 10 drugs subject to negotiation. Using 2020-2021 Medicare claims data, we identified Medicare Part D beneficiaries using each of the 10 drugs. We extracted medical claims with diagnosis codes for each of the approved indications to report the relative treated prevalence of use by indication for each drug. We reviewed published clinical guidelines to identify relevant therapeutic alternatives for each of the indications. We integrated the evidence on the relative treated prevalence of indications and clinical guidelines to propose therapeutic alternatives for each of the 10 drugs. We describe challenges that CMS may face in selecting therapeutic alternatives.

Investments in Research and Development for Supplemental Drug Indications-Implications for Drug Price Negotiations.

This Viewpoint compares the research and development costs for a drug's first indication with supplemental indications to demonstrate that the cost of approval for supplemental indications may be substantially lower.

The launch of the EU Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA): Improving global pandemic preparedness?

The crowded global health landscape has been joined by the European Union Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA). HERA will assume four broad areas of responsibility: horizon scanning for major health threats; research and development; support for capacity to manufacture drugs, vaccines, and equipment; and procuring and stockpiling key medical countermeasures. In this Health Reform Monitor article, we outline the reform process and describe HERA's structure and responsibilities, explore issues that arise from the creation of this new organisation, and suggest options for collaboration with existing bodies in Europe and beyond. The COVID-19 pandemic and other infectious disease outbreaks have shown the need to treat health as a cross-border issue, and there is now a broad consensus that greater direction and coordination at the European level is needed. This ambition has been matched with a considerable increase in EU funding to tackle cross-border health threats, and HERA can be used to deploy this funding in an effective manner. Yet this is contingent upon clearly defining its role and responsibilities vis-à-vis existing agencies to reduce redundancies.

Divergent COVID-19 vaccine policies: Policy mapping of ten European countries.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the fragmented nature of governmental policy decisions in Europe. However, the extent to which COVID-19 vaccination policies differed between European countries remains unclear. Here, we mapped the COVID-19 vaccination policies that were in effect in January 2022 as well as booster regulations in April 2022 in Austria, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain. METHODS: National public health and health policy experts from these ten European nations developed and completed an electronic questionnaire. The questionnaire included a series of questions that addressed six critical components of vaccine implementation, including (1) authorization, (2) prioritization, (3) procurement and distribution, (4) data collection, (5) administration, and (6) mandate requirements. RESULTS: Our findings revealed significant variations in COVID-19 vaccination policies across Europe. We observed critical differences in COVID-19 vaccine formulations authorized for use, as well as the specific groups that were provided with priority access. We also identified discrepancies in how vaccination-related data were recorded in each country and what vaccination requirements were implemented. CONCLUSION: Each of the ten European nations surveyed in this study reported different COVID-19 vaccination policies. These differences complicated efforts to provide a coordinated pandemic response. These findings might alert policymakers in Europe of the need to coordinate their efforts to avoid fostering divergent and socially disruptive policies.

Manufacturer Revenue on Inhalers After Expiration of Primary Patents, 2000-2021.

This study quantifies the revenue earned on all brand-name inhalers approved by the US Food and Drug Administration from 2000 to 2021 and compared earnings before and after expiration of primary patents on these products.

The Challenges of Regulating Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Comment on "Clinical Decision Support and New Regulatory Frameworks for Medical Devices: Are We Ready for It? - A Viewpoint Paper".

Regulation of health technologies must be rigorous, instilling trust among both healthcare providers and patients. This is especially important for the control and supervision of the growing use of artificial intelligence in healthcare. In this commentary on the accompanying piece by Van Laere and colleagues, we set out the scope for applying artificial intelligence in the healthcare sector and outline five key challenges that regulators face in dealing with these modern-day technologies. Addressing these challenges will not be easy. While artificial intelligence applications in healthcare have already made rapid progress and benefitted patients, these applications clearly hold even more potential for future developments. Yet it is vital that the regulatory environment keep up with this fast-evolving space of healthcare in order to anticipate and, to the extent possible, prevent the risks that may arise.

Association of Research and Development Investments With Treatment Costs for New Drugs Approved From 2009 to 2018.

Importance: Drug companies frequently claim that high prices are needed to recoup spending on research and development. If high research and development costs justified high drug prices, then an association between these 2 measures would be expected. Objective: To examine the association between treatment costs and research and development investments for new therapeutic agents approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from 2009 to 2018. Design, Setting, and Participants: This cross-sectional study analyzed 60 drugs approved by the FDA between January 1, 2009, and December 31, 2018, for which data on research and development investments and list or net prices were available. Data sources included the FDA and SSR Health databases. Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary independent variable was estimated research and development investment. The outcome was standardized treatment costs (ie, annual treatment costs for both chronic and cycle drugs, and treatment costs for the maximum length of treatment recommended for acute drugs). Standardized treatment costs were estimated separately using list and net prices obtained from SSR Health at the time of launch and in 2021. To test the association between research and development investments and treatment costs, correlation coefficients were estimated and linear regression models were fitted that controlled for other factors that were associated with treatment costs, such as orphan status. Two models were used: a fully adjusted model that was adjusted for all variables in the data set associated with treatment costs and a parsimonious model in which highly correlated variables were excluded. Results: No correlation was observed between estimated research and development investments and log-adjusted treatment costs based on list prices at launch (R = -0.02 and R2 = 0.0005; P = .87) or net prices 1 year after launch (R = 0.08 and R2 = 0.007; P = .73). This result held when 2021 prices were used to estimate treatment costs. The linear regression models showed no association between estimated research and development investments and log-adjusted treatment costs at launch (ß = 0.002 [95% CI, -0.02 to 0.02; P = .84] in the fully adjusted model; ß = 0.01 [95% CI, -0.01 to 0.03; P = .46] in the parsimonious model) or from 2021 (ß = -0.01 [95% CI, -0.03 to 0.01; P = .30] in the fully adjusted model; ß = -0.004 [95% CI, -0.02 to 0.02; P = .66] in the parsimonious model). Conclusions and Relevance: Results of this study indicated that research and development investments did not explain the variation in list prices for the 60 drugs in this sample. Drug companies should make further data available to support their claims that high drug prices are needed to recover research and development investments, if they are to continue to use this argument to justify high prices.

Multi-country collaboration in responding to global infectious disease threats: lessons for Europe from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since 2005, the world has faced several public health emergencies of international concern arising from infectious disease outbreaks. Of these, the COVID-19 pandemic has had by far the greatest health and economic consequences. During these emergencies, responses taken by one country often have an impact on other countries. The implication is that coordination between countries is likely to achieve better outcomes, individually and collectively, than each country independently pursuing its own self-interest. During the COVID-19 pandemic, gaps in multilateral cooperation on research and information sharing, vaccine development and deployment, and travel policies have hampered the speed and equity of global recovery. In this Health Policy article, we explore how multilateral collaboration between countries is crucial to successful responses to public health emergencies linked to infectious disease outbreaks. Responding to future global infectious disease threats and other health emergencies will require the creation of stronger mechanisms for multilateral collaboration before they arise. A change to the governance of multilateral institutions is a logical next step, with a focus on providing equal ownership and leadership opportunities to all member countries. Europe can be an example and advocate for stronger and better governed multilateral institutions.

Challenges in ensuring global access to COVID-19 vaccines: production, affordability, allocation, and deployment.

The COVID-19 pandemic is unlikely to end until there is global roll-out of vaccines that protect against severe disease and preferably drive herd immunity. Regulators in numerous countries have authorised or approved COVID-19 vaccines for human use, with more expected to be licensed in 2021. Yet having licensed vaccines is not enough to achieve global control of COVID-19: they also need to be produced at scale, priced affordably, allocated globally so that they are available where needed, and widely deployed in local communities. In this Health Policy paper, we review potential challenges to success in each of these dimensions and discuss policy implications. To guide our review, we developed a dashboard to highlight key characteristics of 26 leading vaccine candidates, including efficacy levels, dosing regimens, storage requirements, prices, production capacities in 2021, and stocks reserved for low-income and middle-income countries. We use a traffic-light system to signal the potential contributions of each candidate to achieving global vaccine immunity, highlighting important trade-offs that policy makers need to consider when developing and implementing vaccination programmes. Although specific datapoints are subject to change as the pandemic response progresses, the dashboard will continue to provide a useful lens through which to analyse the key issues affecting the use of COVID-19 vaccines. We also present original data from a 32-country survey (n=26 758) on potential acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines, conducted from October to December, 2020. Vaccine acceptance was highest in Vietnam (98%), India (91%), China (91%), Denmark (87%), and South Korea (87%), and lowest in Serbia (38%), Croatia (41%), France (44%), Lebanon (44%), and Paraguay (51%).

Association between provincial income levels and drug prices in China over the period 2010-2017.

In the past decade, the Chinese central government has made sweeping reforms to national pharmaceutical policies. However, provincial authorities have retained control over most drug procurement procedures, potentially leading to cross-province differences in drug prices. The objectives of this study were to (i) examine drug price trends in 31 Chinese provinces and municipalities between 2010 and 2017; (ii) evaluate the association between provincial income levels and drug prices over this period; and (iii) compare the results for Chinese state-owned, Chinese private, and multinational pharmaceutical firms. Using publicly available data on procurement prices of the drugs manufactured by the top 30 pharmaceutical firms in China (in terms of revenues), we ran a generalized country-product-dummy regression to compare drug prices across provinces over the study period. We conducted subgroup analyses to test for differences between types of firms. Between 2010 and 2017, drug prices decreased by an average of 23% across the country. The prices of drugs sold by multinational firms dropped by 32% over this period, while the prices of drugs sold by Chinese private firms declined by 28%. By contrast, the drug prices of state-owned firms went up by 11%. There were statistically significant positive associations between drug prices and provincial income levels for the full sample in 2010, 2011, and 2013. There were no significant associations in other years. Several low-income provinces paid higher procurement prices than some high-income provinces for identical medicines, especially in later study years. The lack of association between income levels and prices poses equity concerns and may place a heavier cost burden on the poor. It also suggests that China's pharmaceutical policies may be failing to balance the dual aims of drug affordability and incentives for innovation.

Lobbying Expenditures and Campaign Contributions by the Pharmaceutical and Health Product Industry in the United States, 1999-2018.

Importance: Government efforts to lower drug costs and other legislative and regulatory initiatives may be counteracted by campaign donors and lobbyists in the pharmaceutical and health product industry. Objective: To review how much money the pharmaceutical and health product industry spent on campaign contributions and lobbying in the US from 1999 to 2018 at the federal and state levels. Design and Setting: Analysis of federal-level and state-level data obtained from the Center for Responsive Politics and the National Institute on Money in Politics, respectively. These nonprofit, nonpartisan organizations track federal and state campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures by individuals and groups. Exposures: Lobbying expenditures and contributions to political campaigns. Main Outcomes and Measures: Total spending, inflation adjusted to 2018 dollars using the US Consumer Price Index, on lobbying and campaign contributions by year, source, and state. Results: From 1999 to 2018, the pharmaceutical and health product industry recorded $4.7 billion-an average of $233 million per year-in lobbying expenditures at the federal level, more than any other industry. Of the spending, the trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America accounted for $422 million (9.0%), and the other 19 top companies and organizations in this industry accounted for $2.2 billion (46.8%). The industry spent $414 million on contributions to candidates in presidential and congressional elections, national party committees, and outside spending groups. Of this amount, $22 million went to presidential candidates and $214 million went to congressional candidates. Of the 20 senators and 20 representatives who received the most contributions, 39 belonged to committees with jurisdiction over health-related legislative matters, 24 of them in senior positions. The industry contributed $877 million to state candidates and committees, of which $399 million (45.5%) went to recipients in California and $287 million (32.7%) went to recipients in 9 other states. In years in which key state referenda on reforms in drug pricing and regulation were being voted on, there were large spikes in contributions to groups that opposed or supported the reforms. Conclusions and Relevance: From 1999 to 2018, the pharmaceutical and health product industry spent large sums of money on lobbying and campaign contributions to influence legislative and election outcomes. These findings can inform discussions about how to temper the influence of industry on US health policy.

Estimated Research and Development Investment Needed to Bring a New Medicine to Market, 2009-2018.

IMPORTANCE: The mean cost of developing a new drug has been the subject of debate, with recent estimates ranging from $314 million to $2.8 billion. OBJECTIVE: To estimate the research and development investment required to bring a new therapeutic agent to market, using publicly available data. DESIGN AND SETTING: Data were analyzed on new therapeutic agents approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) between 2009 and 2018 to estimate the research and development expenditure required to bring a new medicine to market. Data were accessed from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Drugs@FDA database, and ClinicalTrials.gov, alongside published data on clinical trial success rates. EXPOSURES: Conduct of preclinical and clinical studies of new therapeutic agents. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Median and mean research and development spending on new therapeutic agents approved by the FDA, capitalized at a real cost of capital rate (the required rate of return for an investor) of 10.5% per year, with bootstrapped CIs. All amounts were reported in 2018 US dollars. RESULTS: The FDA approved 355 new drugs and biologics over the study period. Research and development expenditures were available for 63 (18%) products, developed by 47 different companies. After accounting for the costs of failed trials, the median capitalized research and development investment to bring a new drug to market was estimated at $985.3 million (95% CI, $683.6 million-$1228.9 million), and the mean investment was estimated at $1335.9 million (95% CI, $1042.5 million-$1637.5 million) in the base case analysis. Median estimates by therapeutic area (for areas with ≥5 drugs) ranged from $765.9 million (95% CI, $323.0 million-$1473.5 million) for nervous system agents to $2771.6 million (95% CI, $2051.8 million-$5366.2 million) for antineoplastic and immunomodulating agents. Data were mainly accessible for smaller firms, orphan drugs, products in certain therapeutic areas, first-in-class drugs, therapeutic agents that received accelerated approval, and products approved between 2014 and 2018. Results varied in sensitivity analyses using different estimates of clinical trial success rates, preclinical expenditures, and cost of capital. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: This study provides an estimate of research and development costs for new therapeutic agents based on publicly available data. Differences from previous studies may reflect the spectrum of products analyzed, the restricted availability of data in the public domain, and differences in underlying assumptions in the cost calculations.