Author: James Love

David Hirschmann, US Chamber, claims efforts to curb high prices for cancer drugs are “a destructive course.”

The US Chamber of Commerce might consider renaming itself the US/Swiss Chamber of Commerce, after their most recent attack on the Colombia Minister of Health (MoH) announcement that a “Declaration of Public Interest” would be issued for the patents on the cancer drug imatinib, held by the Swiss company Novartis. In the US Chamber’s defense of the Swiss drug company, they don’t mention the fact that Novartis has earned about $48 billion from sales of imatinib (sold by Novartis under the brand names Gleevec or Glivec) since the drug was put on the market, including more than $380 million per month in 2015. Continue Reading →

Alfred Engelberg and Aaron Kesselheim have published an opinion article in Nature titled:

“Use the Bayh-Dole Act to lower drug prices for government healthcare programs,” Nature Medicine 22, 576 (2016) doi:10.1038/nm0616-576, Published online 07 June 2016.
http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v22/n6/abs/nm0616-576.html

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The 2016 USTR Special 301 report is now available. (copy here). The report is 77 pages of complaints about intellectual property policies around the world, plus a number of other complaints, including those related to pricing and reimbursement of pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices, restrictions on data flows, standard setting, and government procurement.

On the one hand, USTR says it is supports “access to medicine for all.”

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These estimates are published by Statista, here.

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[First reported by Politico] On April 9, 2016, the Obama Administration sent a document to Congress defending the TPP against criticism from the pharmaceutical industry that they did not get enough from the deal. Continue Reading →

Draft, revised April 12, 2016.

2015:4 KEI Briefing Note: The Tufts estimates of the risk adjusted out-of-pocket costs to develop a new drug.
April 12, 2016
James Love

This is a briefing note on the 2016 Tufts study titled: Innovation in the pharmaceutical industry: New estimates of R&D costs, co-authored by three industry consultants, Joseph A. DiMasi, Henry G. Grabowski and Ronald W. Hansen. [J.A. DiMasi et al. Journal of Health Economics 47 (2016)].

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