08
The Health | April, 2020
| Foreign News |
Price
hikes
across
the
industry
in 2020
M
alaysians can expect
to pay more for drugs
following prices hikes by
some of the world’s largest
drug manufacturers.
The New Year ushered
in hundreds of price hikes
across the drug industry in
the US, and the tally has just kept growing.
In early January, 471 meds have
bigger stickers now than they did end
December, an update from GoodRx shows.
On average, the increases came in at 5.1%.
According to newswire Reuters, Novartis,
Merck & Co and Allergan joined the list of
companies raising prices.
Novartis is marking up prices on
about 7% of the products it sells in the US,
a spokesperson told FiercePharma.
Overall, the drugmaker expects US net
pricing—the amount it reaps after rebates
and discounts, to decline by 2.5% during
2020.
Merck is raising prices on about 15
medicines, Reuters reports. The hikes
are within the company’s pledge to
limit price hikes to US inflation, a
spokeswoman said. The drugmaker
is “committed to working with
policymakers and stakeholders at both
the federal and local levels on solutions
Big tech's
here to stay
that will address patient out-of-pocket
costs,” she added.
For its part, Allergan is raising prices of
25 drugs by 5%—plus two others by 2% to
3%, a spokeswoman said. The drugmaker
still expects net pricing to be flat or decline
this year on higher rebates and discounts.
The hikes by Allergan, Merck and
Novartis followed similar moves by Pfizer,
Bristol-Myers Squibb, AbbVie, Gilead
Sciences and others.
The most commonly prescribed
drugs carrying higher prices include
All of the increases apply
Pfizer and Bristol-Myers
to list prices, which are
Squibb’s Eliquis, Eli Lilly and
negotiated down by
Boehringer Ingelheim’s Jardiance,
minddlemen and payers.
BI’s Tradjenta, Gilead’s
Patients typically don't
Truvada and Pfizer’s Chantix,
pay list prices.
according to GoodRx.
All but a few of the price hikes are
under 10%, a level famously set years
Fact
MOBIHEALTHNEWS says it doesn’t
have a crystal ball (it would be darn
useful for getting scoops). But it does
have more than a decade’s worth of
experience tracking the emergence of
this space and spends a lot of its time
talking to smart people with industry
experience and opinions of their own.
As we enter into a new decade
in 2020, MobiHealthNews staff put
their heads together to cap off some
perspectives on upcoming trends and,
yes, even some predictions, for 2020
and beyond. This is their take on 2020.
1. Big tech isn’t going away — and
its healthcare moves will only get
bolder
This has become a perennial
prediction, but it’s still an important
one. Few people believe at this point
that Amazon’s Amazon Care program
will stay an employee experiment for
long. We’re convinced it’s headed for
a wider rollout that will see Amazon
offering, or at least facilitating,
telemedicine services, disrupting the
supply chain for care the same way it
has with so many other things.
2. Data privacy will remain in the
spotlight, and HIPAA won’t cut it
The limits of HIPAA are a double-edged
sword for big tech, something Google
learned the hard way this year when
news broke of its Ascensia partnership
in a less-than-flattering way. The
company was operating within the
letter of the decades-old law, but that
was a cold comfort to patients alarmed
that (A) Google had access to their data
and (B) they weren’t notified.
3. Last decade’s cutting-edge
tech is moving into the boring, but
productive, part of the hype cycle
Most of you are probably familiar
with the Gartner hype cycle, a useful
conceptual framework that describes
how new technologies move from a
“peak of inflated expectations,” to
a “trough of disillusionment,” to the
“slope of enlightenment” and, finally,
the “plateau of productivity.” Several
back by Allergan CEO Brent Saunders
in his pledge about pharma’s “social
contract.” Some of them pushed right up
to that threshold, though, with increases
of 9.9%.
All of the increases apply to list
prices, which are negotiated down by
middlemen and payers. Patients typically
don’t pay list prices.
Still, the steady stream of price hikes
has angered lawmakers, patients and
public health advocates. Patients 4
Affordable Drugs Executive Director
Ben Wakana said in a news statement
that the pharma industry “can’t break its
addiction to price increases.”
The hikes show the industry can’t
be trusted to police itself, Wakana said,
adding that it’s time for Congress to pass
legislation to stop the industry’s “price
gouging.” — The Health
times speaking with stakeholders at
JP Morgan, it was striking how many
technologies seem to be in the last two
of those stages.
4. More digital health-specific
investor firms and funds will emerge
We predict the investor pool will mature
and continue to specialize. Due to the
relative new-ness of the digital health
industry, investors have come from
a variety of backgrounds including
tech, biopharma and general health.
However, industry insiders have
continued to stress the importance of
understanding the health ecosystem.
5. Asian digital health markets will
continue to rise
Our eyes are on the Asia/Pacific
market for 2020. Last year, Beijing
topped the list of the most digital health
funding in a non-US city, coming in with
$855.4 million, according to Startup
Health’s 2019 funding report. While
this number is about $100 million
less than last year, it pulled ahead as
the clear leader as the international