Top of the morning to you, and a fine one it is. Clear blue skies and chilly breezes are wafting across the Pharmalot campus, where the official mascots are snoozing after foraging for their breakfast. This means we are free to focus on the matters at hand — rummaging through our to-do list and making cups of stimulation. Our choice today is maple bourbon, a necessary indulgence. As always, we invite you to join us. Meanwhile, here is the latest menu of tidbits to help you get started yourself. We hope your day is simply smashing and that you conquer the world. And of course, do keep in touch. We have adjusted our settings to accept postcards and telegrams.…
Several large drugmakers will ask the Trump administration to pause Medicare drug-price negotiations, even as Biden-appointed officials prepare a new list of medicines that should be targeted, Bloomberg News notes. “They need to fix it” before negotiating down the price of more drugs, Eli Lilly chief executive officer Dave Ricks said on the sidelines of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, referring to the Inflation Reduction Act. President Biden’s signature legislation, the IRA, allows the U.S. government to pay lower prices on older, widely used drugs in the government’s health-care program for the elderly. The outgoing administration is planning to release a list of the next set of drugs eligible for negotiation before leaving office. So far, the White House says the IRA has exceeded expectations, achieving cuts of 38% to 79% below U.S. list prices for targeted drugs and saving seniors $1.5 billion on copays and deductibles. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, an industry trade group, has filed a lawsuit challenging the price negotiations.
Truveta, the health data company, is partnering with health systems and drugmakers to launch the Truveta Genome Project, a database of genetic data that is expected to accelerate personalized medicine and help discover new drugs, STAT writes. Truveta plans to use leftover biospecimens from patients — after they consent — receiving routine health care at participating health systems to create the database. The genetic data, cross-referenced with the patients’ de-identified medical records, will be available for purchase for researchers and life sciences companies. The announcement comes as many pharmaceutical companies, biotechs, and researchers are looking to use artificial intelligence to make sense of large datasets and better understand how genomics influence health. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, for example, has invested $119.5 million in Truveta’s project, and its laboratory subsidiary the Regeneron Genetics Center will sequence the exomes of the first 10 million volunteers for the program.
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