RefiningValue.bsky.social
@refiningvalue.bsky.social
Health economist writing about HEOR/market access, drug development, biopharma
Http://refiningvalue.substack.com
Http://refiningvalue.substack.com
Not too often you see HRQoL data in drug commercials. Via Ari Gnanasakthy youtu.be/VDFF6MCFzKM?...
Attruby Commercial (2025)
YouTube video by Commercial Archivist
youtu.be
April 8, 2025 at 12:35 PM
Not too often you see HRQoL data in drug commercials. Via Ari Gnanasakthy youtu.be/VDFF6MCFzKM?...
Reposted by RefiningValue.bsky.social
Former FDA Commissioner:
April 1, 2025 at 12:59 PM
Former FDA Commissioner:
Nice paper outlining how RWE can be applied in IRA evaluation of drugs academic.oup.com/healthaffair...
Use of real-world evidence in the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program: A checklist for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and manufacturers
Abstract. Under the Inflation Reduction Act's (IRA's) - Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS's)
academic.oup.com
March 26, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Nice paper outlining how RWE can be applied in IRA evaluation of drugs academic.oup.com/healthaffair...
Glad to see GLP-1s continue to push expanded direct offerings: www.prnewswire.com/news-release...
Novo Nordisk introduces NovoCare® Pharmacy, lowering cost of all doses of FDA-approved Wegovy® (semaglutide) to $499 per month and offering easy home delivery for cash-paying patients
NovoCare® Pharmacy provides direct-to-patient, convenient home shipments of all dose strengths of Wegovy® at a reduced cost of $499 per month for cash-paying...
www.prnewswire.com
March 6, 2025 at 1:03 PM
Glad to see GLP-1s continue to push expanded direct offerings: www.prnewswire.com/news-release...
Reports and documentation are a low-hanging fruit for biopharma and can help reduce OpEx, especially that which is currently outsourced to vendors. CSRs, other study reports, payer dossiers, briefing book docs etc etc. Big potential for short to medium-term savings
On whether Novo Nordisk has plans to replace human employees w/ Claude [AI] to draft clinical study reports, "The company stated that it does not plan to cut any writing staff for now, but it intends to reduce new hiring & allocate the saved resources to recruitment in other departments." #medsky
Novo Nordisk said they began using the generative AI Claude 3 Sonnet to draft clinical study reports according to article shared by Bertalan Mesko. "This has led to significantly shortening the drafting time from about 15 weeks to less than 10 minutes." www.linkedin.com/posts/bertal... #biosky
March 5, 2025 at 6:54 PM
Reports and documentation are a low-hanging fruit for biopharma and can help reduce OpEx, especially that which is currently outsourced to vendors. CSRs, other study reports, payer dossiers, briefing book docs etc etc. Big potential for short to medium-term savings
Short-termism driven by personal timelines rule the day. Greater purpose be damned.
Would a Vagelos or Termeer have done the same? I would think not, and hopefully history judges the two archetypes accordingly.
Would a Vagelos or Termeer have done the same? I would think not, and hopefully history judges the two archetypes accordingly.
I wrote last week urging Pharma CEOs to speak up about the Trump administration. Unfortunately, some of them have.
Pharma CEOS Speaking Up, Damn It
www.science.org
February 19, 2025 at 11:44 PM
Short-termism driven by personal timelines rule the day. Greater purpose be damned.
Would a Vagelos or Termeer have done the same? I would think not, and hopefully history judges the two archetypes accordingly.
Would a Vagelos or Termeer have done the same? I would think not, and hopefully history judges the two archetypes accordingly.
Reposted by RefiningValue.bsky.social
Was really expecting more of these people.
Pfizer CEO says opportunities with Trump ‘clearly outweigh’ the risks for pharma endpts.com/pfizer-ceo-s...
Pfizer CEO says opportunities with Trump ‘clearly outweigh’ the risks for pharma
Over 500 pharma executives, lobbyists, consultants and other industry members gathered a couple miles from the White House on Tuesday, as top industry leaders took the stage and tried out some new mes...
endpts.com
February 19, 2025 at 5:14 PM
Was really expecting more of these people.
Reposted by RefiningValue.bsky.social
I am grieving for the many talented & dedicated FDA employees who have been mistreated & those left to do the work of protecting public health. Also for those who will be harmed by this among patients and the public. Those who are complicit in their silence will be judged harshly by history.
February 17, 2025 at 3:34 AM
I am grieving for the many talented & dedicated FDA employees who have been mistreated & those left to do the work of protecting public health. Also for those who will be harmed by this among patients and the public. Those who are complicit in their silence will be judged harshly by history.
Reposted by RefiningValue.bsky.social
I am going to be so pissed if--after everything--I do, in fact, die of dysentery.
February 13, 2025 at 9:33 PM
I am going to be so pissed if--after everything--I do, in fact, die of dysentery.
Reposted by RefiningValue.bsky.social
Defend the NIH. timmermanreport.com/2025/02/defe...
Defend the NIH - TimmermanReport.com
Too many people don’t believe anymore in the American Dream. But if you can’t dream big, you can’t accomplish big things. Today, the National Institutes of Health — biomedical science itself — is unde...
timmermanreport.com
February 13, 2025 at 5:04 PM
Defend the NIH. timmermanreport.com/2025/02/defe...
Reposted by RefiningValue.bsky.social
Biopharma companies and CEOs are keeping their heads down at their own peril. They should speak up about what’s happening to the NIH and other science agencies before it’s too late.
Silence gives consent. And no one should consent to this.
Silence gives consent. And no one should consent to this.
Stand Up And Be Counted
www.science.org
February 12, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Biopharma companies and CEOs are keeping their heads down at their own peril. They should speak up about what’s happening to the NIH and other science agencies before it’s too late.
Silence gives consent. And no one should consent to this.
Silence gives consent. And no one should consent to this.
Of course not reflective of many (most?) of us working in the industry.
Unfortunately, anything at NIH today that will lead to a new drug is way too long a time horizon for leadership to worry about personally (chances are they'll be long gone by the time it comes to fruition).
Unfortunately, anything at NIH today that will lead to a new drug is way too long a time horizon for leadership to worry about personally (chances are they'll be long gone by the time it comes to fruition).
As outcry builds over Trump cuts to NIH payments, drugmakers are MIA
On last night's earnings call, $VRTX CEO Reshma Kewalramani said nothing about the NIH, yet Vertex owes some of that $11B in cystic fibrosis drug sales to foundational biomedical research funded by NIH....
On last night's earnings call, $VRTX CEO Reshma Kewalramani said nothing about the NIH, yet Vertex owes some of that $11B in cystic fibrosis drug sales to foundational biomedical research funded by NIH....
February 12, 2025 at 12:06 AM
Of course not reflective of many (most?) of us working in the industry.
Unfortunately, anything at NIH today that will lead to a new drug is way too long a time horizon for leadership to worry about personally (chances are they'll be long gone by the time it comes to fruition).
Unfortunately, anything at NIH today that will lead to a new drug is way too long a time horizon for leadership to worry about personally (chances are they'll be long gone by the time it comes to fruition).
Reposted by RefiningValue.bsky.social
BREAKING: In response to doctors' lawsuit, Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, orders CDC, NIH, and FDA to put back up websites and datasets cited by the doctors in their lawsuit as having been relied upon and pulled down without notice. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
![TOTE ASTRICT COLOR
DOCTORS FOR AMERICA,
Plaintiff,
Civil Action No. 25-322 (JDB)
OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT et al.,
Defendants.
ORDER
Upon consideration of [6] Plaintiff's motion for a temporary restraining order, [8]
Plaintiff's supplemental declarations, [9] Defendants' opposition, [10] Plaintiff's reply, the
hearing on February 10, 2025, and the entire record herein, and for the reasons stated in the
accompanying Memorandum Opinion, it is hereby ORDERED that
1. Defendants Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Disease Control, and Food
and Drug Administration (hereinafter "defendants") shall, by not later than 11:59 pm on
February 11, 2025, restore to their versions as of January 30, 2025, each webpage and dataset
identified by Plaintiff on pages 6-12 of its Memorandum of Law in Support of the Motion for
a Restraining Order [ECF No. 6-1];
2. Defendants shall, in consultation with Plaintiff, identify any other resources that DF A members
rely on to provide medical care and that defendants removed or substantially modified on or
after January 29, 2025, without adequate notice or reasoned explanation; and defendants shall,
by February 14, 2025, restore those resources to their versions as of January 30, 2025;](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:36eqtmzysqf7wsslczw4uxcd/bafkreifoaihlyxzbiko32lmralzpicfxnzwfoxp3ki5w4wniiihonzxira@jpeg)
February 11, 2025 at 5:15 PM
BREAKING: In response to doctors' lawsuit, Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, orders CDC, NIH, and FDA to put back up websites and datasets cited by the doctors in their lawsuit as having been relied upon and pulled down without notice. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Reposted by RefiningValue.bsky.social
This is the most relevant article to NIH and research cuts I’ve seen.
Imagine if this was today , how many people would be saying “Why are we studying Gila Monsters and their impact on diabetes ? That’s wasted money !”
globalnews.ca/news/9793403...
Imagine if this was today , how many people would be saying “Why are we studying Gila Monsters and their impact on diabetes ? That’s wasted money !”
globalnews.ca/news/9793403...
How a Canadian scientist and a venomous lizard helped pave the way for Ozempic - National | Globalnews.ca
In 1984, Dr. Daniel Drucker, an endocrinologist from the University of Toronto, discovered a hormone that helped pave the way for popular diabetes drugs such as Ozempic.
globalnews.ca
February 9, 2025 at 9:58 PM
This is the most relevant article to NIH and research cuts I’ve seen.
Imagine if this was today , how many people would be saying “Why are we studying Gila Monsters and their impact on diabetes ? That’s wasted money !”
globalnews.ca/news/9793403...
Imagine if this was today , how many people would be saying “Why are we studying Gila Monsters and their impact on diabetes ? That’s wasted money !”
globalnews.ca/news/9793403...
Pharma bet that Trump>Biden may be tested sooner than I thought w the news of FDA cuts. Especially if review timelines / meeting timelines start getting impacted
February 7, 2025 at 12:09 AM
Pharma bet that Trump>Biden may be tested sooner than I thought w the news of FDA cuts. Especially if review timelines / meeting timelines start getting impacted
Some interesting parallels re Deepseek: US-based LLMs and the bio explosion in China:US biotech
Still feel it'll be net positive for the industries and consumers at large in both cases
Still feel it'll be net positive for the industries and consumers at large in both cases
January 27, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Some interesting parallels re Deepseek: US-based LLMs and the bio explosion in China:US biotech
Still feel it'll be net positive for the industries and consumers at large in both cases
Still feel it'll be net positive for the industries and consumers at large in both cases
I shouldn't try to apply logic here and apologies for the rare political post but if NIH is developing all of the drugs then why are we freezing all of the funding again?
January 24, 2025 at 7:24 PM
I shouldn't try to apply logic here and apologies for the rare political post but if NIH is developing all of the drugs then why are we freezing all of the funding again?
Excellent piece and nicely balanced on the "China asset farm" issue. While others' concerns on impact to the US bio ecosystem are understandable I think it's also important to consider the macro impact re impact on overall discovery/development economics.
Good biopharma piece by Aimee Raleigh of Atlas: lifescivc.com/2025/01/a-ta...
A Tale of Two Sentiments: JPM 2025 - LifeSciVC
By Aimee Raleigh, Principal at Atlas Venture, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” Another JPM is behind us, and while much of t...
lifescivc.com
January 22, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Excellent piece and nicely balanced on the "China asset farm" issue. While others' concerns on impact to the US bio ecosystem are understandable I think it's also important to consider the macro impact re impact on overall discovery/development economics.
Reposted by RefiningValue.bsky.social
Re-upping this reply thread from last night. Drugs don't come from nowhere, folks. And we're not ripping off the NIH, either.
I think you're describing science, IMO. Everything is atop a foundation of basic research. An example: at a previous company, I worked on a series of small-molecule inhibitors of Hormone-Sensitive Lipase, a possible target for Type II diabetes and related conditions. (1/10)
January 6, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Re-upping this reply thread from last night. Drugs don't come from nowhere, folks. And we're not ripping off the NIH, either.
Interesting that Leerink now has a team doing independent cost effectiveness analyses. Seems to be taking more of a GCEA approach. An alternative to ICER?
www.leerink.com/article/a-cp...
www.leerink.com/article/a-cp...
A CPE Exclusive: Cobenfy™ for Adults Living with Schizophrenia | Leerink Partners
Leerink Partners' Articles – sharing our deep expertise and experience in Healthcare to help fuel our customers' next breakthrough innovation.
www.leerink.com
November 26, 2024 at 3:00 PM
Interesting that Leerink now has a team doing independent cost effectiveness analyses. Seems to be taking more of a GCEA approach. An alternative to ICER?
www.leerink.com/article/a-cp...
www.leerink.com/article/a-cp...
He also misunderstands (although not the first time) how drug pricing works. Demand is not perfectly inelastic.
Dr. Prasad appears to misunderstand what is discussed in the Tweet in the screenshot.
First, anti-vaccine groups want to remove liability protections from childhood vaccines, bringing us back to where we were in 1986, where manufacturers were leaving the market. 1/3
First, anti-vaccine groups want to remove liability protections from childhood vaccines, bringing us back to where we were in 1986, where manufacturers were leaving the market. 1/3
November 22, 2024 at 8:42 AM
He also misunderstands (although not the first time) how drug pricing works. Demand is not perfectly inelastic.
Fantastic overview of methods to quantify the various components of the ISPOR value flower in GCEA #HEOR #biosky pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
Valuing the Societal Impact of Medicines and Other Health Technologies: A User Guide to Current Best Practices
This study argues that value assessment conducted from a societal perspective should rely on the Generalized Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (GCEA) framework proposed herein. Recently developed value asse...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
November 20, 2024 at 4:49 PM
Fantastic overview of methods to quantify the various components of the ISPOR value flower in GCEA #HEOR #biosky pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
Did not realize this. Alex Azar-Pence connection too potentially with Lilly HQ in Indianapolis
The thing about health appointments in Trump's first administration is that it was actually Mike Pence's HHS — Tom Price was a House colleague, Seema Verma had consulted extensively on Indiana Medicaid during expansion while Pence was governor.
This is what an actual Trump HHS looks like.
This is what an actual Trump HHS looks like.
November 19, 2024 at 10:53 PM
Did not realize this. Alex Azar-Pence connection too potentially with Lilly HQ in Indianapolis
Nice to see more focus on the "lost" voice in the US access landscape. Arguably the most powerful group that is the least called on. Suspect $LLY $NVO can do it because of the cash boon but if successful perhaps we see more of it more broadly down the road
Drugs Wegovy and Mounjaro have been shown to help you lose weight. Now their makers are trying a new tack to get your employers to pay for them.
Makers of Weight-Loss Drugs Want Your Employer to Pay for Them
Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk reps get facetime with employers in hopes they’ll cover their drugs
www.wsj.com
November 19, 2024 at 12:30 PM
Nice to see more focus on the "lost" voice in the US access landscape. Arguably the most powerful group that is the least called on. Suspect $LLY $NVO can do it because of the cash boon but if successful perhaps we see more of it more broadly down the road
Reposted by RefiningValue.bsky.social
I'm re-upping this drug development "starter pack" of some Bluesky accounts organized by Greg Medlock—senior director of R&D at Cambridge, MA-based biotech Vedanta Biosciences. See below: #biosky
I’m creating a drug development starter pack, reach out to join or suggest additions: go.bsky.app/B2pzQm2
November 18, 2024 at 8:34 PM
I'm re-upping this drug development "starter pack" of some Bluesky accounts organized by Greg Medlock—senior director of R&D at Cambridge, MA-based biotech Vedanta Biosciences. See below: #biosky