Good morning, everyone, and how are you today? We are doing just fine, thank you, as we make our way through a three-day jaunt to the corporate nerve center for different gatherings. We are fortified, of course, by cups of stimulation, which we find when and where we can when on the road. Perhaps you can relate. Meanwhile, as we hunt for still another, here is the latest laundry list of interesting items to help you on your journey today. We do hope you have a meaningful and productive experience. And as always, we invite you to keep in touch. After all, our work is more interesting when you pass along insights, tips, and secrets. …
UnitedHealth Group’s pharmacy benefits manager, OptumRx, will keep AbbVie’s Humira alongside up to three biosimilar medicines next year, Bloomberg News writes. The decision is a partial win for AbbVie, since its rheumatoid arthritis treatment has generated almost $200 billion in sales in nearly two decades. Several competing biosimilar versions are set to debut in the U.S. in 2023, giving prescription drug plans a chance to pit different suppliers against one another for discounts. Optum Rx, which is the third-largest U.S. pharmacy benefit manager and managed $112 billion in drug spending last year, will place biosimilars on its formulary in the same position as Humira.
After a tweet from a fake corporate account last week claimed Eli Lilly would give insulin away for free, the drugmaker’s chief executive officer acknowledged the need to do a better job of widening access to the life-saving diabetes treatment and change perceptions of its existing efforts to do so, STAT writes. “It probably highlights that we have more work to do to bring down the cost of insulin for more people,” said David Ricks in his first public remarks since the episode erupted. The tweet spawned numerous copycats, initially wiped out $15 billion in the total value of Lilly stock, and created another opportunity to chastise the company over insulin pricing.
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