Coverage of Ozempic, Wegovy; eliminating hepatitis C, $100,000 bonsues for nurses
Ultra-expensive drugs for rare conditions have become the norm in U.S. healthcare. Ozempic and Wegovy are something of a throwback to the days when drugs that are merely expensive but for common conditions were the primary battleground for patients, providers and payers. The Journal has a piece today (behind a paywall) written from the patient and physician point of view. The newspaper reports that Diana Thiara, medical director of the University of California, San Francisco’s Medical Weight Management Clinic, tells doctors and patients to be as specific as possible in making their case for coverage. “If they say no, ask why,” she told the newspaper.
President Biden included an $11 billion proposal to eliminate hepatitis C in this 2024 budget plan. Whether the plan ever reifies beyond aspiration is far from certain. But if it does, the effort will need to meet the challenges of dealing with hepatitis C testing, diagnosis and treatment among people who inject drugs, argues Ronald Valdiserri, M.D., M.P.H., a professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta, in a Health Affairs Forefront blog post this morning (full text available).
“In truth, each subsequent step in the process from HCV antibody testing to confirmation of infection through treatment and cure (referred to as thetreatment cascade) can result in drop-offs along the way. While loss to care is not unique to the process of HCV diagnosis and treatment, effectively caring for PWID requires an awareness of the internal and external factors that can influence their willingness to both initiate and complete HCV treatment,” wrote Valdiserri, who is co-chair for HepVu, an online interactive resource that provides information about hepatitis and other viral hepatitides in the U.S. that is funded by Gilead Sciences.
It is not news that hospitals are scrambling to cope with staffing shortages, but Modern Healthcare has a piece this morning (behind a paywall) with some details about the lengths some hospitals are going to fill positions and cut back on the contract labor. For example, Palomar Health, in Escondido, California, has started offering nurses $100,000 in bonuses if they agree to stick with the system for three years, the magazine reported.
An FDA advisory committee voted 8-6 on Friday to recommend accelerated approval for Sarepta’s Duchenne muscular dystrophy gene therapy. The vote in favor of the therapy, currently known as SRP-9001 (delandistrogene moxeparvovec), occurred against a backdrop of a number of controversies about the therapy, reports of disagreement within the agency about whether it should be approved and broader conflicts about accelerated approvals and surrogate endpoints.
Here is our piece about the race to develop a gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
35th World AIDS Day Marks 20 Years of PEPFAR: Challenges and Strategies to Combat HIV/AIDS
November 29th 2023PEPFAR, having invested $100 billion and saved 25 million lives in the global fight against HIV/AIDS, faces Congressional hurdles in its reauthorization due to abortion debates. Despite widespread support and no evidence of abortion-related activities, the legislative process is at a standstill. Members of PEPFAR and authors of a recent editorial stress the significance of PEPFAR and advocate for integrating behavioral and social science into healthcare programs to achieve UNAIDS targets and address barriers in HIV/AIDS testing and treatment.
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Bridging the Diversity Gap in Rare Disease Clinical Trials with Harsha Rajasimha of IndoUSrare
November 8th 2023Briana Contreras, an editor with Managed Healthcare Executive, spoke with Harsha Rajasimha, MD, founder and executive chairman of IndoUSrare, in this month's episode of Tuning in to the C-Suite podcast. The conversation was about how the disparity in diversity and ethnicity in rare disease clinical trials in the U.S. has led to gaps in understanding diseases and conditions, jeopardizing universal health, and increasing the economic burden of healthcare.
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Managing Editor of Managed Healthcare Executive, Peter Wehrwein, had a discussion with William Shrank, M.D., a venture partner with Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm in Menlo Park, California, about how artificial intelligence's role is improving healthcare, where we are today with value-based care and the ongoing efforts of reducing waste in the healthcare space for this episode of the "What's on Your Mind" podcast series.
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