CER Daily Newsfeed

Video: Value Assessment Tools Help Collect Data, Determine Spending

(10/17, Pharmacy Times) “...[Kimberly Westrich, MA:] So, one of the ways that they can help to make these decisions is we do have all of this information out there, and it can pull that information together in a more structured and organized way. So if you are someone who's working for a health plan and you're trying to make a decision about a treatment, and you have an organized inventory of all of the studies that have been done, and a sense of the quality of that evidence, and what are the important contextual considerations—it might be something like the impact on health equity or severity of disease—if you have all that information that's pulled together and organized in a structured way, that can be really helpful.” View Video

AbbVie's Skyrizi Helps More Crohn's Patients Stay Off Steroids Than J&J's Stelara, PhIII Data Show

(10/16, Ayisha Sharma, Endpoints News) reports “AbbVie's Skyrizi has demonstrated significantly higher rates of steroid-free clinical and endoscopic remission versus rival Johnson & Johnson's Stelara in a Phase III trial, helping set the Crohn's disease drug apart in an increasingly competitive market.” Full

Medicaid Use Of QALYs As Basis Of Drug Coverage Restrictions Would Be Barred By HHS Proposal

(10/16, Cathy Kelly, Pink Sheet) reports “...The US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights takes aim at the use of any value assessment measure that discounts the value of life extension on the basis of disability when it is used to restrict access to prescription drugs in ‘federally assisted’ programs like Medicaid in a recently released proposed rule.” Subscription Required

Treating the Individual: The Intersection of Personalized Medicine and Clinical Pathways

(10/16, Grace Taylor, Journal of Clinical Pathways) reports “...Pathways vendors, payers, patients, next-generation sequencing, and molecular diagnostics ‘collide’ to combine pathways and precision medicine. A study by Mason et al, cited by [Ray Page, DO, PhD], used clinical pathways to investigate biomarker testing patterns for patients with non–small cell lung cancer among providers using clinical pathways. The researchers found that these providers had high biomarker testing rates (94%), and 96.8% of patients had been prescribed the appropriate treatment.” Full

Wong and Team at Yale Emergency Medicine Receive $6.9 Million PCORI Award

(10/16, Cat Urbain, Yale School of Medicine) reports “A research team led by Ambrose Wong, MD, MSEd, MHS, from the Department of Emergency Medicine at Yale School of Medicine, has been approved for a $6.9 million research funding award by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. This will be the first study to evaluate the impact of introducing peers into the emergency department workforce to help patients in emotional and psychiatric distress.” Full

Scoop: Sanders Eyeing Hearing With Drug Companies

(10/16, Peter Sullivan, Axios Pro) reports “Senate HELP Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders is planning a hearing with drug company executives for December, according to industry sources...The hearing would provide a forum for Sanders, long a leading foe of pharma, to increase the pressure over pharmaceutical prices.” Subscription Required

EU HTA Regulation: Industry’s Missed Opportunity & The PICO Process

(10/17, Francesca Bruce, Pink Sheet) reports “...Pharmaceutical companies missed a big opportunity to help shape the scoping process for the forthcoming EU-level joint clinical assessments, but they can still contribute to how the process develops, according to Niklas Hedberg, formerly chair of the recently concluded European Network for Health Technology Assessments.” Subscription Required