A Field Manual For The Battle Over HIV Prevention Drug Pricing

Article | April 17, 2020

That simple truth about the severity of the disease is one of the reasons that Rafael Pharmaceuticals is slowly continuing with a Phase III trial in metastatic pancreatic cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic. While many companies have paused enrollment in clinical trials during the outbreak, Cranbury, N.J,-based Rafael opted to continue to enroll patients in its Phase III AVENGER 500 study of its lead compound CPI-613 (devimistat) in combination with modified Folfirinox (mFFX) as first-line therapy for the disease. Sanjeev Luther, president and chief executive officer of Rafael Pharmaceuticals, told BioSpace that the company made the decision to continue to enroll the trial, which was 75% filled, due to the short timeline patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer have. After discussing the matter of the trial with the company’s leadership team, Luther said they felt comfortable leaving the decision of whether or not the trial should continue to the conducting institute.

Article | April 17, 2020

Rene Roach fired off a quick email in late March for an update on a colorectal cancer clinical trial for which she hoped to qualify. Worried about the coronavirus, she asked, almost as an afterthought, whether the study had been put on hold because of the pandemic.The answer crushed her: It had been. "That's when COVID-19 shut down everything," says Roach, 50, of Germantown, Md. Roach assumed that there would be workarounds for patients like her, who have stage IV cancer. These patients often depend on clinical trials as their best chance to knock cancer out when other therapies have failed. For now, she's being treated with traditional chemotherapy, but she was counting on the drug cocktail from the clinical trial. She figures if chemo was going to rid her body of cancer for good, it would have done so already.

Article | April 17, 2020

Leading market participants in the United States pharmaceutical industry, logistics firms, distributors and other stakeholders in the pharma supply chain have come together to publish a report buttressing the need for industry players to adopt blockchain for tracking prescription drugs, following the successful completion of a DLT pilot project with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), according to reports on February 24, 2020. Though nascent, blockchain technology, the building blocks of Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies are fast gaining ground across various ecosystems, due to its immutability, security, privacy, and other intricate properties. In the latest development, 25 leading manufacturers of pharmaceutical products, logistics partners and other market participants in the pharma supply chain, have published a report that highlights the importance of blockchain technology in drug traceability.

Article | April 17, 2020

Accelerated by advancements in cancer treatments and a growing emphasis on personalized and precision medicine, specialty pharmacy represents a rapidly growing sector within the healthcare industry. In fact, the market is projected to grow to $500 billion by the end of this year—up from $200 billion in total U.S. specialty drug spending in 2017. Industry growth of this magnitude creates challenges for those looking to understand and penetrate the market. It can be difficult, after all, to maintain updated information about high-priority drug therapy areas or facility affiliations in a market that’s constantly changing.