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Josh Wilkerson was alone, in sleeping quarters above the Northern Virginia dog kennel where he worked, when he suffered a series of strokes that would prove fatal. He had aged out of his stepfather’s health insurance plan on his 26th birthday and eventually switched to over-the-counter insulin. Like many other diabetics his age, he could not afford the prescription brand he needed. A few hours after taking another dose of the lower-grade medication that June day in Leesburg, Wilkerson was in the throes of a diabetic coma — his blood sugar level 17 times higher than what is considered normal. (Olivo, 8/3)

Conservatives are growing increasingly uneasy with the Trump administration's new drug pricing policy. President Trump is desperately seeking an elusive political win in his efforts to lower prescription drug costs, but he faces a hard sell to conservative groups and GOP lawmakers as he touts ideas traditionally favored by Democrats and presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). (Weixel, 8/7)

A little-noticed provision of the Senate Finance Committee drug price bill is alarming some doctors, with at least one group warning it could harm patients with fragile medical conditions. The Community Oncology Alliance, an advocacy group for cancer doctors, is raising red flags about a provision it says could prompt drugmakers to cut patient assistance for pricey chemotherapy drugs, or shortchange doctors who buy them. (Clason, 8/5)

When it comes to government funding for drug research, an interesting paradox currently exists. While many pharmaceutical companies benefit from federal funding for research, this doesn’t necessarily translate to lower prices for patients who ultimately buy the drugs that are developed. In other words, the government is effectively subsidizing companies’ ability to develop drugs and then charge exorbitant prices for them. Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Rick Scott (R-FL) want to change that. (Zhou, 7/31)

Congress is likely to pass a “middle-of-the-road” drug pricing reform package by the end of the year as both President Donald Trump and Democrats seek a policy “win” heading into the 2020 presidential election, according to RBC Capital Markets. “Dynamics into election look to be [a] perfect storm,” RBC analyst Brian Abrahams said in a note sent to investors Monday. “While GOP leaders do not see drug pricing reform as a top priority, both [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and Trump are very committed to having policy change. ” (Lovelace, 8/5)

Congress' ideas to reform the pharmaceutical industry and U.S. drug pricing haven't worried investors about manufacturers' long-term profits, even as short-term investors are betting on the side of public angst. With the Trump administration floating big ideas like drug importation and an international reference pricing model, short-term investors are betting almost $1 trillion against the pharma sector. But the story playing out on Wall Street shows two sides of Washington's drug policy debate: public outcry versus the reality of politics. (Luthi, 8/6)

Amid rising scrutiny of the ties between patient charities and drug makers, a new study finds that nearly all of the programs run by the six largest organizations failed to provide assistance to people without insurance and were also more likely to cover expensive brand-name medicines than generics. The study found that of 274 different disease-specific programs run by the charities in 2018, 267 programs — or a whopping 97% — required insurance coverage for eligibility. (Silverman, 8/6)

It’s not every day that high-ranking government officials admit they’re struggling, but Seema Verma is owning her failures — at least when it comes to figuring out how to pay for CAR-T. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator spoke with STAT about the promising new cures that recruit a patient’s own immune cells to attack cancer — but that also cost at least $300,000 and often far more. Her agency has been grappling with how to afford the costly treatments for years, after the Food and Drug Administration approved Novartis’ Kymriah and Gilead’s Yescarta in 2017. (Florko, 8/6)

Amid concern over rising insulin costs, the Minnetonka-based health plan Medica announced a new program Monday that will limit the monthly out-of-pocket bill for an insulin prescription to $25 for thousands of Minnesotans next year. Starting Jan. 1, people who buy Medica insurance coverage through the MNsure exchange, and those who have fully insured Medica coverage through an employer, will see their out of pocket cost for a 30-day prescription for insulin on the plan formulary capped at $25. (Carlson, 8/5)

Health insurance provider Medica is putting a $25 a month cap on the cost of insulin for Minnesota patients. The cap goes into effect Jan. 1, 2020, and will affect 6,500 diabetics with Medica insurance that are fully insured through employers headquartered in Minnesota as well as those who purchased individual insurance plans. Not all of those patients require daily insulin and there are currently no plans to expand the cap to other states, a Medica spokesman said. The change should not impact premiums already submitted to the state for 2020. (Magan, 8/6)

Amazon.com Inc.s foray into the pharmacy business is causing the company to clash with entrenched industry incumbents that are putting roadblocks in front of the company’s growth plans. Last week, Surescripts LLC, a provider of the technology widely used to route electronic prescriptions, accused Amazon’s mail-order pharmacy subsidiary PillPack of receiving patient data that it had fraudulently obtained through a third party. Surescripts went public with the allegations in a news release. (Walker, 8/6)

Twenty-six of the country's physician cancer center directors took in a combined $4.4 million in payments from pharmaceutical and medical device companies in 2017, a new report found. Authors of the paper, published online Monday by JAMA Internal Medicine, wrote that their findings raise the question of whether such payments serve the public interest and urged policymakers and the public to consider whether such payments should be allowed, limited or eliminated altogether. The report focused on National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers, 70 of which received $330 million in core public funding in fiscal 2018. (Bannow, 8/5)

A federal judge ruled the Food and Drug Administration correctly prevented a company from using an ingredient to make a compounded version of a medicine that is widely used by hospitals, a notable victory for drug makers that have been battling compounding pharmacies. At issue was a dispute over whether a compounded form of vasopressin, which is used to increase blood pressure in patients with vasodilatory shock, filled a legitimate clinical need and, therefore, should be allowed to remain available alongside a brand-name version. (Silverman, 8/2)

Kaiser Health News: Drugmakers Now ‘Masters’ At Rolling Out Their Own Generics To Stifle Competition

When PDL BioPharma’s $40 million blood-pressure medicine faced the threat of a generic rival this year, the company pulled out a little-known strategy that critics say helps keep drugs expensive and competition weak. It launched its own generic version of Tekturna, a pill taken daily by thousands. PDL’s “authorized” copycat hit the market in March, stealing momentum from the new rival and protecting sales even though Tekturna’s patent ran out last year. (Hancock and Lupkin, 7/5)