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Warranties and money-back guarantees, long used to entice buyers of products like hand tools and kitchen gadgets, are now being used to sell something more crucial: pricey new-generation drugs for diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and cancer. Deals being negotiated between drugmakers and the insurers who buy medicines now sometimes include extra rebates — or even full refunds — if drugs don’t help patients as expected. (Johnson, 5/3)

[Pharmacy-benefit managers] occupy a key crossroads of the health system, acting as a nexus among insurers, employers and drug companies. Through a complex web of agreements they help decide what drugs are covered by a patient’s insurance, and how much they’ll cost at the pharmacy counter. The problem, say critics, is that opacity makes it hard for employers to know how much the PBM is paying and profiting on each transaction -- an impression reinforced by restrictions on who can audit them and how. (Weinberg and Langreth, 5/4)

A new California bill aims to reduce the pharmaceutical industry’s influence in medical decision-making by restricting payments and gifts from drug companies to doctors and other medical providers. State Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg), who authored the bill, said that when drugmakers woo physicians with meals and other enticements they generate brand loyalty, which can raise health care costs and even compromise patient safety. (Bartolone, 5/10)

True to its word, the pharmaceutical industry trade group has revised its membership criteria in a bid to deflect stinging criticism that too many drug makers aggressively raise prices, but issue empty promises about investing in research and development to produce needed medicines. Going forward, companies will now have to invest an average of 10 percent of global sales on R&D and spend at least $200 million annually on R&D over a three-year period, in order to be a member of the Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America. (Silverman, 5/9)

In a significant shift, total spending on medicines in the US rose by 5.8 percent, to $450 billion, in 2016, which was less than half the rate seen in the last two years. In 2015, for instance, drug spending climbed 8.9 percent and it had rocketed up by 12 percent the year before. (Silverman, 5/4)

The Senate HELP Committee added language addressing drug importation and complex generics to the FDA user fee reauthorization bill it is scheduled to mark up Wednesday. Both issues have been portrayed in recent months as ways to address high drug costs. (Karlin-Smith, 5/8)

The newest multiple sclerosis drug could be a boon for patients — and a threat to the multibillion-dollar business of Biogen Inc., the leading seller of MS treatments... While it’s too early to project Ocrevus sales, there’s little doubt it could pose a tough challenge for Cambridge-based Biogen. (Weisman, 5/8)

The quest to cure multiple sclerosis, or even to discover its cause, has remained elusive. But in March, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new drug to treat the most severe form of the disabling neurologic condition, which causes the body’s immune system to malfunction, attacking the cells of the spinal cord and brain.  MS affects more than 450,000 people – more often women – in the United States. The new drug, Ocrevus, has been hailed by researchers and physicians as a game-changer, with the potential to lead to new avenues of treatment for other diseases, as well. (Bauers, 5/8)

It is one of the most acute indignities of being uninsured in this country: Those with the least ability to pay are asked to spend the most for their prescription drugs. That’s because people without health insurance are forced to pay the list price for brand-name drugs, while insurers have access to a lower, negotiated rate for the same products. (Thomas, 5/8)

n a bid to defuse sharp criticism of prescription drug pricing, the nation’s largest pharmacy benefit manager, Express Scripts, and several pharmaceutical companies are teaming up to offer discounts on more than three dozen brand medicines. The program, called InsideRx, is geared primarily to patients who lack insurance or who have high-deductible health plans, and offers average discounts of 34 percent on medicines for treating diabetes, high cholesterol, acid reflux, and respiratory problems such as asthma. (Silverman, 5/9)

In the latest effort to respond to criticism over drug pricing, Sanofi says it will limit price hikes to a level at or below the medical rate of inflation in the US, which is projected to reach 5.4 percent this year. And like other companies, the drug maker released recent price increases — before and after rebates paid to middlemen —and vowed to continue doing so in the future. (Silverman, 5/9)

After weeks of anticipation, PTC Therapeutics has decided to charge $35,000 a year —depending upon patient weight — for a newly purchased drug for treating Duchenne muscular dystrophy, although the price may be a hard sell to some insurers and families. The pricing is well below the $89,000 that Marathon Pharmaceuticals planned to charge before selling the decades-old steroid last month to PTC. But whether this lower price is enough to assuage parents or make it worth the $140 million purchase — plus royalties and other payments — is unclear. (Silverman, 5/8)

PTC Therapeutics Inc. said Monday that it would receive a net price of $35,000 annually per patient for Emflaza, the muscular dystrophy drug it acquired from Marathon Pharmaceuticals LLC last month.PTC didn’t explain how it calculated the “net price,” a term drugmakers sometimes use to describe the net revenue they receive for a drug after providing discounts, copay assistance and free medicine to patients without insurance. PTC said the $35,000 “net price” reflected how much it expected to receive from a typical pediatric patient weighing 25 kilograms, or about 55 pounds. (Walker, 5/8)

There’s widespread interest, all the way up to the Oval Office, in driving down prescription drug prices. Where things tend to get stickier, policy wonks say, is in finding a way to do it that doesn’t discourage drug companies from spending big on research. To try to generate fresh ideas that strike the right balance, the Washington think tank Brookings Institution commissioned a set of three white papers from top scholars. They were released this week. (Robbins, 5/4)

The Ohio Drug Price Relief Act, a citizen-initiated statute slated for the November ballot, would require the state of Ohio to pay no more for prescription drugs than the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which has negotiated a discount of up to 40 percent. The reason people think the campaign will be so costly is that last year, more than $128 million was spent on a similar (and ultimately unsuccessful) ballot measure in California. (Pelzer, 5/2)