I know I said that Cost Curve would be off today, but there were three items that caught my eye yesterday that I wanted to make sure I shared before the weekend.
FIRST: I can’t even keep up with the transparency reports at this point. No sooner did I hit “send” on yesterday’s newsletter — with its discussion of the Novo and GSK drug-pricing disclosures — than I saw that Pfizer had dropped its annual “Impact” report, which includes one drug-price number. That’s the average net price change across its portfolio. (Pfizer doesn’t disclose list-price details.)
The net-price increase was 5% last year. Not sure, given Pfizer’s weird year, what that means, but the transparency is appreciated and important.
SECOND: Madrigal won approval for its liver disease drug, which has been christened Rezdiffra. And Madrigal announced the price of the medicine, too: a WAC price of $47,400. What was noteworthy was that the company explained the price in the context of its ICER review, noting that the number they picked was “supported by a favorable third-party assessment by ICER.” Not many companies have used an ICER review as validation for price.
Here’s how the company positioned it on its investor call:
THIRD: I really wanted to link to this great NYT piece about the tradition of hockey hair at the Minnesota state high school hockey tournament. It includes this gem: “As soon as our players make the state tournament, it’s like, ‘Guys, come on, we’ve got to play hockey now,’” Ryan Neuman, the coach at New Ulm High School, said in an interview. “And they’re busy making hair appointments to get perms.”
This isn’t a comprehensive accounting of today’s news — I’ll be back on Monday with PBM links and the like. But didn’t want the Pfizer/Madrigal/mullet news to wait.
