Author: Marc Herant

A new drug to address hard-to-treat severe asthma In ~10% of people with asthma, traditional therapies do not work well and they have recurrent exacerbations leading them to the ED. Over the past few years, a number of biologics (mAbs) have been developed to treat such patients, but each of these agents is targeted to a small subgroup with specific biomarker characteristics for which it has been shown to be effective, resulting in ultra-niche therapies with limited uptake.  For broader penetration of those modalities, what is needed is a drug

At last, drug prices influence physician usage patterns Association of Reference Pricing with Drug Selection and Spending (subscriber access); Nitroprusside and Isoproterenol Use after Major Price Increases (free access) Not that long ago, the share of mind US physicians devoted to the cost of the drugs they prescribe was essentially zilch. Thankfully, times have changed as demonstrated in two interesting papers that describe natural experiments. The first compared trends in prescribing patterns at a payer that instituted reference pricing in 2013 vs. one that did not (reference pricing means that

Stent news First there was angioplasty, then bare stents, then drug-eluting stents, and now the next generation: bioresorbable stents: each generation commanding a significant price premium for the manufacturers (but only for a few years). But, while bare stents and drug eluting stents were clear improvements on the previous standard of care, the case is not at all obvious for bioresorbable stents.  Now the latest news is that the Absorb stent (Abbott), instead of showing a benefit over the previous standard of care, appears to lead to a higher rate

A knock at the door of a monster franchise Adalimumab (Humira, Abbvie) is the best-selling drug on the planet with the bulk of sales coming from patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis (RA). It is therefore quite a coup for Lilly/Incyte to have shown in a double blind controlled study that baricitinib, an inhibitor of JAK (an important intracellular signaling molecule), performed better in relieving the symptoms of patients with RA than adalimumab. It was all the more surprising given that another JAK inhibitor, tofacitinib (Xeljanz, Pfizer, now also approved for

An innovative modality to suppress PCSK9 Antisense technology relies on the concept that it is possible to interfere with the cellular genetic machinery in very specific ways by deploying short RNA sequences that are complementary to the message that one wants to suppress. The idea has been around for a while, but has only achieved limited success in very niche indications (see here for the two latest). This is what makes the publication of phase 1 trial of the antisense agent inclisiran (Alnylam and the Medicines Company) targeting the synthesis

Taking a page from HIV to build a response to opioid abuse A couple of perspectives on the challenges of treating individuals who suffer from opioid dependence. The first highlights the importance of integrating medication assisted treatment (e.g. methadone or buprenorphine) into hospital and post-hospital care – plausibly an ED visit or a hospital stay for an event triggered by opioid abuse (such as an overdose) is a significant opportunity to go beyond treating the acute issue and starting patients on long term treatments. In the second, the author recalls