New BoH Feature: Monthly Round-Up of What to Read on Pharma Law and Policy

By Ameet Sarpatwari and Aaron S. Kesselheim

Each month, the Program On Regulation, Therapeutics, And Law (PORTAL) in the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School reviews the peer-reviewed medical literature to identify interesting empirical studies, in-depth analyses, and thoughtful editorials on pharmaceutical law and policy.  We are thrilled to announce that PORTAL (specifically Aaron Kesselheim and Ameet Sarpatwari) will being posting these curated round-ups at Bill of Health each month, with a full posting including abstracts/summaries at their website.

Below are the abstracts/summaries for papers identified from October.  The selections feature topics ranging from the cost-utility of specialty drugs, to the association between financial conflicts of interest and favorable assessments of newer influenza treatments, to the clinical evidence supporting biomarker testing reported in FDA drug labels.  We thank Lara Maggs and Nazleen Khan for their contributions to this review.

1. Chambers JD, Thorat T, Pyo J, Chenoweth M, Neumann PJ. Despite high costs, specialty drugs may offer value for money comparable to that of traditional drugs. Health Aff (Millwood). 2014 Oct 1;33(10):1751-60.
2. Chang CQ, Tingle SR, Filipski KK, Khoury MJ, Lam TK, Schully SD, Ioannidis JP. An overview of recommendations and translational milestones for genomic tests in cancer. Genet Med. 2014 Oct 23. [Epub ahead of print]
3. Dunn AG, Arachi D, Hudgins J, Tsafnat G, Coiera E, Bourgeois FT. Financial conflicts of interest and conclusions about neuraminidase inhibitors for influenza: an analysis of systematic reviews. Ann Intern Med. 2014 Oct 7;161(7):513-8.
4. Kesselheim AS, Tan YT, Darrow JJ, Avorn J. Existing FDA pathways have potential to ensure early access to, and appropriate use of, specialty drugs. Health Aff (Millwood). 2014 Oct 1;33(10):1770-8.
5. Miladinovic B, Kumar A, Mhaskar R, Djulbegovic B. Benchmarks for detecting ‘breakthroughs’ in clinical trials: empirical assessment of the probability of large treatment effects using kernel density estimation. BMJ Open. 2014 Oct 21;4(10):e005249.
6. Naci H, Alexander GC. Regulators should better leverage effectiveness standards to enhance drug value. Pharmacotherapy. 2014 Oct;34(10):1005-11.
7. Sarpatwari A, Kesselheim AS, Malin BA, Gagne JJ, Schneeweiss S. Ensuring patient privacy in data sharing for postapproval research. N Engl J Med. 2014 Oct 23;371(17):1644-9.
8. Starner CI, Alexander GC, Bowen K, Qiu Y, Wickersham PJ, Gleason PP. Specialty drug coupons lower out-of-pocket costs and may improve adherence at the risk of increasing premiums. Health Aff (Millwood). 2014 Oct 1;33(10):1761-9.
9. Wang B, Canestaro WJ, Choudhry NK.Clinical Evidence Supporting Pharmacogenomic Biomarker Testing Provided in US Food and Drug Administration Drug Labels.JAMA Intern Med. 2014 Oct 13. [Epub ahead of print]
10. Woodcock J. Paving the critical path of drug development: the CDER perspective. Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2014 Oct 31;13(11):783-4.
11. Yeh JS, Austad KE, Franklin JM, Chimonas S, Campbell EG, Avorn J, Kesselheim AS. Association of medical students’ reports of interactions with the pharmaceutical and medical device industries and medical school policies and characteristics: a cross-sectional study. PLoS Med. 2014 Oct 14;11(10):e1001743.