EntityRisk

Insightful analysis from Jared Hopkins and colleages. It is an open question whether patients will save a penny - in fact, the follow on implications for formulary placement of competitors make it unclear whether weighted average prices will go up or down for those who may not want to switch therapy, for example. Add to this the opaque nature of the proceedings and it’s hard to imagine a stranger approach. The only certainty is that this has added to uncertainty for investors in the space. Our #gcea and #heor tools can help #marketaccess teams make better decisions in a very uncertain environment.

This nice work by Lou Garrison, Boshen Jiao, Jens Grueger and other smart people shows that even using traditional QALYs, society and consumers realized the vast majority of benefits from Hep-C treatments. At the time of launch 10 years ago, industry critics could not catch their breath worrying about the potential for these new drugs to "bust" state budgets, Medicare Part D, etc. Sound familiar? https://lnkd.in/egKapnr6

Recent signals about biotech fundraising have been mixed. While the amount raised in Q1, for example, was bigger than the average quarterly fundraise last year, the number of deals, especially early-stage deals, was the lowest in more than five years.  In an insightful analysis, the Financial Times lists rising biotech stock prices, increasing sentiment that interest rates will gradually decrease, and an uptick of M&A activity in the sector among the factors contributing to optimism. Yet we are still far from the “heady days” during the pandemic when investing in biotech stocks would rake in profits “regardless of the quality of a company’s pipeline or balance sheet,” Andy Acker and Dan Lyons of Janus Henderson Investors told the FT. Much of the M&A enthusiasm, for example, may be influenced by a single deal, Amgen’s acquisition of Horizon Therapeutics last year, they added.  Check out the full FT story here: https://lnkd.in/dkZpKSYN  And reach out to learn more about how we can help you can model biotech uncertainty better.  #HEOR #Innovation #BioPharma #HealthEconomics #DataScience 

A student-run non-profit whose mission is to empower the next generation of medical innovators is attracting increasing attention in the biotech industry. In the five years since its founding, Nucleate has spawned hundreds of successful collaborations which have raised more than $300M in early-stage funding and created over 200 jobs.  “What we started noticing is that in biotech entrepreneurship [...] you have the need for risk-tolerant capital [...] but then there was really this gap missing in social capital,” the organization’s then-VP of Partnerships, Sonia Maryam Setayesh, MS, PhD, told a recent episode of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Institute’s Inside Cancer Careers podcast. “So once we saw that there were really not many resources that people could go to get equity-free education on social capital, this is where Nucleate was born out of.”  Setayesh herself went on to become an Investment Partner at the $9.7B VC fund Civilization Ventures after completing her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Southern California last year. During her studies, she discovered a blood-based liquid biopsy platform for the early detection of breast cancer (and worked on several other exciting projects), which is how she was first introduced to Nucleate. We highly recommend the podcast and the insightful input from the other speakers, Manifold Bio’s Co-Founder and CEO Gleb Kuznetsov, Persephoni BioPartners’ Senior Associate (and VanguardSTEM’s Director of Funding) Geraldine Ezeka, PhD, and the Global Head of Nucleate’s Activator, Alex Kim.  Check out the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/gk-bFX-b  #HEOR #Innovation #DrugPricing #BioPharma #HealthEconomics 

There are ways to reconcile the need for affordable healthcare now with the future needs of patients who would benefit from medical innovation. The key is having a consistent and scientifically sound method to determine the value of drugs.     Those are some of the big takeaways for us from a panel of legislators and scientists in which our Co-Founder and Scientific Advisor Dana P Goldman took part.  "While patients may see a lot of benefits at the counter today, long-term access to treatment will be hindered," Dana said with reference to criticism of the Inflation Reduction Act and the unprecedented Medicare drug price negotiations.  Some aspects of the law may need to be revised to protect innovation and keep drugmakers in the US, legislators who participated in the event admitted.  Check out Fierce Healthcare’s story about the debate here: https://lnkd.in/gYsTD8Nw #HEOR #Innovation #DrugPricing #BioPharma #HealthEconomics

A little over a month ago, news that a bispecific antibody—ivonescimab, produced by Summit Therapeutics and Akeso—had performed well in a Phase 3 non-small cell lung cancer clinical trial, causing a big stir in the biotech community. Celebrated as a success for cancer immunotherapy, Keytruda, which was initially approved by the FDA in 2014 for the treatment of melanoma (and has since been used for the treatment of a host of other cancers), is well known. Luba Greenwood, J.D., the Managing Partner of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute Venture Fund, Binney Street Capital, captured the moment in Episode 103 of the Biotech Hangout podcast.  “I would say probably in the last two-three years there hasn’t been that much interest in investment, where people are turning up their nose,” and doubted the incumbent therapy could be surpassed, Greenwood said.   Greenwood then pointed the conversation toward patient needs and the value of new therapies, which is one of the drivers for our model, for knowing uncertainty in biotech development and investing wisely. Listen to the full podcast, which features also Daphne Zohar, Josh Schimmer, Yaron Werber, and Dawn Bell, PharmD.    Check it out here if you haven’t already: https://lnkd.in/g7R8te5r    #HEOR #Innovation #DrugPricing #BioPharma #HealthEconomics 

With the federal government aiming to set drug price ceilings in the Inflation Reduction Act, the need for a transparent, quantitative approach to determining value-based prices is more urgent than ever. Without one, innovators cannot predict what will happen next year, much less 15 years from now when their pipeline candidates might be subject to government price controls. QALYs, a controversial tool in standard cost-effectiveness analysis of the value of drug, have been at the center of heated scientific and policy debates in recent months. Medicare is prohibited from using them by the federal government as they discriminate against people with disabilities, and a more comprehensive ban has been making the rounds in Congress since February. In response, several prominent voices have argued that the QALY measure can be modified to correct its shortcomings and should not be banned altogether. Our CSO Darius Lakdawalla addresses the subtleties of this debate in an article published together with Jason Doctor in Health Affairs magazine. They argue that addressing only some of the issues with QALYs, such as removing the assumption that “sicker groups gain fewer QALYs from a fixed increase in life expectancy” doesn’t really help because there are other fundamental shortcomings in the model, including the assumption that “an additional QALY is worth the same to sicker and healthier groups.” As an alternative, they propose using the GRACE methodology, co-developed by Darius together with our Scientific Advisor Charles Phelps. Centered around patient preferences, GRACE avoids discrimination by accounting for the idea that people who are less healthy — e.g. those of very advanced age, with disabilities or severe illness — value health improvements more than those with more health. GRACE maintains a transparent, quantitative, and predictable approach to value assessment, while still addressing justifiable concerns about discrimination against our most vulnerable patients. Check out the full article, including a detailed analysis of the main assumptions behind the debate, here: https://lnkd.in/gp67An-6 #HEOR #Innovation #DrugPricing #BioPharma #HealthEconomics 

Health Economics needs to factor in the preventative value of treatments in order for the ongoing drug pricing negotiations to serve society best in the longer term, our Co-Founder and Scientific Advisor Dana P Goldman told a panel event hosted by The Hill.    “The way to save money in healthcare is to keep people out of the hospital,” Dana said. “That's what drugs do when they work best. They keep people out of the hospital. And we are negotiating those prices at the same time we are not solving these preventive healthcare issues that will drive disparities and costs.” For a good example of this dynamic, check out Dana’s blog about Medicare coverage of new obesity treatments: https://lnkd.in/gCTbB2aZ #HEOR #Innovation #DrugPricing #BioPharma #HealthEconomics 

A nice summary from Jason Shafrin on the increasingly persuasive case for lower discount rates in HTA.

 Patrick N. of Affinity Asset Advisors was asked if the end of 2023 were allegedly the best months in biotech history.  “It was a painful preceding few years,” he said. “It feels like the time is probably around now when we start to see people becoming more interested in the sector again. It’s exciting as a biotech investor. Obviously, these companies are going to help people down the road, and they need to be able to raise money to do that, and hopefully with a better market environment that can happen.” Key to long-term success is the ability to accurately model uncertainty. This is why we created our advanced digital PROVEN ™ platform. Check out the full interview with Nosker (part of the SF Healthcare Week conference) here: https://lnkd.in/g8ad4zNV  #HEOR #Innovation #BioPharma #HealthEconomics