From Washington, DC,

• Govexec informs us,
  • “Published last month, OPM’s annual report to Congress covers the 2022 fiscal year, which ended in September 2022, meaning it covers a period of time when agencies were developing and beginning implementation of re-entry plans after a two-year period of maximum telework during the COVID-19 pandemic, but before the Biden administration’s concerted push beginning last spring to increase “meaningful in-person work” across government.
  • “In a message accompanying the report, OPM Director Kiran Ahuja acknowledged that the snapshot of telework as represented by the data may not be current, given the shift in the last year toward more in-person work, but she stressed that changes made this year will improve agencies’ data collection and OPM’s analysis going forward.
  • “With COVID-19 no longer the primary driver in workforce decisions, federal agencies are closely examining the balance of in-person and virtual work to maximize mission delivery—including making increases to meaningful in-person work while also utilizing flexible work arrangements as a strategic tool to enhance organizational performance,” she wrote. “To support this work, OPM has been engaging with agencies to improve the quality of government-wide and agency-specific telework data. OPM anticipates that future reports will reflect these improvements.”

• HHS’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality issued a report about the value of respectful maternity care.

• BioPharma Dive points out five Food and Drug Administration decisions to watch out for this first quarter of 2024.
  • “The agency could approve a closely watched Alzheimer’s disease drug, as well as what could be the first medicine for a prevalent liver disease and a new kind of cancer therapy. Also on deck are verdicts for a drug at the heart of a multibillion dollar buyout and a linchpin asset for one biotech’s oncology plans.”

From the public health and medical research front,

• The New York Times reports,
  • “As Covid rises again, killing about 1,500 Americans each week, medical researchers are trying to understand why so few people are taking Paxlovid, a medicine that is stunningly effective in preventing severe illness and death from the disease.
  • “A study of a million high-risk people with Covid found that only about 15 percent who were eligible for the drug took it. If instead half of the eligible patients in the United States had gotten Paxlovid during the time period of the research, 48,000 deaths could have been prevented, the authors of the study, conducted by the National Institutes of Health, concluded.
  • “It’s not because people don’t know about the drug — most do — but the reluctance seems to come from doctors worried about interactions with other drugs and people wary of a possible rebound case or the metallic aftertaste.” * * *
  • “Reasons for not prescribing or taking it have varied: Doctors balk at the long list of medications not to be mixed with Paxlovid, including common drugs meant to lower blood pressure or prevent blood clots. Patients tend to complain about the drug’s metallic aftertaste. Many wave off the drug in the early days of Covid, when symptoms tend to be mildest, bypassing the chance to limit early viral growth. * * *
  • “Federal officials still have more than one million free doses out to pharmacies, and the medication will be free through 2024 for Medicaid and Medicare patients. But in recent weeks, officials have handed distribution of the drug off to Pfizer, which has priced it at about $1,400 per course, though private insurers are expected to cover some portion of the price and Pfizer is offering co-payment assistance.“

• Fierce BioTech tells us,
  • “Researchers at Roche have developed a novel antibiotic with the ability to fight a dangerous drug-resistant bacteria that kills in up to 60% of infections.
  • “In a pair of articles published Jan. 3 in Nature, Roche and Harvard University scientists described how they developed a new antibiotic that is effective against carbapenem-resistant acinetobacter baumannii—also known as CRAB—in mice. The drug, zosurabalpin, works by interrupting construction of the bacteria’s outer membrane.
  • “The ongoing research into zosurabalpin, as well as a second novel class of antibiotics being developed by Roche in human clinical studies, will help uncover new biology about the construction of bacterial membranes,” Michael Lobritz, M.D., Ph.D., global head of infectious diseases at Roche Pharma Research & Early Development, said in a statement provided to Nature. “Our goal is to contribute new innovations to overcome antimicrobial resistance, one of the biggest infectious disease challenges to public health.”
  • “CRAB is a common culprit in hospital-acquired sepsis and other infections, and is at the top of the list of both the World Health Organization’s and the Centers for Disease Control’s “priority pathogens” for which new drugs are urgently needed.” 

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• BioPharma Dive points out,
  • “Eli Lilly wants to make it easier for people to access its medicines for obesity, diabetes and migraine, announcing Thursday the launch of a website designed to support home delivery of drugs like its in-demand weight loss treatment Zepbound.
  • “The company’s new service, dubbed LillyDirect, relies on online pharmacy providers like Eversana and Truepill to deliver prescribed Lilly medicines. A website provides access to telehealth services through which people can consult with an independent physician. If prescribed a Lilly medicine, LillyDirect is also meant to help patients more easily access the company’s savings cards.
  • “LillyDirect currently supports 14 of the pharmaceutical company’s medicines, 12 of which are various formulations and types on insulin. Notably, the service also offers Zepbound, which the FDA approved for weight loss in November, and Lilly’s migraine medicine Emgality.”

• Reuters reports
  • “CVS Health (CVS.N) said on Wednesday it will remove AbbVie’s (ABBV.N) blockbuster rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira from some of its lists of preferred drugs for reimbursement as of April 1, and will recommend biosimilar versions of the medicine instead.
  • “CVS said Hyrimoz and an unbranded version of Humira, both from Swiss drugmaker Sandoz (SDZ.S), will be covered across all its formularies, while branded and unbranded near copies of the drug from India’s Biocon (BION.NS) will be covered on some reimbursement lists.
  • “CVS also announced that AbbVie and CVS-owned company Cordavis, which launched in August, will produce a co-branded version of Humira that will be made available to customers in the second quarter of this year. While most biosimilars are near copies of the branded drug, the Cordavis version will be identical to Humira in its formulation, CVS said.”

• Healthcare Dive notes,
  • “Walgreens beat Wall Street expectations on earnings per share and revenue in its first quarter, as the pharmacy giant continues to push through “growing pains” amid its shift to healthcare services, according to CEO Tim Wentworth.
  • “The chain’s U.S. Healthcare segment posted sales of $1.9 billion compared with $989 million in the prior-year period, boosted by primary care chain VillageMD’s acquisition of Summit Health and growth in other business units. But the segment still reported a $96 million adjusted operating loss, compared with a $152 million loss last year. 
  • “Walgreens is nearly halfway through its plan to close 60 VillageMD clinics as the provider focuses on density in “high opportunity” markets, Wentworth said during an earnings call.” 

• The Wall Street Journal reports,
  • “Health insurance companies say they want to offer more services directly to customers. But that requires dropping the cumbersome technology that has defined the industry in favor of the smartphone-app experience users have come to expect.
  • “Kaiser Permanente Chief Digital Officer Nari Gopala said he is working to remove friction from the company’s digital-pharmacy experience, including introducing prescription-refill reminders. “The experience itself is like what you’re used to as a consumer in other industries, like how you order your coffee or groceries,” Gopala said.
  • “Kaiser, an integrated health system with insurance and hospital components, is one of a number of firms revamping technology in the hopes of encouraging more people to get their medications through the mail rather than picking them up in retail pharmacies.”

• United Healthcare discusses, “Recently launched initiatives by Optum Rx enable more than 26,000 in-network community and independent pharmacies with expanded support to strengthen access to care and improve outcomes for the patients they serve.”

• Beckers Hospital Review lets us know,
  • “Since launching in January 2021 with about 100 generics, Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co. now offers more than 2,000 drugs, including about a dozen brand-name medications. 
  • “The company has also grown to offer discounted drug prices through more than 4,000 affiliated pharmacies, including those in Kroger and Meijer grocery stores. 
  • “Cost Plus Drugs is targeting inflated drug prices through multiple lenses. It markets medications at their acquisition cost and adds a $5 shipping fee, a $5 pharmacy labor fee and a 15% markup. Other pharmaceutical companies are taking notice of the transparency marketing effect. 
  • “The company’s conservative drug pricing model is buttressed with a “yes, and” approach to its collaborations and partnerships, which include four pharmacy benefit managers. 
  • “In recent months, Cost Plus Drugs has struck collaboration deals with an elderly care business, two fertility health companies, a digital health company and a mail-order pharmacy.” 

• Per Fierce Healthcare,
  • “A “pivotal year for price transparency” closed out with most—but not all—of the healthcare industry publishing their data publicly and at a higher quality, price transparency data startup Turquoise Health wrote in a state-of-the-industry report released Thursday.
  • “Across a total of 6,357 hospitals, 5,763 (90.7%) posted a machine-readable file (MRF) with at least some necessary service rates in 2023. This was an increase of 562 hospitals over the end of 2022, with Turquoise noting that most of the additions “were individual hospitals, often with unique MRF formats.”
  • “Turquoise gave 2,634 of the hospitals posting MRFs a five-star rating for publishing “a complete MRF that contains cash, list and negotiated rates for a significant quantity of items and services,” the group wrote. That list of top scorers grew 24% from the end of 2022, and now represent more than half of the total hospital field. * * *
  • “The number of payers publishing their data has grown from an initial 67 back in July 2022 to 170 in January 2023, and now to 205 as of November 2023, according to the report. Turquoise also noted that “the quality and breadth of their files have also improved” over the past several months — welcome news for researchers and other stakeholders who previously critiqued payers’ unwieldy data releases.”