On Wednesday, Indianapolis, IN-based pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly announced that it will cut its list price for both Humalog and Humulin, its two most commonly prescribed insulin products, by 70 percent. While these changes will go into effect later this year, the company is also immediately expanding its Insulin Value Program, available at participating pharmacies for the commercially insured and upon program enrollment for the uninsured, to match Medicare Part D’s $35 per month out-of-pocket insulin cap. Eli Lilly shared that 30 percent of the US’s 8M insulin users rely on its products, though the company is only cutting prices for its older insulin products.
The Gist: Nearly 30 percent of uninsured and 20 percent of commercially insured insulin users in the US report having to ration their doses due to cost concerns.While it still won’t be providing its insulin for free, as some have demanded, Lilly’s move should help the company gain market share, in addition to generating some good PR—and it’s expected that other large insulin manufacturers will be pressured to follow suit.
But even if a $35 out-of-pocket cap was adopted nationally, Americans would still be paying three times more for their insulin than people in comparable countries.
We’ve updated our annual comparison of the relative size of the largest healthcare companies, with the graphic below comparing 2022 revenues to 2019 for a sense of how different companies and industry sectors weathered the pandemic.
The annual revenues of the five largest health systems in 2022 pale in comparison to the industry’s true giants—and the gap only widened over the pandemic. The largest health systems averaged just 5 percent annual growth since 2019, while the largest companies in each other healthcare subsector have grown revenues by over 10 percent annually.
Unsurprisingly, the pandemic drove Pfizer’s revenue to a record $100B in 2022—over half of that was driven by the company’s COVID vaccine and antiviral treatment, Paxlovid. Amazon’s 2022 revenue was nearly double its pre-COVID level. While very little of that growth came from healthcare, it enabled the company to fund investments like its all-cash $3.9B purchase of One Medical, which closed this week.
Even the nation’s largest health systems cannot compete with that kind of firepower, and looking beyond revenue paints an even more difficult picture. According to Kaufman Hall, although the median hospital has grown its revenue by 15 percent, it has seen expenses climb 20 percent, and lost 26 percent of margin since 2019.
This January, BDO hosted healthcare and life sciences leaders on the sidelines of JP Morgan’s Healthcare Conference to glean insights from those at the forefront of these rapidly evolving industries.
In a series of intimate breakout discussions, these leaders discussed the challenges they’re seeing and what they anticipate the near future will hold. Here are four of their biggest takeaways that industry stakeholders need to know:
· Healthcare labor needs a makeover
One of the biggest issues we’re seeing in healthcare today is the overburdening of clinicians and other healthcare staff. This year, healthcare leaders need to prioritize enabling clinicians to practice at the top of their licenses. That means reducing their administrative burden so they can spend more time doing what they do best: working with patients and dispensing care.
· Healthcare valuations are moderating
In the past year, healthcare company valuations have been very high. We’re now seeing valuations moderate, which could mean a major shift in the deal landscape, with deal opportunities opening up as the price is right.
· Health equity is about choice
The reality is that each individual patient has unique needs that require tailored solutions. One important tool for improving health equity is technology that enables patients to choose what is right for them and their situation. That’s why capabilities like self-scheduling are so important, despite the fact that they are currently a missed opportunity for many providers.
· Life sciences leaders are looking at drug timelines differently
COVID-19 showed how quickly a drug can be safely developed when the right resources are in place. Moving forward, life sciences leaders are likely to pressure test drug timelines, which could lead to a shift in how the industry looks at drug development as a whole.
· While it’s impossible to know exactly what the future holds, we’re thankful that we were able to hear from industry leaders with on-the-ground knowledge of what’s happening now and what’s likely ahead. In the months and years ahead, we’ll continue to look to these leaders for their insights.
Wall Street’s roil has stabilized somewhat in recent days, with the S&P 500 brushing up against its 200-day moving average and rising more than 10 percent since its October lows, as of publication time.
The index’s 50-day moving average is trending up, according to financial data firm Refinitiv. But it still must climb another 7.4 percent to form a “golden cross,” which is when a stock or index’s short-term moving average rises above one of its longer-term moving averages. The S&P 500’s 20-day and 100-day moving averages are closer to the milestone, only needing increases of 5 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has already formed a small golden cross: its 20-day moving average is 1.2 percent higher than its 200-day moving average.
Investors Optimistic about Healthcare Sector
– Investors are most optimistic about the Healthcare sector, which is trading close to its 3-year average “price to earnings-per-share” ratio of 48.1x, according to Simply Wall Street.
– Analysts are expecting an annual earnings growth of 13.4 percent, higher than the sector’s past year earnings growth of 5 percent.
– Merck and Johnson & Johnson were among last week’s top gainers driving the market.
Inflation Appears to be Slowing
– The recent lower-than-expected inflation figures could indicate it is slowing.
– The Fed may continue raising rates, considering the strength in recent labor market and retail sales data.
Retailers and insurers are building out their primary care strategies in a bid to become the new front door for patients seeking healthcare services, especially seniors on highly profitable Medicare Advantage (MA) plans. In the graphic above, we examine the capabilities of three of the largest pharmacy chains—CVS Health, Walgreens, and Walmart—to deliver full-service primary care across in-person and virtual settings.
CVS pioneered the pivot to care provision in 2006 with its acquisition of MinuteClinic, which now has over 1,000 locations. The company has further expanded its concept of pairing retail and pharmacy services with primary care by opening over 100 HealthHUBs, which provide an expanded slate of care services. However, CVS lags competitors in the rollout of full-service primary care practices, with its proposed physician-led Super Clinics still stuck in the planning stages.
Walgreens, with its majority stake in VillageMD (on track for 200 co-branded practices by the end of the year) and the recent acquisition of Summit Health (which operates another 370 primary and urgent care clinics) has assembled the most impressive primary care footprint of the three companies.
Walmart, the largest by number of stores but also the newest to healthcare, has opened more than 25 Walmart Health Centers, a step up from earlier experimentation with in-store care clinics, offering more services and partnering with Epic Systems to integrate electronic health records.
CVS’s key advantage over its competitors comes from its payer business, having acquired Aetna in 2018, now the fourth-largest MA payer by membership. Walgreens and Walmart have both aligned themselves with UnitedHealth Group (UHG) to participate in MA, with Walmart having struck a ten-year partnership to steer UHG MA beneficiaries to Walmart Health Centers in Florida and Georgia.
While aligning with UHG expands the reach of these retail giants into MA risk, UHG, whose OptumHealth division is by far the largest employer of physicians nationwide, remains the healthcare juggernaut most poised to unseat incumbent providers as the home for consumers’ healthcare needs.
The $740B Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) includes significant reforms for Medicare’s drug benefits, including capping seniors’ out-of-pocket drug spending at $2,000 per year, and insulin at $35 per month. Medicare plans to fund these provisions by requiring rebates from manufacturers who increase drug prices faster than inflation, and through negotiating prices for a limited number of costly drugs. Drug prices are consistently a top issue for voters, but seniors won’t see most of these benefits until 2025 or beyond, well after this year’s midterms and the 2024 general election.
The Gist: While this package allows Democrats to deliver on their campaign promise to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, the scope is more limited than previous proposals. Over the next decade, Medicare will only be able to negotiate prices for 20 drugs that lack competitors and have been on the market for several years.
Still, because much Medicare drug spending is concentrated on a few high-cost drugs, the Congressional Budget Office projects the bill will reduce Medicare spending by $100B over ten years. However, these negotiated rates and price caps don’t apply to the broader commercial market, and some experts are concerned this will lead manufacturers to raise prices on those consumers—creating yet another element of the cost-shifting which has been the hallmark of our nation’s healthcare system.
The pharmaceutical industry also claims that this “government price setting” will hamper drug development (although there is limited to no evidence to support this proposition), signaling that they will likely spend the next several years trying to influence the rulemaking process as the new law is implemented.
Mark Cuban’s pharmacy, Cost Plus Drug Co., has hundreds of drugs marked at discounted prices, but some pharmacy experts say there’s a larger problem that needs fixing, CNBC reported July 28.
The online pharmacy launched in January with about 100 drugs, and by its one-year anniversary, plans to have more than 1,500 medications, according to the company’s website. The business model, which allocates for a $3 pharmacy dispensing fee, $5 shipping fee and a 15 percent profit margin with each order, aims to uproot the pharmaceutical industry, which has faced criticism for years about its opaque business practices.
Gabriel Levitt, the president of PharmacyChecker, a company that monitors the cheapest drug prices, told CNBC there’s more to be done.
“As much as I support the venture, what they’re doing does not address the big elephant in the room,” Mr. Levitt said. “It’s really brand-name drugs that are increasing in price every year and forcing millions of Americans to cut back on medications or not take them at all.”
Brand-name drugs are 80 percent to 85 percent more expensive than generics since brand-name drugs have to repeat clinical tests to prove efficacy, according to the FDA. Cost Plus Drug Co. only offers generics. Mr. Cuban told CNBC he hopes to sell brand-name medications “within six months,” but added that it’s a tentative timeline.
More than 180 members of the House of Representatives are urging the Biden administration to crack down on drugmakers restricting drug discounts in the 340B program.
Enforcement actions should include fines, the letter from a bipartisan group of House members to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and other administration officials said.
Currently, 18 drug manufacturers are limiting 340B discounts dispensed through pharmacies that contract with 340B providers, according to the letter.
Dive Insight:
The 340B program requires drugmakers to charge hospitals only the statutory ceiling prices for eligible outpatient drugs. The goal of the three-decade-old program is to have savings flow into care for low-income patients and underserved communities. But critics — notably, drugmakers and some lawmakers — argue the program doesn’t have enough oversight, as hospitals don’t need to account for what they do with any savings.
Drug manufacturers began imposing restrictions on 340B discounts as early as summer 2020, sparking legal challenges from regulators. The HHS sent nine warning letters to pharmaceutical companies, referring seven of them to the Office of the Inspector General for investigation and potential enforcement.
However, eight months later, the OIG has yet to take enforcement action, the new letter from 181 House members reads.
The letter asks the OIG to finish its ongoing review of seven drug manufacturers for potential noncompliance with federal law on 340B discounts “as soon as possible.”
The law allows the OIG to impose fines up to $6,000 per drug claim on companies that intentionally overcharge 340B providers, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration, which oversees the program.
Regulators should begin imposing civil monetary penalties against pharmaceutical companies found in violation, the congresspeople said.
The letter also argues that the Biden administration should pursue enforcement action against 11 drug companies restricting 340B pricing, which either haven’t received notice from the HHS that they’re in violation of law yet, or have received a notice but haven’t been referred to OIG for enforcement.
“Every day that drug manufacturers violate their obligation to provide these discounted drugs, vulnerable communities, federal grantees, and safety net health care providers are deprived of resources Congress intended to provide,” the letter reads.
A number of hospital associations came out in support of the letter, including the National Rural Health Association, the American Hospital Association, America’s Essential Hospitals and the National Association of Community Health Centers.
340B Health, which lobbies on behalf of hospitals in the 340B program, thanked the House members for the letter in a statement Monday, and reiterated calls for fines.
“HHS should impose steep financial penalties on all the companies that are ignoring their legal commitments to the health care safety net,” said Maureen Testoni, CEO of 340B Health, in a statement.
A survey of more than 500 hospitals by 340B Health released in May estimated that the annual financial impact from drug company restrictions has doubled since the end of 2021, costing hospitals millions of dollars per year.
Drugmakers that have imposed or announced restrictions on 340B discounts for drugs dispensed at community and specialty pharmacies include AbbVie, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Merck and Pfizer.
Johnson & Johnson became the 16th drugmaker to limit 340B discounts for hospitals dispensing drugs at contract pharmacies. These manufacturers have taken issue with the proliferation of contract pharmacies in the 340B program, alleging high rates of fraud and duplicative billing. Several court battles between these drug companies and the federal government are ongoing.
The 340B program, which requires pharmaceutical companies to provide 20 to 50 percent discounts for drugs participating hospitals purchase (see our explainer on the mechanics of the program here), has grown rapidly in recent years.
The Gist:Over 40 percent of hospitals now qualify for 340B discounts, and 340B drug sales totaled $38B in 2020. According to a recent survey, participating hospitals have lost 25 to 40 percent of their contract pharmacy savings since drugmakers began restricting discounts in 2020.
Many hospitals have used savings from the program to subsidize other areas of patient care; some tell us that losing 340B revenue would erase their entire margin. Health systems should plan for a future in which their bottom lines are not dependent on this increasingly at-risk revenue source.
HENRY KOTULA 