In a top 10 ranking of the most egregious price gougers from 2019, Amgen’s Enbrel topped US cost watchdog ICER’s naughty list with “unsupported” markups that added as much as $403 million to the nation’s drug spend during that time. Price increases for some of pharma’s most popular drugs have long been a focus of consumer ire, but the industry has argued those increases are routine and meant to cover the cost of R&D innovation. Without meaningful guidance at the state or federal level, ICER looked to connect how much a drug had progressed in the clinic compared with its increase in both wholesale and net price in 2019. In terms of both how much it raised Enbrel’s wholesale price in 2019 — 5.4% — and net price — 8.9% — Amgen was hardly the worst offender on ICER’s list. But the systemic effect from those increases was vast. Enbrel nearly doubled the effect on US drug spend from the second medicine on the list, J&J’s antipsychotic Invega Sustenna, with $403 million added to the system in 2019, ICER said. Invega, with a 6.8% WAC bump and 10.8% net price increase, added $203 million to the spend. An Amgen spokeswoman could not be reached for comment by press time. In all, ICER’s top 10 offenders added around $1.3 billion to the US drug spend in 2019. Seven of those drugs instituted increases without any new meaningful clinical evidence, ICER said, while three did have new data but that was “not a determination that the new evidence necessarily justified these price increases.” ICER’s complete list included: Amgen’s Enbrel: 5.4% WAC increase, 8.9% net price increase, $403 million US drug spend increase J&J’s Invega Sustenna: 6.8% WAC increase, 10.8% net price increase, $203 million US drug spend increase Salix’s Xifaxin: 8.45 WAC increase, 13.3% net price increase, $173 million US drug spend increase Bristol Myers Squibb’s Orencia: 6% WAC increase, 7.4% net price increase, $145 million US drug spend increase Biogen’s Tecfidera: 6% WAC increase, 3.7% net price increase, $118 million US drug spend increase AbbVie’s Humira: 6.2% WAC increase, 2% net price increase, $66 million US drug spend increase UCB’s Vimpat: 7% WAC increase, 5.6% net price increase, $58 million US drug spend increase Novartis’ Entresto: 9.6% WAC increase, 8% net price increase, $66 million US drug spend increase Takeda’s Entyvio: 6.4% WAC increase, 2.3% net price increase, $48 million US drug spend increase Pfizer and Astellas’ Xtandi: 5.9% WAC increase, 2.9% net price increase, $37 million US drug spend increase As mentioned above, the last three drugs on the list did show new clinical data in 2018, but ICER determined those didn’t necessarily justify the associated price increases. One of the immunology space’s anti-TNF dinosaurs, Enbrel has been on the market since 1998 and the subject of what could generously be called a full-court press from Amgen’s legal team to keep competitors away from its patents. In 2019, the drug’s 21st year on the market, Enbrel raked in $5 billion in sales, ranking it among pharma’s bestselling products. ICER highlighted Enbrel’s one permissible clinical trial in 2018, which it described as a “close call” at being meaningful, testing Enbrel against methotrexate in psoriatic arthritis patients. Despite hitting its primary endpoints, ICER noted that two guideline organizations already recommended anti-TNFs over methotroxate in PsA, albeit with what the watchdog described as “low-quality evidence.” Given the recommendations already in place, ICER found Enbrel’s trial didn’t meaningfully add anything to its clinical profile. “We must conclude that neither of these major organizations that make recommendations for the management of psoriatic arthritis changed its estimation of the balance of net benefits of etanercept versus methotrexate in a substantial way based on this clinical trial,” ICER wrote. “That said, the manufacturer-supported SEAM-PsA trial is clearly the best trial to date looking at this question, providing high-quality evidence to caregivers and patients and informing those producing guidelines.”
We need price increases to grow the product since we lose volume each hour. Our leaders have never understood that making calls in what's counts, not doing projects, doing weekly district calls, doing training about the p-value in a 20 year old study, or any of our other go-to efforts. What works is making good calls, over and over and over. Seems to have worked for Otezla. They sell a placebo and keep growing it. Culture matters and our culture of activity needs price increases.
You're right. No other company raises prices or loses volume on a 20 year old product. I do not understand why we are not taking our strategy from the field reps. TO is lost without your valuable input.
I've told you before boy, come on down to Zuma. I've just finished lunch and I've got a few things to do but should be there by 3:30. I'll tune that ass up. Just make yourself known.
Hi, angry loser. You're a puppet, and I'm pulling your strings. It's great that your moronic ass gets upset and continually argues with your laptop screen. I'll keep posting genius-level repartee for which you idiots have no response. Luckily, your buffoonery is cloaked under anonymity. It takes a lot of gall and inanity to tell someone to "make yourself known," while not doing the same. Take care tough guy. We both know that you wouldn't bust a grape in a food fight.
