Health economics and outcomes research: a pharma function evolves

New market-access concerns drive an expansion in this combination of financial and medical concerns

While it is hardly a new line of work, HEOR (health economics and outcomes research) is experiencing a period of rapid growth, driven by the increased need to provide payers with meaningful data on drugs' effects on patients. So says a recently published report from ISR Reports, whose authors say that "Pharma needs to sell the story of a strong value proposition for its products and HEOR is the way to do it." The ISR study, Benchmarking the pharma industry's HEOR functions, surveyed about 20 top 50 pharma companies, collecting commentary on best practices, costs and staffing

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What will aggregate-spending rules do to healthcare provider recruitment?

A potential unintended consequence of the Physicians Sunshine Act: Some job-candidate interviews will become a publicly accessible record

It's still early innings in the implementation of the Physicians Sunshine Act, a part of the Affordable Care Act that requires pharma and med device companies to report financial arrangements or other "transfers of value" to licensed physicians and other healthcare providers. Now, there are signs that it will have broader impact: Money spent in the process of recruiting job candidates could become reportable events--and that report could become a publicly accessible record

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HCPC awards 2013 Compliance Package of the Year to Noven Therapeutics

Innovation award goes to Mem-O-Ring, a pill-bottle attachment

The annual competition, conducted by the Healthcare Compliance Packaging Council (HCPC; Reston, VA), is intended to highlight the role compliance (unit-dose) packaging plays in helping patients stay on therapy, helping healthcare providers improve outcomes, and helping the pharma industry better its value to all parts of healthcare. This year's award, announced at HCPC's annual RxAdherence conference (April 8) is Brisdelle (paroxetine), introduced last November by Noven Therapeutics (Miami) as a treatment for vasomotor symptoms associated with menopause. The competition is based

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Three new facilities are announced for UPS in Latin America

Mexico, Brazil and Chile will see new or expanded healthcare logistics capability

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Newly approved Evzio autoinjector will treat opioid overdoses

Fast-tracked product is acclaimed by FDA as well as its developer, Kaleo

On a not-serious level, one can ask, "Why didn't I think of that?" But on another, much more serious level, there's news from FDA and Kaleo (Richmond, VA) that could lead--very quickly--to saving lives and providing some good news in the generally grim topic of opioid abuse. On Apr. 3, FDA announced approval of a new drug-device combination, Kaleo's Evzio auto-injector, to provide treatment of patients in an opioid-overdose emergency. Somewhat like an epinephrine autoinjector (a product that Kaleo also developed--marketed by Sanofi-Aventis--as the Auvi-Q autoinjector), a family member, emergency medical technician

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Global pharma industry will spend $8.36 billion on cold-chain logistics in 2014

Pharmaceutical Commerce's latest report finds continued growth in these specialized logistics services

The 5th edition of the Biopharma Cold Chain Sourcebook analyzes economic, regulatory and technological trends in a vital part of today's industry: the shipment of temperature-controlled products. The just-published report calculates that current (2014) expenditures for commercial shipments will be $8.36 billion, rising to $10.28 billion in 2018. By comparison, last year's Sourcebook estimated the 2013 cold-chain business to be $7.5 billion, rising

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Cegedim survey updates industry response to aggregate-spending rules

Pharma companies assess their ongoing reporting capabilities

The midnight oil is burning at many pharma companies as they make their final preparations for submitting aggregate-spending data to CMS by March 31, a requirement under the Physicians Sunshine Act. Recent reporting indicates that the Sunshine Act has already had an impact on physicians' acceptance of speaker fees; now, Cegedim Relationship Management (Bedminster, NJ) is reporting that 64% of surveyed physicians say that the law will have an effect on their interactions

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Veeva expands physician-contact tools with Engage, a multichannel communications link

Company also announces a 10-year agreement with Salesforce.com

Veeva (Pleasanton, CA) started as a conventional (if cloud-based) salesforce-automation (SFA) tool, but in the past couple years has expanded its capabilities to include storage and sharing of promotional documents, laboratory filings, master-data management and regulated email. Now it is adding multichannel communications--with an emphasis on mobile--to its slate of offerings. The new service, called Engage, enables pharma sales reps to communicate with physicians via interactive voice or email. In effect, Veeva

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