Health Affairs

While society should be careful about its uses of genetic testing and its efforts to modify the genome, some people overreact when dealing with DNA. Consider two recent examples reported in the media. A genetic cancer test. In a fascinating series on genetics in medicine, Gina Kolata reported in the New York Times on a genetic test... Read the rest of this entry »

Just four years ago, only two people in the world had their genome sequenced:  James D. Watson (co-discoverer of the structure of DNA) and J. Craig Venter (former President of the firm that mounted a private-sector rival to the Human Genome Project).  There are now many thousands of such people.  At genome meetings, scientists are... Read the rest of this entry »

If one were to try and identify what issue has most roiled the biomedical community in the past few months it is surely the effort to censor two papers describing genetic modifications of the H5N1 flu virus. Background.  Last December, the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) was asked by the U.S. National... Read the rest of this entry »

“A child is not a small adult,” but an adolescent is not a large child.  Adult oncologists, reluctant to care for cancer patients under the age of 16, believe that adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer patients should be within their purview.  We believe younger cancer patients are a special group needing special attention, even... Read the rest of this entry »

Reducing Medicare Part D drug prices requires careful tools, not simply the power to negotiate

Global health issues, especially those affecting the world’s poor, rarely gain anywhere near the attention that the U.S. public and policymakers give to domestic concerns.  However, in one small corner of the current health reform discussion, there is a golden opportunity not only to reduce U.S. health care costs but also to improve the health... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: In an interview published this week, Health Affairs Contributing Editor Barbara Culliton asks Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Associate Commissioner For Science, Norris Alderson, about his agency’s regulation of nanomedicine and the potential for health care cost savings. Here’s an excerpt of their conversation: Barbara Culliton: Nanomedicine is the “next big thing” in... Read the rest of this entry »

What happens when a government agency in charge of assessing the effectiveness of medical interventions crunches numbers and tells pharmaceutical companies their drugs are just too expensive? Sometimes, the government gets a better deal. Twice last week, the much-feared National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) in England and Wales was a factor in... Read the rest of this entry »

Biotechnology firms constitute a subsector of the larger pharmaceutical industry (“drug companies with needles,” we call them), but to date have been spared from the blood sport of American health punditry, pharma-bashing. While drug firms routinely are castigated for their sins, real and imagined, biotech firms have been appreciated as innovative and entrepreneurial startups (rather... Read the rest of this entry »

At last policymakers and readers are being set straight that the prices of drugs are not related to the immense costs of research and development but to “what the market will bear,” as James Robinson put it in his Health Affairs Blog post last fall. Never mind that pharmaceutical executives told Congress and everyone else... Read the rest of this entry »

In his post, Jamie Robinson has raised the specter of an upside-down world of setting prices for biomedical innovations based on cost. Before we examine his serious admonition to focus on value in pricing new biotechnology drugs, let’s walk down the other trail: the argument that drugs should be pricy because they cost so darn... Read the rest of this entry »

What is the appropriate price for a biotechnology product? Jamie Robinson’s thoughtful post touches all the right bases in arguing that discussing the role of value in pricing is far preferable to discussing the cost of research, development and production.

The biotechnology industry has grounds for complaint. The research pipeline is disgorging breathtaking new treatments for cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and other once-intractable diseases. But instead of praise, or in addition to praise, the industry finds itself subjected to ever-louder criticism of its prices and earnings. America again seems to demand the best health... Read the rest of this entry »