Page 181 - Mployee Wellness Programs News Today

Hemab Therapeutics will apply its Series B financing toward clinical development of its lead drug candidate, a potential treatment for Glanzmann thrombasthenia. The capital will also support the rest its pipeline addressing rare bleeding and thrombotic diseases with no approved therapies.

For the first time ever, CMS is preparing to negotiate prices for drugs paid for by Medicare. This has sparked a huge debate — will the creation of this taxpayer-funded drug negotiation infrastructure be a failed experiment, or will it become the standard for the future of drug pricing in this country? Jason Borschow, president and CEO of Abarca Health, says it's the latter.

Due to fewer employees working onsite, Blue Cross NC’s cafeteria is seeing less activity. The payer has decided to use its cafeteria to prepare meals and then distribute them to more than a dozen nonprofits, which then provide the meals to those in need in their communities.

Today, 35 states have passed mandates for electronic prescriptions for controlled substances with the aim being to reduce the risk of stolen or forged prescriptions and to prevent patients from ‘doctor shopping’ between states.

Telehealth has been an essential tool during the pandemic but recent data shows that its utilization is decreasing as we move into 2021 and beyond. This decrease could lead to increased costs and decreased efficiency for healthcare systems as well as decreased access and poorer health outcomes for patients if nothing is done about it soon.

The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing Thursday, which discussed how the Pharmacy Benefit Manager Transparency Act would affect practices by pharmacy benefit managers, including clawbacks. Some questioned why PBMs are even necessary.

The FDA approved Apellis Pharmaceuticals’ Syfovre as a treatment for geographic atrophy, a retinal disorder that is a leading cause of blindness. The drug, administered as an injection into the eye, will launch in March at the price of $2,190 per vial.

Panelists at a recent pharmacy conference were optimistic about the future of value-based drug contracting. For example, one said that healthcare will be close to establishing a value-based formulary by 2030, and another said that longitudinal patient tracking will become a more important part the drug pricing process.

Talkspace's new product, Talkspace Engage, aims to help employers promote their mental health benefits to their employees. It allows employers to easily share mental health resources and virtual classes led by Talkspace clinicians.

Moderna’s mRNA vaccine for influenza has early data from a pivotal study showing it met trial goals assessing immune response against the more common strains of the virus, but missed against two less common types. A separate and ongoing Phase 3 study is assessing efficacy.