Under Section 11403 of The Inflation Reduction Act, effective starting on Monday, October 3, 2022, and for the next five years, Medicare Part B will pay healthcare providers an 8% add-on fee for qualifying biosimilars, replacing the previous 6% markup. The add-on fee applies to qualifying biosimilars whose average sales…
On June 8, 2022, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators sent a letter to Kathi Vidal, Director of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, requesting that the PTO take action on patent thickets. According to the Senators, “large numbers of patents cover a single product or minor variations on a…
This week Patrizia Cavazzoni (Director, CDER), Peter Marks (Director, CBER), and Jeffrey Shuren (Director, CDRH) of the FDA testified before the committee on Health Education, Labor and Pensions of the U.S. Senate regarding reauthorization of the User Fee Acts, including the Biosimilar User Fee Act (“BsUFA”). The BsUFA is a…
On July 13, 2021, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel met to discuss biologic and biosimilar competition and its impact on drug prices. A group of senators, led by Senator Amy Klobuchar, are sponsors of a Senate bill which aims to prohibit biological product manufacturers from compensating biosimilar and interchangeable…
On April 26, Representatives Paul D. Tonko (D-NY) and Bob Gibbs (R-OH) introduced the Star Rating for Biosimilars Act. The proposed legislation would direct the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) to evaluate Medicare plans based on whether or not cost-saving biosimilars are available to enrollees and to evaluate…
On April 23, 2021, Congressmen Schrader and Kinzinger introduced H.R. 2815, the Bolstering Innovative Option to Save Immediately on Medicines Act (“BIOSIM Act”). The bill provides for temporary increased reimbursement to hospitals and doctors for biosimilar drugs from the average sales price (ASP) of the drug plus 6% to the…
The CREATES Act (Creating and Restoring Equal Access to Equivalent Samples Act), currently pending in Congress states as its aim to promote drug price competition by removing an impediment to the development and approval of lower cost generics or biosimilars. Currently some branded companies are using safety requirements, including restricted…
The House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health met this morning to discuss implementation of the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act. Sean Cavanaugh, Deputy Administrator and Director of the Center for Medicare, and Janet Woodcock, Director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, testified. The subcommittee’s questioning…