About health insurance/insurers
New California rule aims to limit health care cost increases to 3% annually “Doctors, hospitals and health insurance companies in California will be limited to annual price increases of 3% starting in 2029 under a new rule state regulators approved Wednesday in the latest attempt to corral the ever-increasing costs of medical care in the United States.
The money Californians spent on health care went up about 5.4% each year for the past two decades. Democrats who control California’s government say that’s too much, especially since most people’s income increased just 3% each year over that same time period.
The 3% cap, approved Wednesday by the Health Care Affordability Board, would be phased in over five years, starting with 3.5% in 2025. Board members said the cap likely won’t be enforced until the end of the decade.”
Centene posts $1.2B profit in Q1 “Centene reported nearly $1.2 billion in net income in the first quarter and a more than 18% decrease in Medicaid membership year over year, according to its first-quarter earnings posted April 26.”
About pharma
FDA Approves Over-the-Counter Naloxone Nasal Spray for Opioid Overdose “Amneal Pharmaceuticals announced on April 24, 2024, that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the over-the-counter naloxone hydrochloride nasal spray for emergency treatment of an opioid overdose.”
Evernorth's Accredo to offer Humira biosimilar at $0 out-of-pocket “Evernorth's Accredo arm will make a Humira biosimilar available to patients with no out-of-pocket costs, the company announced Thursday. Accredo is the specialty pharmacy segment within Evernorth Health Services, which also houses Express Scripts, eviCore data analytics and MDLIVE telehealth services. Beginning this June, the low- and high-concentration biosimilar will be produced for Evernorth's private label distributor, Quallent Pharmaceuticals, in partnership with multiple manufacturers.
Evernorth is a subsidiary of The Cigna Group.”
GlaxoSmithKline sues Pfizer and BioNTech over Covid-19 vaccine technology “GSK said in the lawsuit that Pfizer and BioNTech's Comirnaty vaccines violate the company's patent rights in mRNA-vaccine innovations developed "more than a decade before" the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Pfizer scores FDA nod for hemophilia B gene therapy, will charge $3.5M per dose “The U.S. regulator has endorsed Beqvez (fidanacogene elaparvovec-dzkt) for adults with the bleeding disorder hemophilia B. It becomes the first FDA-approved gene therapy for Pfizer and the second in the indication following CSL and uniQure’s hemophilia B treatment Hemgenix, which became the world’s most expensive drug at $3.5 million when it was approved in 2022.
Pfizer had the chance to undercut its rival on price but decided to charge the same $3.5 million for Beqvez. The therapy will be available to patients this quarter, a spokesperson confirmed on Friday to Fierce Pharma.”
About the public’s health
U.S. Fertility Rate Falls to Record Low “The total fertility rate fell to 1.62 births per woman in 2023, a 2% decline from a year earlier, federal data released Thursday showed. It is the lowest rate recorded since the government began tracking it in the 1930s.”
Comment: This trend will have dire consequences for funding such pension-modeled programs as Medicare,
About healthcare IT
Kaiser Permanente reports data breach impacting 13.4M health plan members “Kaiser Permanente has begun notifying millions of its health plan members that the company was hit with a data breach in mid-April, according to a filing with the feds.
The Kaiser Foundation Health Plan said about 13.4 million people were affected and submitted the required documentation to the Department of Health and Human Services on April 12. That notice was posted publicly on Thursday.
Kaiser Permenante told Reuters it has not identified any misuse of those data.”
Teladoc posts $82M Q1 loss year over year “In the first quarter of 2024, Teladoc's revenue reached $646 million, a 3% increase compared to the $629 million in revenue it reported in the same period last year.”