Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Perspectives: Big Pharma Is Swamping Small Biz; Stakes Are Huge On Nov. 5
Drugmakers are unhappy that PBMs drive down their profit margins. In response, Big Pharma is spending millions campaigning to impose new regulations on PBMs, and some of their D.C. politician friends are trying to help them out. (Nina Matthews, 10/13)
The future of health care starts on Jan. 20, 2025. The stakes for Americans could not be higher. Whether it鈥檚 Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump in the White House that day, the health care industry must not lose sight of what matters most: giving all Americans more affordable access to the most innovative medicines. (Sebastian Guth, 10/16)
In pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter medicines are often the poor relation to drug discovery, treated as cash cows to fund the next blockbuster. Creating a focused business 鈥 through a spinoff or buyout 鈥 ought to unleash latent revenue growth, with the removal of excess cost helping amplify the impact on profit. (Chris Hughes, 10/23)
Emmanuel Macron鈥檚 administration has agreed to take a 1%-2% stake in Sanofi SA鈥檚 consumer-health unit Opella to sugar the pill of a US private equity takeover, seen as a critical test of deal-making openness in a country where everything from supermarkets to dairy firms is deemed strategic. Yet what the recent political aches and pains over paracetamol 鈥渟overeignty鈥 really show is the scale of the investment gap facing France and Europe. (Lionel Laurent, 10/22)