A new GAO report on biopharma companies’ $6 billion annual spending on direct-to-consumer advertising is pushing US Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to reintroduce legislation that would require price disclosures in the ads.

The GAO found that drugmakers spent almost half—$8.2 billion of the $17.8 billion from 2016 to 2018—on DTC ads for drugs in three therapeutic categories, including inflammatory conditions (e.g., arthritis, gout), endocrine and metabolic disorders (e.g., type 2 diabetes, hypothyroidism), and conditions affecting the central nervous system (e.g., depression, multiple sclerosis), according to the new report.

The past year has cast a harsh spotlight on the biopharma industry’s lack of diversity. And though most companies list diversity and inclusion as one of their key values, a whopping 67% of companies saw little or no change in representation by race or ethnicity at the executive level, according to a recent BIO survey.

As part of its second annual diversity report, BIO partnered with Coqual (formerly known as Center for Talent Innovation) to survey 100 companies from October to December 2020. They received organization-level diversity data from 18 companies, and executive-level diversity data from 16. Seventy percent of respondents listed D&I as one of their stated values, BIO said. But only 13% actually increased representation for executives of color by at least 5%.

Bayer is saying farewell to a longtime research hub in San Francisco, centralizing US efforts in the Boston area and potentially leaving several biotechs in its incubator without a home.

The German drug giant will shut down the “innovation hub” and CoLaborator incubator ahead of its lease expiring in October, a Bayer spokesperson told Endpoints. Once a location thought of as pivotal to Bayer’s US plans, the San Francisco site will shutter after more than a decade of operation.

As the FDA continues to approve more new drugs under its accelerated approval pathway, the non-partisan Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC) is telling Congress to increase the statutory Medicaid rebates for such drugs until their clinical benefits have been verified.

Higher rebates for drugs with accelerated approvals, a move opposed by the biopharma industry, would mean lower net prices, lessening their financial burden on the health care system while incentivizing the companies to speed the verification of the drugs’ clinical benefits in confirmatory trials. Once those benefits are confirmed, the companies would return to the lower rebates when the accelerated approval is converted into a full approval, MACPAC suggests.

The state of New York’s insider trading probe into camera maker Kodak appeared to heat up Tuesday as the company’s CEO and general counsel have been ordered to publicly testify.

Kodak and chief Jim Continenza are accused of breaking state security laws after Continenza allegedly bought tens of thousands of shares in anticipation of landing a $765 million government contract from former President Donald Trump’s administration last July.

Last week, AstraZeneca took a swing at J&J and AbbVie’s first-generation BTK inhibitor Imbruvica in the blood cancer chronic lymphocytic leukemia with long-term data from a head-to-head trial. But the partners aren’t going down without a fight.

AbbVie and Janssen unveiled pivotal data on Saturday showing that first-line CLL patients who received Imbruvica and AbbVie’s Roche-partnered Venclexta lived longer without disease progression than patients on Gazyva and the chemotherapy chlorambucil. The Phase III GLOW trial enrolled 211 elderly patients, or those with comorbidities or concurrent illnesses. Overall, the median age was 71 years old.