Strik­ing while the iron is hot, six House De­moc­rats sent a let­ter Thurs­day to the act­ing chair­woman of the FTC (10 days af­ter the FTC said it would crack down on phar­ma merg­ers), call­ing for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the po­ten­tial col­lu­sion of in­sulin mar­ket lead­ers Eli Lil­ly, Sanofi and No­vo Nordisk.

Katie Porter

Led by Rep. Katie Porter of Cal­i­for­nia, the let­ter notes that the three com­pa­nies raised the prices of their in­sulins in lock­step, and be­tween 2012 and 2016, the price of in­sulin al­most dou­bled. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and the late Rep. Eli­jah Cum­mings of Mary­land sent a let­ter to the FTC rais­ing sim­i­lar charges of col­lu­sion among the same three com­pa­nies in 2016.

“It is a unique­ly Amer­i­can phe­nom­e­non that pa­tients with di­a­betes are reg­u­lar­ly forced to ra­tion in­sulin and risk death,” wrote Porter, along with De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Reps. Lloyd Doggett (TX), Cori Bush (MO), Prami­la Jaya­pal (WA), Pe­ter Welch (VT), and Ro Khan­na (CA).

Last March, the FDA of­fi­cial­ly tran­si­tioned in­sulin prod­ucts from all three com­pa­nies from drugs to bi­o­log­ics, mean­ing com­pe­ti­tion would have to come in the form of biosim­i­lars, or even in­ter­change­able biosim­i­lars, rather than gener­ics.

Scott Got­tlieb

“The tran­si­tion of in­sulin from the drug to the bi­o­log­ics path­way will open up these prod­ucts to biosim­i­lar com­pe­ti­tion,” for­mer FDA com­mis­sion­er Scott Got­tlieb said in April 2019. “We’re al­ready see­ing ro­bust ac­tiv­i­ty among spon­sors seek­ing to bring for­ward biosim­i­lar copies of in­sulin.”

But one year since that tran­si­tion oc­curred, and the fruits of that ac­tiv­i­ty have not trans­lat­ed in­to new in­sulin biosim­i­lars yet.

For now, the House De­moc­rats are call­ing on the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion to do some­thing, say­ing any ac­tion would align with its “com­mit­ment to equal­i­ty” as Black Amer­i­cans are fac­ing an epi­dem­ic of am­pu­ta­tions “large­ly caused by ex­or­bi­tant in­sulin prices,” the De­moc­rats wrote.

“It is clear that the in­sulin mar­ket is bro­ken, and we be­lieve that an FTC in­ves­ti­ga­tion and in­ter­ven­tion is long over­due,” they added.

Just 3 com­pa­nies con­trol near­ly all of our in­sulin sup­ply: Eli Lil­ly, Sanofi, and No­vo Nordisk. Shock­er: it turns out they raise prices in tan­dem—at least 13x in 10 years—while pa­tients are ra­tioning or starv­ing them­selves to try to cut costs. I want an­swers. pic.twit­ter.com/AtkH3OonTs

— Rep. Katie Porter (@Rep­KatiePorter) March 26, 2021

David Livingston, the Dana-Farber/Harvard Med scientist who helped shine a light on some of the key molecular drivers of breast and ovarian cancer, died unexpectedly last Sunday.

One of the senior leaders at Dana-Farber during his nearly half century of work there, Livingston was credited with shedding light on the genes that regulate cell growth, with insights into inherited BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations that helped lay the scientific foundation for targeted therapies and earlier detection that have transformed the field.

Three Senate Democrats are backing an FDA plan to require mandatory prescriber education for opioids as overdose deaths have risen sharply over the past decade, with almost 97,000 American opioid-related overdose deaths in the past year alone.

While acknowledging a decline in overall opioid analgesic dispensing in recent years, the FDA said it’s reconsidering the need for mandatory prescriber training through a REMS given the current situation with overdoses, and is seeking input on the aspects of the opioid crisis that mandatory training could potentially mitigate.

Just as Avoro Capital’s campaign to derail Merck’s proposed $11.5 billion buyout of Acceleron gains steam, Bristol Myers Squibb is leaning in with some hefty counterweight.

The pharma giant is planning to tender its Acceleron shares, Bloomberg reported, which add up to a sizable 11.5% stake. Based on the offer price, the sale would net Bristol Myers around $1.3 billion.

To complete its deal, Merck needs a majority of shareholders to agree to sell their shares.

When Beth Hogan, a metastatic pancreatic cancer patient, showed up for her infusion at Yale’s Smilow Cancer Hospital in New Haven, CT on Oct. 11, she said she was informed that day that she would not be receiving Bristol Myers Squibb’s Abraxane, part of her combo treatment, because of a shortage.

“I was told we don’t know when you can have it,” she told Endpoints News via email, adding that she doesn’t expect to receive any Abraxane this coming Monday at her treatment appointment either, and she doesn’t know when things will change.