Colorful magazines.

Monthly Round-Up of What to Read on Pharma Law and Policy

By Ameet SarpatwariBeatrice Brown, Alexander Egilman, and Aaron S. Kesselheim

Each month, members of the Program On Regulation, Therapeutics, And Law (PORTAL) review the peer-reviewed medical literature to identify interesting empirical studies, policy analyses, and editorials on health law and policy issues.

Below are the citations for papers identified from the month of October. The selections feature topics ranging from a discussion of policies for reducing disparities in access to prescription drugs, to an analysis of patient and payer incentives to use brand-name drugs vs. their authorized generics in Medicare Part D, to an evaluation of trends in revenue generated from cancer medicines among major pharmaceutical companies from 2010 to 2019. A full posting of abstracts/summaries of these articles may be found on our website.

  1. Arnold J, Zhao X, Cashy JP, Sileanu FE, Mor MK, Moyo P, Thorpe CT, Good CB, Radomski TR, Fine MJ, Gellad WF. An Interrupted Time-series Evaluation of the Association Between State Laws Mandating Prescriber Use of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs and Discontinuation of Chronic Opioid Therapy in US Veterans. Med Care. 2021 Oct 19. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34670221.
  2. Chambers JD, Margaretos NM, Enright DE, Wang R, Ye X. Is an Orphan Drug’s Cost-Effectiveness Associated with US Health Plan Coverage Restrictiveness? 2021 Oct 26. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34697718.
  3. Dusetzina SB, Sarpatwari A, Carrier MA, Hansen RA, Keating NL, Huskamp HA. Patient and Payer Incentives to Use Patented Brand-Name Drugs vs Authorized Generic Drugs in Medicare Part D. JAMA Intern Med. 2021 Oct 18:e215997. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34661600.
  4. Essien UR, Dusetzina SB, Gellad WF. A Policy Prescription for Reducing Health Disparities-Achieving Pharmacoequity. 2021 Oct 22. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34677579.
  5. Fu M, Naci H, Booth CM, Gyawali B, Cosgrove A, Toh S, Xu Z, Guan X, Ross-Degnan D, Wagner AK. Real-world Use of and Spending on New Oral Targeted Cancer Drugs in the US, 2011-2018. JAMA Intern Med. 2021 Oct 18:e215983. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34661604.
  6. Largent EA, Peterson A, Lynch HF. FDA Drug Approval and the Ethics of Desperation. JAMA Intern Med. 2021 Oct 25. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34694325.
  7. Meyers DE, Meyers BS, Chisamore TM, Wright K, Gyawali B, Prasad V, Sullivan R, Booth CM. Trends in drug revenue among major pharmaceutical companies: A 2010-2019 cohort study. 2021 Oct 6. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34614198.

Ameet Sarpatwari

Ameet Sarpatwari is an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, an Associate Epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Assistant Director of the Program On Regulation, Therapeutics, And Law (PORTAL) within the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics. His research draws upon his interdisciplinary training as an epidemiologist and lawyer and focuses on the effects of laws and regulations on therapeutic development, approval, use, and related public health outcomes.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.