Diabetes

Exclusivity deals in managed care to hold down the cost of drug therapy are not new. But requiring persons with type 1 diabetes to use insulin pumps from a single manufacturer has brought out a whole different reaction.

Therapeutic substitution of branded drugs with generics approved for the same indication, in the absence of a generic equivalent, has the potential to yield considerable cost savings to the healthcare system and individual patients.

At the AMCP Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy Annual Meeting, Jenny Sung, PharmD, MS, MBA, associate vice president of evidence-based medicine research at Sanofi Pharmaceuticals, discussed a poster being presented on the safety, efficacy, and economic benefit of Toujeo.

Experiments with mice suggest a potential early treatment to avoid a deadly infection.

FDA's requirement for large, cardiovascular safety trials for all new diabetes and obesity drugs has created a "cottage industry" that some see as necessary but others feel drives up drug costs.

This week, the top stories in managed care included Express Scripts expressing a desire to partner with retail health clinics, a study that found oral cancer agents are being launched at much higher prices, and The American Journal of Managed Care's hepatitis C virus special issue was published online.

The matchstick-like device is placed under the skin and continuously delivers exenatide to ovecome a chief hurdle in diabetes care: poor adherence.

A new study found the increase in the use of insulin reaped dual results: the pharmacy expenses were substantially increased but the number of hypoglycemia-related emergency department visits were reduced.

Even though prices for both drugs in Britain was less than half the list price in the United States, NICE demanded further discounts before issuing a draft guidance that the therapies were appropriate for those who cannot otherwise lower cholesterol.

Discovery of the mechanism that connects low testosterone with diabetes could lead to better treatments for men as they age.

The method allows anti-obesity medication to reach fat tissue without causing side effects elsewhere in the body. So far, the method has been tested on mice.

The study highlights the complexity of prescribing medication for those with type 2 diabetes.

This week in managed care included takeaways from the annual meeting of AMCP, the Supreme Court hears arguments regarding drug patent review, and CMS updates Medicaid managed care rules.

Unlike its closest rival, CVS Health, Express Scripts does not have a retail healthcare delivery infrastructure.

Two years after CDC heralded a drop in obesity rates among the youngest children, authors of a new study say it's too soon to declare victory.

The study team previously published research that linked diabetes to elevated rates of certain cancers.

The FDA issued a warning on the SGLT2 inhibitor class in May 2015, but the review by AACE and ACE found that several of the cases involved patients with type 1 disease.

A diabetes drug may have benefits for people with chronic heart failure. Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly and Company have announced plans to investigate the use of the diabetes medicine Jardiance for heart failure with 2 outcome trials.

The study showed the need to test children with type 1 disease for a lack of vitamin D.

Hospital readmissions are a key quality indicator, and reducing those means learning which at-risk patients return for care. A study in The American Journal of Managed Care examined children with type 1 diabetes enrolled in Managed and Traditional Medicaid programs across 25 states, who are more likely to have incidents of diabetic ketoacidosis, a costly cause of readmission.

Since the study period ended, new results show a long-term cardioprotective benefit for empagliflozin and liraglutide.

An analysis of the largest cohort available reveals that youths with type 1 diabetes, on a Medicaid managed care plan, are less likely to be readmitted within 90 days of discharge.

The health groups' letter comes after CSPI's February report, Carbonating the World, which spelled out global investment by Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.

The results, published in Diabetes Care, move the hope of pancreatic cell islet transplants close to commercialization, which would bring the technique to more patients who cannot produce their own insulin.

Data on drug prescriptions, diagnoses, and events are increasingly being used for epidemiologic and pharmacologic studies and for the evaluation of quality of care, but questions arise about how complete and accurate the diagnoses and events in these databases are.