AJMC® in the Press, July 5, 2019

The Fix’s article on drug overdose deaths cited an article from The American Journal of Managed Care^® (AJMC^®). The article, “Provisional Data Predict Overdose Death Rates Will Fall for First Time in Decades,” reported that provisional data from the CDC indicate that drug overdose deaths in the United States are on the verge of declining for the first time since the 1990s. The provisional data show that in the 12-month period that ended November 2018, there were approximately 3000 fewer deaths compared with the 12-month period ending November 2017.

The National Pharmaceutical Council’s Tuesday CER Daily Newsfeed included an AJMC^® interview with A. Mark Fendrick, MD, professor of medicine in the School of Medicine, professor of health management and policy in the School of Public Health, and director of the VBID Center at the University of Michigan. During the interview, Fendrick discussed how the United States Preventive Services Task Force’s grade A recommendation for HIV screening and pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV prevention for high-risk populations falls in line with value-based insurance design principles.

OBR Oncology's Wednesday newsfeed included an article from AJMC^®'s sister site The Center for Biosimilars^®. The article, "The Model for Acquiring Oncology Drugs Must Change, Say Kaiser Permanente Experts," covered an editorial from Sharon Levine, MD; Anthony Barrueta; and Polly F. Webster, all of whom are affiliated with Kaiser Permanente, in which they argued that the US market needs to realign its incentives in order to promote the use of these agents and help bring down the cost of anticancer therapy.