Weekend update

David Ermer–Congress, Obesity, OPM, U.S. Healthcare–

From Washington, DC,

  • Roll Call shares its insights into this week’s upcoming Congressional work.
  • The Washington Stand reports that Scott Kupor will be sworn in as the 27th U.S. Office of Personnel Management Director tomorrow, July 14.

From the public health and medical research,

  • The Washington Post tells us “What to know about the pneumonic plague after Arizona patient’s death. A person died in Flagstaff [,Arizona,] of the rare illness related to the bubonic plague. Once called the “Black Death,” plague is now curable in all its forms if treated quickly.”
  • Per Medscape,
    • “In a cohort of 157,332 in the Veterans Health Administration with atrial fibrillation (AF), Black patients had a 14% higher risk for stroke than White patients, but Black, Asian, and Hispanic patients were less likely than White patients to die from stroke.”
  • Medscape also discusses a new joint advisory from “the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, the American Society for Nutrition, the Obesity Medicine Association, and The Obesity Society” that offers the first consensus in prescribing GLP-1s and lets us know,
    • “With a GLP-1 in pill form for weight loss expected to be FDA-approved by year’s end, obesity medicine physicians said they are gearing up for higher demand and already answering questions about the anticipated new option.
    • “Predictions are mixed about how many people may dump the shots in favor of the pill, and some physicians worry about misuse, mostly patients skipping or double dosing. While doctors welcome the new option, many also pointed to a host of other medications in the pipeline that they say look as good or better than the anticipated new pill.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • Gen Edge lists the top ten best selling drugs.
    • “GEN’s updated A-List of the top 10 best-selling prescription drugs based on 2024 sales * * * are ranked based on sales or revenue reported for 2024 by biopharma companies in press announcements, annual reports, investor materials, and/or conference calls. Each drug is listed by name, sponsor(s), 2024 sales, 2023 sales, and the percentage change between those years.
    • “The total 2024 aggregate value of the top 10 best-selling drugs was $154.888 billion, up 6.5% from $145.495 billion in 2023—and up 53% over five years from the $101.15 billion generated in 2019, as highlighted by GEN.”
  • BioPharma Dive reports,
    • “Merck & Co.’s $10 billion acquisition of Verona Pharma Wednesday is a dramatic outcome for a company that’s spent 20 years developing a respiratory drug it now sells as Ohtuvayre. The treatment has been in testing so long its principal patent expired before former President Joe Biden took office.
    • “If Merck and Wall Street’s forecasts of blockbuster sales for Ohtuvayre prove accurate, the drug will be yet another demonstration of how aggressive patenting can help drugmakers turn compounds invented long ago into billions of dollars in revenue.” * * *
    • “For Merck, revenue from Ohtuvayre would help offset at least some of the financial losses when patents for Keytruda, its top-selling cancer immunotherapy, expire later this decade. Concerns about Merck’s post-Keytruda future have caused a double-digit share slide this year, and Ohtuvayre adds “diversification away from Keytruda,” wrote Jefferies analyst Akash Tewari in a separate investor note. 
    • “Meanwhile, research Verona already has underway could help extend the Ohtuvayre life cycle beyond existing patents. The company is studying in Phase 2 trials preparations for dry powder and pressurized “metered dose” inhalers, which could allow it to establish additional formulation or device patents.”