Drug makers were optimistic going into 2018 about the political climate and drug pricing environment, but the outlook is more tenuous heading into 2019. Now is the time when industry raises prices on mature, marketed drugs and it's unclear how those hikes may be tempered or what the backlash might be.

Payers are increasingly likely to implement new strategies to manage price negotiations for immuno-oncology combinations, as competition  heats up among the drug class. Mechanisms allowing for the negotiation of different prices for combination therapies do not exist at present, but payers insist that new tools must emerge.

David Ricks will lead IFPMA into 2020 with an eye on how to meet the healthcare needs of the world’s aging population, and stepping up the power of private-public partnerships.

Financial grants are bringing UK and Chinese researchers together in bilateral collaborations to fight the growing global threat from antimicrobial resistance.

The billionaire philanthropist and industry agitator took the stage at the Forbes Healthcare Summit to discuss why his foundation is focused on fixing drug pricing and supporting organizations like ICER and Patients for Affordable Drugs.

Drug makers are bracing for a potential new policy change around rebating that could change the way they price drugs and negotiate market access. But some in the industry are advocating for a less disruptive new discounting system over the elimination of rebates all together.

New approvals in the EU were again dominated by oncology drugs in 2018, although medicines for infectious diseases were a close second. The number of orphan drugs more than doubled over the previous year, to 17. There were also some star arrivals in multiple sclerosis, genetic disorders, metabolism and migraine.

The European Commission has officially approved Luxturna, Novartis/Spark Therapeutics’ transformative gene therapy. The Swiss firm tells Scrip how the lessons it expects to learn from launching its first gene therapy will inform its future strategy in this new field.

Now that the EMA has followed its US counterpart in granting approval for its cystic fibrosis drug Symkevi, Vertex will once again have to navigate Europe's various reimbursement systems, with observers keeping a close eye on how talks with NICE go.

Medicare spending on Genentech’s Rituxan and Lucentis, and Amgen’s Neulasta and Prolia/Xgeva, would have been $3.8bn less in 2016 using the proposed international pricing index model, CMS estimates.

Final Phase III study for pivotal package of cholesterol drug bempedoic acid shows LDL-lowering efficacy and a clean safety profile, paving the way for filings in the first half of 2019.