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Presented by PhRMA: Delivered daily by 10 a.m., Pulse examines the latest news in health care politics and policy. | | | | | |  | | By Sarah Owermohle and Adam Cancryn | Presented by |  | | | PROGRAMMING NOTE: Morning PULSE will not publish on Friday, June 18. We'll be back on our normal schedule on Monday June 21. Please continue to follow Pro Health Care. Editor’s Note: POLITICO Pulse is a free version of POLITICO Pro Health Care's morning newsletter, which is delivered to our s each morning at 6 a.m. The POLITICO Pro platform combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day’s biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro.
| | | — The first new Alzheimer’s medicine to be approved in years is expensive, but it’s not the only cost would-be patients will have to pay to take it. — Stephen Hahn is moving to the private sector with a gig at Flagship, the venture capital group that, a decade ago, chose to back then-obscure Moderna. — Obamacare enrollment is falling after a few banner months, but Covid relief spending has slashed costs Biden’s HHS is boasting low costs for consumers. WELCOME TO TUESDAY PULSE — Brazenly continuing Pulse’s dog chatter: Covid-19 tests never looked so cute. But we don’t think Wasabi is cut out for the job. Send tips (and again, dog pics) to sowermohle@politico.com and Adam at acancryn@politico.com. | | | | A message from PhRMA: The way insurance covers your medicine is too complicated. See how we can make the system work for patients. Not the other way around. | | | | | | THE ALZHEIMER’S DRUG TAB GROWS — Biogen’s new drug Aduhelm, approved last week to a storm of controversy from medical experts, will retail for $56,000 a year. While that doesn’t make it the priciest medicine, the potentially huge number of people who might want to take it — like millions of seniors on Medicare — has policy experts and providers on guard. Aduhelm will be covered under Medicare Part B. But aside from the medication itself, patients will need to undergo the diagnostic scans necessary to diagnose the disease before qualifying to get the drug, and will also need to monitor whether they’re tolerating it safely. And none of those tests are typically covered by Medicare, as Katherine Ellen Foley, David Lim and Rachel Roubein report. “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that the impact on Medicare is likely to be devastating,” said Diana Zuckerman, the president of the National Center for Health Research. Last September, Biogen and three other pharmaceutical companies asked the agency to take a second look at that policy, to account for patients with dementia and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. But CMS has not indicated whether it will reconsider. The agency didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment. HAHN JOINS VENTURE CAPITAL GROUP — Oncologist Stephen Hahn becomes Flagship Pioneering’s chief medical officer this week, joining the executive staff of the Massachusetts venture capitalists who backed Moderna more than a decade ago — and made more than $1 billion off Moderna’s rising stock this past year. The former FDA commissioner has been in talks with Flagship for several weeks, the Washington Post’s Dan Diamond first reported. As President Donald Trump’s second FDA chief, Hahn was confirmed to the role roughly a month before the first reported cases of Covid-19 and helmed the agency for just over a year. “The importance of investing in innovation and preemptive medicine has never been more heightened,” he said in a statement about his Flagship role. “The more we can embrace a ‘what if …’ approach the better we can support and protect the health and well-being of people here in the U.S. and around the world.” Hahn is the latest former health official to join private industry. Earlier this month, one of the FDA’s former top deputies, Amy Abernethy, became head of clinical research at life sciences company Verily, which shares a parent company with Google. HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE HOLDS HEARING ON VACCINE BILLS — The Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health convenes this morning to discuss a dozen bills pertaining to vaccine equity and access, from legislation aimed at maternal vaccinations against a range of disease to broad measures that would boost nursing home vaccination efforts and transportation to vaccination sites. Witnesses before the committee include biotech lobby BIO’s Phyllis Arthur and American Academy of Pediatrics doctor Yvonne Maldonado, plus immunization advocates Rebecca Coyle and Lijen Tan.
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| | | ACA ENROLLMENT SLOWS, BUT HHS BOASTS CONSUMER SAVINGS — More than 1.2 million Americans have bought coverage on HealthCare.gov since the special enrollment window for Obamacare opened in mid-February, but the sign-up pace started to slow last month , according to new Biden administration data. The numbers: More than 1 million people are now paying $10 or less per month for health insurance, after tax credits bankrolled by the American Rescue Plan, HHS said. About 400,000 Obamacare customers last month came back to HealthCare.gov to check their eligibility and get expanded subsidies, after 1.9 million did so in April, Rachel reports. The agency for the first time publicly shared demographic data for enrollees: 15 percent are Black (a bump up from the 11 percent average of recent years) and 18 percent are Hispanic after a 16 percent average. CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure said the administration is working with different community partners each week to encourage sign-ups in the 36 states that use the federal HealthCare.gov platform. Remember: The relief package signed by Biden in March included a major tax credit and expanded eligibility for people to receive it. But that expansion only lasts through the 2022 plan year, so these trends could be short-lived. | | | |   | | | | | | POSITIVE NEWS FOR LATE-COMING COVID VACCINE — Novavax on Monday shared that its coronavirus vaccine is 90 percent effective overall and entirely protects against severe illness and death — putting this newest shot virtually on par with Pfizer and Moderna’s options. The Maryland drug manufacturer has never brought a product to market before, but has made big promises: It pledged 100 million shots to the U.S. and roughly 1.1 billion to low- and middle-income countries worldwide. The U.S. might end up donating some or all of its promised doses as part of its commitment to help countries in need, Lauren Morello writes. But the Novavax shot could also be a hot commodity in the booster market, alongside booster shots from Pfizer and Moderna, if and when health officials decide to recommend additional Covid shots to bolster immunity, SVB Leerink analysts wrote in a research note Monday.
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| | | STUDY: MOST PATIENTS SAY HEALTH SYSTEM ROUTINELY DISCRIMINATES — The American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation is launching an effort to build trust between people of color and health care providers, amid troubling findings on prejudice in health. More than half of surveyed adults said there is routine discrimination in health care, with roughly half of doctors agreeing, according to new research from NORC at the University of Chicago. Black patients are twice as likely to experience discrimination by a doctor in health setting as white patients, according to the study, which polled more than 2,000 adults and 600 doctors nationwide. About a third of physicians say they also have experienced discrimination from patients based on their race and ethnicity. ABIM Foundation says its Building Trust initiative will be a nationwide effort to address these issues. “Just like the deep impact of systemic racism being felt in all aspects of society, any form of discrimination fuels mistrust between patients and the health care system patients rely on to treat them,” President and CEO Richard Baron said in statement. | | | | A message from PhRMA: Getting to what you pay for medicines shouldn’t be a maze. Let’s make out-of-pocket costs transparent, predictable and affordable. And let’s do it without sacrificing access to medicines and innovation. See how we can make the system work for patients. Not the other way around. | | | | | | Axios’ Michelle McGhee and Will Chase published an analysis of hospital billing across the U.S., which found that many of the nation’s top nonprofit hospitals have filed tens of thousands of lawsuits against patients in recent years. Virologist Kristian Andersen answered questions from New York Times reporters James Gorman and Carl Zimmer about an early 2020 email he sent to infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci — an email Fauci’s detractors have homed in on as a clue to the coronavirus’s origins. The United Nations’ outgoing aid chief, Mark Lowcock, slammed G-7 countries Monday, arguing that the nations failed to make a plan to vaccinate the world, Reuters’ Michelle Nichols reports. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
