Makers of drugs and biotech therapeutics might have been expected to resist the Trump administration’s proposal regarding the anti-kickback statute, but that proves not to be the case. Two leading trade associations have voiced their support for the proposal, although they each indicated they would take a closer look at the proposal before lending it their full-throated support.
It has been argued on more than one occasion that rebates paid to pharmaceutical benefits managers are rebates rather than kickbacks, a point made by at least one observer. There have been instances in which drug makers paid fines to deal with allegations they used rebates to gain exclusive listings in PBM formularies, but that is not the usual run of business where these rebates to PBMs are concerned.
The latest proposal by the Department of Health and Human Services includes a removal of the safe harbor for rebates paid to several entities, including PBMs, although PBM service fees would enjoy a safe harbor along with rebates provided directly to beneficiaries enrolled in federal government health programs. HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement the proposal is “a major departure from a broken status quo that serves special interests,” and which “moves toward a new system that puts American patients first.” The proposal would further provide more transparency about such transactions, and Azar seemed to taunt Congress on this point, stating that members of both parties who have sought to lower prescription drug costs “have criticized this opaque system for years, and they could pass our proposal into law immediately.”
Despite the seeming promise of disruption of the existing system, both the Biotechnology Innovation Organization and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America issued statements that were generally supportive of the proposal. BIO President/CEO Jim Greenwood said in a Jan. 31 statement that the association “strongly supports the goal” of the proposal, but advised that BIO is taking a close look at the proposal. Greenwood said the current system creates some perverse incentives that feed the drug pricing problem, urging HHS to adopt a system that provides affordable access.
PhRMA emphasized a need to ensure that the $150 billion in annual rebates and discounts are used to lower costs for patients at the pharmacy. PhRMA President/CEO Steve Ubl stated that the existing approach favors products with high list prices, but he also pointed to the pressing problem of price hikes associated with drug products used for diabetes, which has been a significant flashpoint in recent months. Despite the supportive tone, Ubl said PhRMA would also take a close look at the proposal before offering specific comments.
FDA Rewrites Title of Abbreviated 510(k) Draft
The FDA’s device center managed to wrap up a 2018 draft guidance dealing with abbreviated 510(k) applications, but ended up renaming the document in the process. The net effect is seemingly to put another nail in the substantial equivalence coffin, which some might argue has been a policy priority for the Center for Devices and Radiological Health dating back to 2011.
The 2018 draft guidance bore a title that explicitly mentioned the abbreviated 510(k) program and suggested that a determination of substantial equivalence would be more easily obtained by demonstrating conformance with performance criteria. The final guidance is dubbed the Safety and Performance-Based Pathway, which advises that third party reviewers can be invoked for these devices, which was not acknowledged in the draft.
One of the more notable differences between the draft and the final is that the latter suggests that the performance criteria requirements for Declarations of Conformity might be more explicitly product-specific than perhaps was understood upon the emergence of the draft. The final guidance says a DoC ought to suffice to support a finding of substantial equivalence “unless noted otherwise in the relevant Safety and Performance Based Pathway guidance.” While there is a seemingly related provision in the draft – which states that the FDA may “establish performance criteria through guidance and/or special controls” – the revision appearing in the final seems to lend more teeth to the notion that at least some procodes will be the subjects of product-specific performance criteria.
Precisely when the agency might promulgate such guidance is not explained, but the implications of this and other recent policy changes at CDRH include that the historical understanding of the role of substantial equivalence is no longer in vogue at the Office of Device Evaluation. Only time will tell whether reviewers at ODE can resist the urge to use performance criteria as a means of imposing more regulatory hurdles for class II devices
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