💉 Axios Vitals: Shifting market dynamics

Plus, overwhelmed clinics push abortions later | Friday, September 09, 2022

Open in app View in browser   Presented By PhRMA   Axios Vitals By Tina Reed · Sep 09, 2022 😎 Happy Friday, Vitals readers. Today's newsletter is 882 words or a 3-minute read. Situational awareness: A clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness of intradermal administration of the monkeypox Jynneos is enrolling participants, the National Institutes of Health announced. NIH expects to release preliminary results in early 2023.     1 big thing: COVID drugs are likely to become less lucrative Data: CDC; Tory Lysik/Axios Dwindling public demand for COVID vaccines and private market pressures should combine to cost manufacturers billions of dollars once the federal government stops buying the shots, eating into Pfizer and Moderna's pandemic profits, Axios' Caitlin Owens writes. Between the lines: The federal government bought far more vaccines than Americans would ever use to ensure that the shots would be accessible. But private purchasers won't tolerate redundancy or waste. Driving the news: Sometime next year, health providers will take over purchasing COVID treatments and vaccines, and Americans will start accessing COVID care the way they do other medical needs. One of the first questions for the commercial sector is how many vaccines to buy, and at what price. Because doses routinely go unused, there will be pressure to bring supply more in line with demand. That will eat into Pfizer and Moderna's revenue unless they can negotiate much higher payment rates per dose. The big picture: Vaccines account for all of Moderna's sales and have swelled Pfizer's. Moderna last month reported $10.5 billion in product sales for the first half of the year, and said that the expected delivery of doses purchased in advance will generate $21 billion this year. Pfizer said in its Q2 earnings that it predicts vaccine sales will generate $32 billion in the 2022 fiscal year and brought in $22.1 billion during the first half of the year. Pfizer's COVID antiviral Paxlovid generated $9.6 billion in the first half and is projected to bring in $22 billion in the fiscal year. Together, the two products accounted for well over half of the company's revenue, and Pfizer reported that its free cash flow increased by more than $19 billion over the last three years. What they're saying: "These companies, for one, are not going to get paid for wasted doses, which they are now. Two, the idea that the commercial market is going to accept how much the government was paying per shot — I think that's an ambitious goal for Pfizer and Moderna," said Raymond James analyst Chris Meekins. "The commercial market isn't just going to write blank checks the way the government did," Meekins added. Pfizer and Moderna both declined to comment for this story. Go deeper.     2. Overwhelmed clinics push abortions later Illustration: Natalie Peeples/Axios   A crush of out-of-state patients at abortion clinics is causing backlogs in care and forcing some to have the procedure later in their pregnancies when treatment is more intensive and costs are higher, Axios' Oriana Gonzalez reports. The big picture: It's a byproduct of more people traveling across state lines in the post-Roe landscape and testing reproductive health providers in states that don't have abortion bans. Experts believe that as clinics struggle with demand, the number of abortions performed after the 13th week of pregnancy — which is around the end of the first trimester — might increase. The procedures can be harder to obtain, because "as pregnancy progresses, the number of people who are skilled to provide that care further goes down," Colleen McNicholas, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, told Axios. By the numbers: About 93% of reported abortions in 2019 were performed at or before 13 weeks of pregnancy, 6% were conducted between 14 and 20 weeks and 1% were performed at or after 21 weeks, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.     3. Biden admin ends public charge penalty Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images   People seeking green cards and visas will no longer be subject to a test of how much they'd likely rely on Medicaid and other government benefits in the future under a Department of Homeland Security rule published on Thursday, Axios' Arielle Dreher writes. Driving the news: The Biden administration moved to rescind a contentious Trump administration policy that sought to restrict legal immigration by people likely to subsist on government benefits. Critics said the "public charge" rule had a chilling effect on people seeking care for themselves or family members during the pandemic, especially if they were uninsured. Medicaid coverage, housing and food assistance were among the criteria considered in public charge determinations added by the Trump administration. The Biden administration stopped enforcing the rule early in the administration, but the new rule reverts federal standards to the way they have been since the late 1990s, with a few enhancements. The bottom line: The relaxed public charge rule could help ease fears of deportation or immigration concerns around seeking health care, but rebuilding trust will take time, experts say. Read the rest.     A message from PhRMA Health savings for patients, not middlemen     Rebates and discounts from manufacturers lower the cost of insulins by more than 80% on average — but insurers and PBMs usually don't share these savings directly with patients. Next steps: Fix harmful insurance practices and lower out-of-pocket patient costs. Here's what you should know.     4. Quote du jour: Fighting antimicrobial resistance "For many of us, it's not so much the first punch. It's the second punch that gets the communities in America..." — HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, speaking at the annual World Antimicrobial Resistance Congress Thursday. He was referring to the increased risk of infection posed by antimicrobial-resistant infections in the wake of COVID. Go deeper: Superbugs are a "second punch" after pandemic     5. Dog of the week Sasha. Photo: Melissa Dowell   Meet Sasha, a "goofball" who lives in Kenai, Alaska, with her human Melissa Dowell. "She rescued us earlier this year because she realized how desperately we needed a tripod goofball to join us," Dowell writes. (Good to see she quickly made herself at home!) 📸 Do you have your own pup you'd like to see featured in our Dog of the Week? Reply to this email with a pic and some fun details about your furry friend and they might just get featured.     A message from PhRMA Improving access to life-saving medicine     Insurance companies and PBMs don't pay full price for insulin. So why do patients? Rebates, discounts and other payments from manufacturers lower the cost of insulins by more than 80% on average — but insurers and PBMs usually don't share these discounts directly with patients. Stand up for patients.   👏 Thanks to Adriel Bettelheim for editing and Bryan McBournie for copy editing today's newsletter. Why stop here? Let's go Pro. Join the thousands of professionals reading Axios Pro: Health Tech Deals to better understand the forces shaping their industry.   Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. If you're interested in advertising, learn more here. Sponsorship has no influence on editorial content. 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