June 27, 2013 - 03:06 pm
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In an effort to provide you with timely market feedback from ASCO 2013, OBR and MDoutlook are pleased to share results from MDoutlook’s third OncoPoll™ from the meeting exploring Ovarian and Cervical cancers.
* Survey Participants = Medical Oncologists and multi-disciplinary physicians with an identified clinical interest in gynecological cancers
* Survey Participants = Medical Oncologists and multi-disciplinary physicians with an identified clinical interest in gynecological cancers
Submitted by Jan Heybroek, President and Robert Stephan, Sr. Director Medical Services, MDoutlook
June 24, 2013 - 10:06 am
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In an effort to provide you with timely market feedback from ASCO 2013, OBR and MDoutlook are pleased to share results from MDoutlook’s second OncoPoll™ from the meeting exploring Colorectal, Pancreatic and other Gastrointestinal cancers.
Stay tuned to our blog in the coming weeks as we publish more survey results in other tumor types as well.
June 18, 2013 - 04:06 pm
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Payers are increasingly more proactive in their management of drug expenditures in cancers, such as breast cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, and colorectal cancer, where there are many therapeutic options. As more therapeutic alternatives for advanced melanoma become available, it increases opportunities for payers to manage utilization; and it may also provide manufacturers with opportunities to define the value of their respective drugs through clinical and price differentiation.
Near-Term Management of Oral Therapies in BRAF-Mutated Melanoma
With the imminent entrance of Tafinlar (dabrafenib) and Mekinist (trametinib) to the U.S. market in the third quarter of 2013 for BRAF-mutated metastatic melanoma (approximately 40%-50% of market), GlaxoSmithKline is redefining value in this space. Tafinlar’s labeling indicates that, like Zelboraf [vemurafenib; Plexxikon/Genentech/Roche/Daiichi-Sankyo], it is only approved for use in patients with the V600E mutation (approximately 80% of all BRAF mutations).
Price is an obvious difference between Tafinlar and Zelboraf in which payers could implement step therapy, as both drugs are relatively similar in terms of efficacy. In the U.S., the wholesale acquisition cost of Tafinlar will reportedly be $7,600 a month, which essentially undercuts Zelboraf’s approximate cost of $10,000 a month. The price difference may be partially due to Tafinlar’s later entrance to market, but may also be part of GSK’s long-term strategy for the use of Mekinist and Tafinlar in combination with each other.
Currently, Mekinist (priced at $8,700/month) has a specific limitation in its label to not be used after treatment with a BRAF V600E inhibitor. This may be enforced by payers although Mekinist has the advantage of being the only agent indicated for use in patients with the BRAF V600K mutation.
The combination of Mekinist and Tafinlar showed an improvement in progression-free survival (PFS) compared with Tafinlar alone in a Phase 2 trial. With this early signal, GSK has initiated two Phase 3 trials (nicknamed COMBI) to confirm the results that the combination therapy is superior to Tafinlar alone or Zelboraf alone. In all likelihood the combination will move forward into clinical practice. The question is whether the combination (or even the use of Mekinist after progression with a BRAF inhibitor) will be reimbursed with an NCCN recommendation before launch in early Q3, at a later point before the COMBI trials report, or after the COMBI results. The combination regimen would bump cost of therapy for advanced melanoma to $16,000 a month with an average duration of therapy of one year, likely spurring greater interest in payer utilization management.
Reshaping Value Propositions in Melanoma with Immunotherapy
Bristol-Myers Squibb’s immunotherapy, Yervoy (ipilimumab) was a breakthrough drug, and thus was able to be launched at a substantial price with a fixed regimen of four injections costing approximately $120,000. The most critical aspects of its value proposition is its long-term responses that lead to unprecedented long-term survival for advanced melanoma though this is accompanied by immune-related adverse events that often affect the gastrointestinal tract.
Early data suggest that BMS’s follow-up immunotherapy, nivolumab, might be more active than Yervoy and might be active in patients previously treated with Yervoy without the associated immune-related toxicities. Also, exciting Phase 1 data suggest that the combination of these two drugs will improve long-term survival better than either agent alone. BMS has initiated three Phase 3 trials to confirm the activity of nivolumab and the combination (nicknamed CheckMate): nivolumab as a monotherapy in Yervoy-pretreated and Yervoy-naïve patients versus chemotherapy and a third trial comparing nivolumab and Yervoy versus the combination.
BMS will have interesting launch choices including whether to launch nivolumab with only single-agent data or with combination data. With the superior value proposition suggested in the Phase 1 results, single-agent nivolumab would likely yield a premium price compared with Yervoy. However, BMS might be faced with a similar issue as GSK and pricing decisions with an assumption that the combination would move forward into the clinic.
Implications
The current number of available treatments for BRAF-mutated melanoma, the emerging availabilities of immunotherapies, and their likely associated costs, suggest strong payer management in advanced melanoma may be utilized in the near future. For a disease that has garnered little attention previously, the emergence of therapies for advanced melanoma will give payers impetus to manage drug therapy.
A key clinical argument remains whether the emergence of the immunotherapies has physicians thinking that they will be used before BRAF inhibitors given the long-term survival these convey in converse to current thinking. Payers and health authorities could mandate a BRAF or MEK inhibitor over Yervoy given the biomarker significance, yet cancer-resistance against the BRAF and MEK inhibitors is inevitable, suggesting that patients with BRAF-mutated melanoma have a definite ceiling in survival without using an immunotherapy.
Unlike the BRAF and MEK inhibitors, Yervoy, a PD-1 inhibitor, does not have a biomarker. If a biomarker such as PD-1 expression can be validated for PD-1 and PD-L1 antibodies, their value proposition would be more substantial, perhaps providing a larger reason to price the drugs highly. The melanoma market has only recently been transformed, and these data and ongoing clinical development with PD-1 and PD-L1 antibodies suggest that it’s set to be transformed even further!
Melanoma treatment is likely heading toward combinations, whether it’s a BRAF/MEK combination, a BRAF inhibitor plus an immunotherapy or duel immunotherapies. These agents will increasingly affect drug expenditures for patients and payers. Manufacturers may need to become more creative with patient assistance programs as combination therapies push regimen prices beyond $15,000 a month. The resulting patient out-of-pocket costs for those with a high coinsurance that ranges from 20% to 33%, for example, could be pushed beyond affordability, particularly with the chronic nature of treatment (i.e., the emergent immunotherapies and the BRAF and MEK inhibitors).
By Gordon Gochenauer, Director, Oncology Commercial Strategies, Kantar Health
June 17, 2013 - 04:06 pm
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By Dave Johnson, Vice President, Encuity Research
At Encuity Research, we’ve been able to determine through our EventAnswers™ audit that pharmaceutical and biotech companies spent $3 billion on events in the past 12 months, with 12% of their budgets going to symposia like ASCO. With the reality of today’s spend scrutiny, it is vital for manufacturers to understand how the information they present at events affects physician treatment decisions. Showing up is no longer enough. When it comes to event themes, there are perception winners and losers.
To get a sense of the impact that the 2013 annual meeting of ASCO had on physicians, we surveyed 100 oncologists who attended the event. These oncologists highlighted new treatments for melanoma and cervical cancer as the most important subjects of new clinical information. Specifically, new treatments for melanoma, with an emphasis on PD-1 treatments, were cited by 31% of respondents, while advances in the treatment of cervical cancer, particularly Genentech’s Avastin®, were cited by 20% of respondents (Figure 1).
Oncologists expressed that advances in immunotherapy was a key theme at the conference, in addition to news about glioblastoma multiforme and breast cancer treatments. When asked what product-related information presented at this year’s ASCO conference they found most valuable, 41% of ASCO attendees highlighted news about Avastin. Oncologists also cited information on PD-1 treatments (17%), nivolumab (11%), and Bayer/Onyx’s Nexavar® (10%) as the most valuable in 2013.
As in 2012, we found that oncologists overwhelmingly named Genentech as the company providing the most valuable information at ASCO in 2013. Unaided, 84% of physicians named Genentech as providing the most valuable information, and Bristol-Myers Squibb moved to second with 43% of mentions, followed by Novartis (29%), Merck (20%), and Celgene (16%).
ASCO attendees recognized Millennium and Seattle Genetics as up-and-coming players in the treatment of cancer; unaided, 13% of ASCO attendees cited Millennium as an up-and-coming company, followed closely by Seattle Genetics. Sanofi, Pharmacyclics, Onyx, and Astellas rounded out the top companies.
Overall, 2013 ASCO attendees responding to our survey found the conference to be valuable. Half of respondents rated it as very or extremely valuable, with 86% reporting that it was equal to or more valuable than the 2012 conference (Figure 2).
However, physicians reported that they were less likely to change patient treatment based on 2013 ASCO findings compared with the 2012 conference. Just 16% of attendees indicated that they were very or extremely likely to change prescribing behavior following the 2013 conference, compared with 40% following the 2012 conference.
Products that had the strongest impact on physicians’ treatment plans included Avastin, Erbitux®, and tamoxifen. We found that 22% of physicians surveyed will consider using more Avastin following the conference, 10% of physicians would use more Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Erbitux following conference, and 9% of physicians indicated plans to extend use of tamoxifen to 10 years (vs. the current standard of 5 years).
Using research such as this to measure and refine the impact of presenting at critical venues like ASCO is vital for a cost-conscious industry. Through the use of turnkey research, companies can quickly illuminate the influence of their clinical information and promotional efforts on physicians’ perceptions, understanding, and intent to prescribe.
Download the ASCO Impact Report
Encuity Research—the market research and analytics subsidiary of Campbell Alliance—conducted this survey to evaluate the relevancy and effectiveness of company-sponsored clinical data and promotions. The full results of the survey are summarized in the ASCO Impact Report, which provides an encompassing view of ASCO attendees’ intent to change treatment plans, their perceptions of clinical information presented, and their ratings of information offered by pharmaceutical and biotech companies. For a full version the ASCO Impact Report, please visit http://www.encuity.com/asco.