During the Q&A of a presentation at the AdvaMed Advertising and Promotion of Medical Devices conference (slides here), I was asked why I claimed that the word "new" meant within the past six months. I mentioned that FDA had a post noting this and that FTC also had the same position.
On the train home, I decided to hunt down the sources, and this post is the result so I don't have to duplicate the effort again. I didn't realize that FTC's position on the issue went back to 1967.
I still don't think drug ads will include pricing any time soon
So, I was right!
...
Or maybe I was wrong.
...
Or perhaps the jury's still out.
In May, when President Trump released his blueprint for lowering prescription drug pricing, I wrote a blog post saying that I didn't see how FDA had authority under existing regulations to mandate the inclusion of prices in the direct-to-consumer (DTC) ads. I further claimed that getting such a requirement in place would either require a new regulation, or more likely new legal authority.
Well, as some of you might have heard, yesterday, the Trump administration released a new proposed rule that would require pharmaceutical companies to include the Wholesale Acquisition Cost (WAC) in television ads.
I'll have much more to say about this proposed rule as the conversation continues. And I can't decide which verdict to make on my earlier prediction.
I want to make one point here that hasn't been mentioned in any of the coverage I've seen so far.
Too frequently people talk about prescription drug advertising in a vacuum. The assumption seems to be that people know absolutely nothing about anything and on to this tabula rasa the promotions from pharmaceutical companies are forced, brainwashing people into storming their doctors' offices to demand prescription drugs.
That's not true. Not even close.
People care about their health. They care about the health of their children, their parents, their spouses, and others. When they have a health issue, they start looking for information about ways to treat that issue, ideally to cure it, or at least to help mitigate the symptoms and severity of the condition.
Their search for information will (I hope) include an investigation of whether a prescription treatment is the right option, but it will also include the crap that's sold on disreputable websites. Their search will include supplements, with all of the appropriate concerns.
This is relevant to the debate about drug pricing because one reason prescription drugs cost much more than these other options is that they work. We know they work because the FDA has evaluated the science behind them and believes that there's good reason to believe they work.
The other reason they're more expensive is because most people have some form of prescription drug coverage from their insurance, and insurance companies are willing to pay far more to keep their policy holders healthy than most consumers are willing to pay out of pocket.
Throughout the CMS's proposed rule, there are repeated discussions about how information about the WAC will enable consumers to make rational decisions about treatment options. The assumption seems to be that consumers are limited solely to trying to decide between prescription drug A and prescription drug B and that knowing the WAC will somehow enable them to make a better decision between the two. All by itself, this is a deeply suspect proposition.
But the more important point I want to make now is that people aren't trying to decide between prescription drug A and B. They're also considering pseudoscience crap C and possibly dangerous supplement D and over-the-counter treatment E and loads of other options as well.
Currently, people don't know how much prescription drugs cost, and maybe that's a good thing because it keeps people from comparing that $84,000 prescription drug to the $75 pseudoscience product. Acting as if the price is the sole, or even the primary, factor that consumers should use to evaluate treatment options ignores that most of the evaluation doesn't occur purely among different prescription treatments, and it also rarely involves a qualified health care professional.
It's most often a person, maybe a family, alone, or talking with their friends trying to figure out what's wrong and how they can fix it.
The response to including pricing in prescription drug ads could be, as I've said repeatedly, that people are scared away from prescription drugs that would be relatively affordable for the individual.
It also could be that the crap starts getting more expensive. After all, if people grow accustomed to seeing health treatments advertised with a list price of $100,000 or more, then they won't necessarily notice that the item being advertised is a dangerous supplement or pure pseudoscience.
I've noticed over the past few years that more and more ads for supplements have started mimicking prescription drug advertising. They make their logos look like prescription drug logos. They include a risk statement in their ads. To someone who isn't trained in knowing the difference, you could be forgiven for thinking there's no difference between these products and prescription treatments.
Is it really a stretch to think that requiring prescription treatments to include prices will result in those pseudoscience products doing the same, or to worry that the prices they start seeing as their comparator is the now revealed price of the prescription treatment?
On Bending the Cost Curve & MACRA's Flaws
I'm taking advantage of my law school education to write about issues that are related to my work, but sometimes a bit afield of the strictly limited area of FDA regulation of advertising and promotion. Whenever I have something that I think might interest the readers of this blog, I'll post the piece to my Scribd.com account, a link to which is always available in the right rail under the label of "Long-form writings."
The first such piece is about the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) and why MACRA, which was colloquially known as the "permanent doc fix," is going to be a huge issue in the 2020 election. In fact, some time next year, I expect the very serious flaws in this legislation to explode in the public consciousness and to become the next "crisis" in healthcare financing.
If you'd like to get ahead of the topic to prepare yourself, take a look at the linked piece. I'd be happy to continue the discussion of this topic in the comments on this post.
The first such piece is about the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) and why MACRA, which was colloquially known as the "permanent doc fix," is going to be a huge issue in the 2020 election. In fact, some time next year, I expect the very serious flaws in this legislation to explode in the public consciousness and to become the next "crisis" in healthcare financing.
If you'd like to get ahead of the topic to prepare yourself, take a look at the linked piece. I'd be happy to continue the discussion of this topic in the comments on this post.
People Care about Their Cost for Medicine, Not Pricing
The Kaiser Family Foundation released a poll showing that most Americans of all political persuasions support requiring prices in prescription drug ads, as supported by President Trump.
Ed Silverman of Stat News wrote a story about this poll, including a few comments from me. Later, I mentioned on Twitter that there was at least one important point I didn't tell Ed.
The poll didn't ask people what price to include (WAC, AMP, NADAC, FUL, AAC, SWP, etc.), and that's not surprising, since most people don't realize that there are so many different prices for prescription drugs.
That's an important point. There are tons of prices for prescription drugs, and at the end of the day, none of them correlates with what consumers actually care about.
Consumers care about how much THEY will pay for their prescriptions, but there's no way to determine that for all consumers, so any price that is presented is AT BEST deeply misleading.
What actually determines the price paid by the consumer at the pharmacy counter is a combination of: 1) what insurance (if any) they have, 2) which pharmacy they're using, 3) where they are in terms of their personal/family deductible for the year (or progress toward the prescription drug donut hole for those with Part D coverage), and 4) whether the manufacturer has any sort of copay or patient assistance program.
The WAC for Drug A might be $100, but if my copay is $4, then that's what matters to me. And if Drug B has a WAC of $50, but my copay is $25 for Drug B, then I'm not going to prefer Drug B despite the lower WAC.
I didn't conduct the Kaiser survey, and it would be difficult to ask the right questions to get at this issue, but if the pollsters were to include questions about things such as which price matters to a consumer, or what consumers mean when they say they want the "price" included in the drug ads, I suspect that what they'll find is that when pollsters ask, "Do you want pricing in drug ads?" what consumers hear is, "Do you want the ad to include how much you'll have to pay out of pocket for the drug?"
And unfortunately (or fortunately), there's no way to do that. I don't mean it's very hard to do that. I mean it's impossible to do that. Because the factors (as discussed above) are deeply personal, there's no way a manufacturer can include that information in their ads.
As Peter Pitts noted in a recent column, one factor driving the recent emphasis on drug pricing is the transition to high-deductible plans. As Americans are being asked to shoulder more of the costs out of pocket, they're becoming more aware of the high cost of some prescription drugs.
A few years ago, I learned just how much variety there is among pharmacies even for generic drugs, when I was buying medicine for a family member who did not have health insurance. I called several different pharmacies because the price was solely coming out of my pocket, and I was shocked to learn that the price varied from more than $150 to $10 for a 30-day supply. Needless to say, I chose the pharmacy with the $10 prescription.
All of this is to say that in addition to the issues I've previously discussed on how unlikely it is for FDA to mandate the inclusion of drug pricing in ads, consumers really don't understand what is being proposed, and as a consequence, they're unlikely to be happy with anything that results.
As I said to Ed during our phone call discussing this in comments that wound up on the cutting room floor, this is a situation where consumers are angry at pharmaceutical companies and I suspect that a significant part of the bipartisan support for including pricing in ads is along the lines of, "if pharma companies are against it, then it must be a good idea."
Ed Silverman of Stat News wrote a story about this poll, including a few comments from me. Later, I mentioned on Twitter that there was at least one important point I didn't tell Ed.
The poll didn't ask people what price to include (WAC, AMP, NADAC, FUL, AAC, SWP, etc.), and that's not surprising, since most people don't realize that there are so many different prices for prescription drugs.
That's an important point. There are tons of prices for prescription drugs, and at the end of the day, none of them correlates with what consumers actually care about.
Consumers care about how much THEY will pay for their prescriptions, but there's no way to determine that for all consumers, so any price that is presented is AT BEST deeply misleading.
What actually determines the price paid by the consumer at the pharmacy counter is a combination of: 1) what insurance (if any) they have, 2) which pharmacy they're using, 3) where they are in terms of their personal/family deductible for the year (or progress toward the prescription drug donut hole for those with Part D coverage), and 4) whether the manufacturer has any sort of copay or patient assistance program.
The WAC for Drug A might be $100, but if my copay is $4, then that's what matters to me. And if Drug B has a WAC of $50, but my copay is $25 for Drug B, then I'm not going to prefer Drug B despite the lower WAC.
I didn't conduct the Kaiser survey, and it would be difficult to ask the right questions to get at this issue, but if the pollsters were to include questions about things such as which price matters to a consumer, or what consumers mean when they say they want the "price" included in the drug ads, I suspect that what they'll find is that when pollsters ask, "Do you want pricing in drug ads?" what consumers hear is, "Do you want the ad to include how much you'll have to pay out of pocket for the drug?"
And unfortunately (or fortunately), there's no way to do that. I don't mean it's very hard to do that. I mean it's impossible to do that. Because the factors (as discussed above) are deeply personal, there's no way a manufacturer can include that information in their ads.
As Peter Pitts noted in a recent column, one factor driving the recent emphasis on drug pricing is the transition to high-deductible plans. As Americans are being asked to shoulder more of the costs out of pocket, they're becoming more aware of the high cost of some prescription drugs.
A few years ago, I learned just how much variety there is among pharmacies even for generic drugs, when I was buying medicine for a family member who did not have health insurance. I called several different pharmacies because the price was solely coming out of my pocket, and I was shocked to learn that the price varied from more than $150 to $10 for a 30-day supply. Needless to say, I chose the pharmacy with the $10 prescription.
All of this is to say that in addition to the issues I've previously discussed on how unlikely it is for FDA to mandate the inclusion of drug pricing in ads, consumers really don't understand what is being proposed, and as a consequence, they're unlikely to be happy with anything that results.
As I said to Ed during our phone call discussing this in comments that wound up on the cutting room floor, this is a situation where consumers are angry at pharmaceutical companies and I suspect that a significant part of the bipartisan support for including pricing in ads is along the lines of, "if pharma companies are against it, then it must be a good idea."
Careers in Food & Drug Law
I started law school last year, enrolling in Drexel University's Thomas Kline School of Law's accelerated JD program. In the fall, I'll begin my final year.
Among other things, becoming a law student made me learn about the Food and Drug Law Institute's group for those new to food and drug law (NFDL). Although I've been involved with FDLI for more than a decade, I wasn't aware of this program, which has a variety of programs and opportunities for young lawyers and law students who are new to the food and drug bar.
In March, I organized an FDLI event at the Kline Trial Advocacy Institute in Philadelphia. This was the first NFDL event outside the DC area, and approximately 40 law students from area schools attended.
The current issue of FDLI's Update magazine has my write-up about the evening's event, including some of the insights from Gayle Lawson of the FDA, Paul Savidge of Spark Therapeutics, Yvonne McKenzie previously of Pepper Hamilton, Amy Rick of FDLI, and Marlene Shea of Johnson & Johnson.
If you know any law students considering a career in food and drug law, I hope you'll share the piece and let them know about the NFDL.
Among other things, becoming a law student made me learn about the Food and Drug Law Institute's group for those new to food and drug law (NFDL). Although I've been involved with FDLI for more than a decade, I wasn't aware of this program, which has a variety of programs and opportunities for young lawyers and law students who are new to the food and drug bar.
In March, I organized an FDLI event at the Kline Trial Advocacy Institute in Philadelphia. This was the first NFDL event outside the DC area, and approximately 40 law students from area schools attended.
The current issue of FDLI's Update magazine has my write-up about the evening's event, including some of the insights from Gayle Lawson of the FDA, Paul Savidge of Spark Therapeutics, Yvonne McKenzie previously of Pepper Hamilton, Amy Rick of FDLI, and Marlene Shea of Johnson & Johnson.
If you know any law students considering a career in food and drug law, I hope you'll share the piece and let them know about the NFDL.
Drug Ads Won't Include Drug Pricing Anytime Soon
Updated
Earlier today, the President announced a series of measures intended to lower drug pricing. Most of the measures were expected, but one particular item caught my eye.
"FDA is going to get straight to work on having drug companies share their prices in direct-to-consumer ads," said Secretary Azar, according to this transcript of his prepared remarks. That piqued my interest because ad-promo is sort of important to me. I just spent two days training people on all of the FDA's ad-promo requirements. Do I have to revise all of my materials and send out corrections to the attendees?
This announcement was part of the American Patients First blueprint, so I went to take a look at the blueprint itself. And there it is on page 11.
Listed under the heading "Immediate Actions," "FDA evaluation of requiring manufacturers to include list prices in advertising."
And then again on page 25, "HHS may" (emphasis added)
"Call on the FDA to evaluate the inclusion of list prices in direct-to-consumer advertising."
That's a far cry from FDA beginning to require companies include drug pricing in their advertising.
I'm well acquainted with 21 CFR 202.1, and I can't figure out under what provision FDA could reasonably interpret companies to have an obligation to include list prices.
Even determining what that requirement is would take some time, since there's the list price for a single dose, the price for a standard course of treatment, the annual price for people who take the treatment, etc.
So, it will indeed take some "evaluation" from FDA to determine how to require such inclusion in advertising. That might be why the FDA commissioner's statement about today's plan neglected to mention this item.
And of course, there's a separate question of whether there's a legal basis for such a requirement.
Congress certainly could pass a law to require the inclusion of this information in advertising. Fairly recently, Congress required that print advertising include the "MedWatch" statement.
Such a new requirement would probably face court challenges, as many "compelled speech" provisions have been facing court challenges.
And as part of its deliberations, Congress would, I hope clarify things such as exactly what ads this requirement applied to.
Assuming Congress figured this out, the President signed the bill, FDA promulgated the relevant regulations, and everything successfully survived court challenges, there could at some point in President Trump's third term be a new requirement for prescription ads to include pricing information.
Why, though, would anyone want this? What exactly is the mechanism by which such a requirement would lower drug pricing?
I can think of two possibilities. First, shame. Perhaps, the idea is that pharmaceutical companies would be simply too embarrassed to include the price of very expensive drugs in their ads. Based on this idea, just exposing the prices to the light of day would itself result in the prices being lowered.
I find this idea implausible. Companies already make their prices public in various ways. It isn't unusual for companies to announce pricing in investor notices or announcements of drug approvals. That publicity hasn't resulted in any lowering of costs, and I see no reason why this would change things.
The second possibility is that consumers would demand lower-cost alternatives. I guess the idea is that a consumer who sees an ad for a potential cancer treatment with a list price of $100,000 would think, "Gee, I better look for a less expensive alternative treatment."
I don't know why a consumer would think that, and I also don't know why anyone would find it desirable to have consumers do so.
Would a consumer who definitely won't be paying the full list price really respond to seeing the list price by looking for a less expensive treatment? I doubt it.
But more importantly, I don't want consumers deciding against a course of treatment based on the list price. In FDA's 2017 guidance about presenting health care economic information to payors, FDA stated that sponsors should present this information to people with the skill to understand such information and quoted the House report that the legal provision permitting such communications were "not intended to permit manufacturers to provide such health care economic information to medical practitioners."
If FDA and Congress were concerned that physicians would not understand healthcare economic information, why would anyone think that mandating the presentation of incomplete HCEI to consumers is a good idea? Because remember that list price of treatment is only one factor in determining actual cost effectiveness of treatment.
TL/DR version: This is a bad idea that would at a minimum require new regulations to become an actual requirement. It probably requires a new law to authorize it. I fully expect that this proposal will generate a ton of headlines and chatter for the next few days, and then be quietly ignored by people who actually care about controlling the cost of medications.
Update (May 27, 2018): A group of Senators sent a letter to several major pharmaceutical companies urging them to voluntarily include drug prices in their ads. It's unclear to me whether this letter makes it more or less likely that the Senate will take up and pass legislation to add this requirement to prescription medicine ads.
Earlier today, the President announced a series of measures intended to lower drug pricing. Most of the measures were expected, but one particular item caught my eye.
"FDA is going to get straight to work on having drug companies share their prices in direct-to-consumer ads," said Secretary Azar, according to this transcript of his prepared remarks. That piqued my interest because ad-promo is sort of important to me. I just spent two days training people on all of the FDA's ad-promo requirements. Do I have to revise all of my materials and send out corrections to the attendees?
This announcement was part of the American Patients First blueprint, so I went to take a look at the blueprint itself. And there it is on page 11.
Listed under the heading "Immediate Actions," "FDA evaluation of requiring manufacturers to include list prices in advertising."
And then again on page 25, "HHS may" (emphasis added)
"Call on the FDA to evaluate the inclusion of list prices in direct-to-consumer advertising."
That's a far cry from FDA beginning to require companies include drug pricing in their advertising.
I'm well acquainted with 21 CFR 202.1, and I can't figure out under what provision FDA could reasonably interpret companies to have an obligation to include list prices.
Even determining what that requirement is would take some time, since there's the list price for a single dose, the price for a standard course of treatment, the annual price for people who take the treatment, etc.
So, it will indeed take some "evaluation" from FDA to determine how to require such inclusion in advertising. That might be why the FDA commissioner's statement about today's plan neglected to mention this item.
And of course, there's a separate question of whether there's a legal basis for such a requirement.
Congress certainly could pass a law to require the inclusion of this information in advertising. Fairly recently, Congress required that print advertising include the "MedWatch" statement.
Such a new requirement would probably face court challenges, as many "compelled speech" provisions have been facing court challenges.
And as part of its deliberations, Congress would, I hope clarify things such as exactly what ads this requirement applied to.
Assuming Congress figured this out, the President signed the bill, FDA promulgated the relevant regulations, and everything successfully survived court challenges, there could at some point in President Trump's third term be a new requirement for prescription ads to include pricing information.
Why, though, would anyone want this? What exactly is the mechanism by which such a requirement would lower drug pricing?
I can think of two possibilities. First, shame. Perhaps, the idea is that pharmaceutical companies would be simply too embarrassed to include the price of very expensive drugs in their ads. Based on this idea, just exposing the prices to the light of day would itself result in the prices being lowered.
I find this idea implausible. Companies already make their prices public in various ways. It isn't unusual for companies to announce pricing in investor notices or announcements of drug approvals. That publicity hasn't resulted in any lowering of costs, and I see no reason why this would change things.
The second possibility is that consumers would demand lower-cost alternatives. I guess the idea is that a consumer who sees an ad for a potential cancer treatment with a list price of $100,000 would think, "Gee, I better look for a less expensive alternative treatment."
I don't know why a consumer would think that, and I also don't know why anyone would find it desirable to have consumers do so.
Would a consumer who definitely won't be paying the full list price really respond to seeing the list price by looking for a less expensive treatment? I doubt it.
But more importantly, I don't want consumers deciding against a course of treatment based on the list price. In FDA's 2017 guidance about presenting health care economic information to payors, FDA stated that sponsors should present this information to people with the skill to understand such information and quoted the House report that the legal provision permitting such communications were "not intended to permit manufacturers to provide such health care economic information to medical practitioners."
If FDA and Congress were concerned that physicians would not understand healthcare economic information, why would anyone think that mandating the presentation of incomplete HCEI to consumers is a good idea? Because remember that list price of treatment is only one factor in determining actual cost effectiveness of treatment.
TL/DR version: This is a bad idea that would at a minimum require new regulations to become an actual requirement. It probably requires a new law to authorize it. I fully expect that this proposal will generate a ton of headlines and chatter for the next few days, and then be quietly ignored by people who actually care about controlling the cost of medications.
Update (May 27, 2018): A group of Senators sent a letter to several major pharmaceutical companies urging them to voluntarily include drug prices in their ads. It's unclear to me whether this letter makes it more or less likely that the Senate will take up and pass legislation to add this requirement to prescription medicine ads.
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