Tag: Oncology

Operational efficiencies of using one vs multiple bispecific antibodies for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and follicular lymphoma in the US

Jason Shafrin

That is the title of a new paper published in Future Oncology with co-authors Tara Graff,Savreet Bains Chawla,Monika Jun,Nicole Heaps,Abualbishr Alshreef,David Tybor,Donald C. Moore,Nadine Zawadzki, and Kathryn Spurrier. The abstract is below: Aim To quantify the time- and cost-savings to US oncology practices from using a single bispecific antibody (bsAb) for both relapsed/refractory (R/R) diffuse…

Payers and targeted therapy in oncology

Jason Shafrin

I was quoted in a recent article in Pharmaceutical Technology titled “Targeted therapies to join chemo as oncology treatment backbone“. An excerpt is below: Though payers could theoretically prioritise chemotherapy over the use of targeted treatments due to their lower price, Jason Shafrin, senior managing director of FTI’s Center for Healthcare Economics and Policy, notes…

Chronic myeloid leukemia treatment intolerance imposes additional resource and economic burden on oncology practices in the United States

Jason Shafrin

That is the title of a new paper out last week in Future Oncology with co-authors Kejal Jadhav, Cheryl Warren, Sabiha Quddus, Nadine Zawadzki, Daisy Yang, Andrea Damon, Kathryn Spurrier, Katharine Batt and David Wei. The abstract is below. ObjectiveTyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have transformed the prognosis of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) into a manageable…

What is ‘Bayesian Hierarchical Modelling’ and how can it be used to evaluate oncology treatments studied in basket trials?

Jason Shafrin

Should payers cover a new oncology treatment targeting specific biomarkers across multiple tumor types? One the one hand, one could require a separate trial for each tumor type. While this would be convincing evidence, it also is very expensive to conduct clinical trials for every tumor type, particularly if treatment efficacy is homogenous across tumor…

Single Arm Trials for FDA Drug Approvals in Oncology

Jason Shafrin

These are becoming increasingly common. Agrawal et al. (2022) use data between 2002-2021, and found that FDA approved: …176 new malignant hematology and oncology indications based on single-arm trials, including 116 accelerated approvals (AAs) and 60 traditional approvals. Overall, 87 approvals (49%) were for new molecular entities or original biologics and 89 (51%) were supplemental…

Part B drug reimbursement

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In the past Medicare has reimbursed physicians that administer Part B drugs–typically injectable medications administered in a physician’s office–at 6% of the drug’s cost.  The 6% aims to cover the cost of purchasing and storing the drug as well as administering it.  Because physician reimbursement is proportional to the cost of the drug, physicians have…