Patient Cost Sharing and Receipt of Erythropoiesis-Stimulating Agents Through Medicare Part D

Private provision of social insurance: drug-specific price elasticities and cost sharing in Medicare Part D

We explore how private drug plans set cost-sharing in the context of Medicare Part D. While publicly-provided drug coverage typically involves uniform cost-sharing across drugs, we document substantial heterogeneity in the cost-sharing for different drugs within privately-provided plans. We also document that private plans systematically set higher consumer cost sharing for drugs or classes ass...

Pharmacovigilance in practice: erythropoiesis-stimulating agents

Pharmacovigilance (PV) is the science and activities relating to the detection, assessment, understanding, and prevention of adverse effects or other problems related to medical products after they have been licensed for marketing. The purpose of PV is to advance the safe use of marketed medical products. Regulatory agencies and license holders collaborate to collect data reported by health car...

Erythropoiesis stimulating agents: a personal journey.

I write this editorial in deference to the many experts who devote their careers to this important field. In this editorial, I simply report the journeyman route of a medical oncologist who is desperately trying to improve the outcomes of women suffering from breast cancer. At the end of the 1990s, there was much hope that erythropoie-sis stimulating agents (ESAs) would improve the survival of ...

Erythropoiesis stimulating agents: approaches to modulate activity

Recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEPO), such as the approved agents epoetin alfa and epoetin beta, has been used successfully for over 20 years to treat anemia in millions of patients. However, due to the relatively short half-life of the molecule (approximately 8 hours), frequent dosing may be required to achieve required hemoglobin levels. Therefore, a need was identified in some anemic pa...

Erythropoiesis-stimulating agents: friends or foes?