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Background Insulin is the primary treatment for type 1 and some type 2 diabetes but remains costly in the United States, even though it was discovered more than a century ago. High prices can lead to nonadherence and are often sustained by patents and regulatory exclusivities that limit competition on brand-name products. We sought to examine how manufacturers have used patents and regulatory exclusivities on insulin products approved from 1986 to 2019 to extend periods of market exclusivity. Methods and findings We used the publicly available Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations (Orange Book) to identify all approved biosynthetic insulin products. Individual products approved under the same New Drug Application (NDA)-e.g., a vial and pen-were considered as separate products for the purposes of analysis. We recorded all patents and regulatory exclusivities listed in the Orange Book on each product and used Google Patents to extract the timing of patent application and whether patents were obtained on delivery devices or others aspects of the product. The primary outcome was the duration of expected protection, which was determined by subtracting the FDA approval date for each product from its last-to-expire patent or regulatory exclusivity (whichever occurred later). We performed a secondary analysis that considered overall protection on insulin lines-defined as groups of products approved under the same NDA with the same active ingredients manufactured by the same company. We also examined competition from follow-on insulin products-defined as products approved with the same active ingredients as originators but manufactured by different companies (approved via a specific drug approval pathway under section 505(b)(2) of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act). During the study period, the FDA approved 56 individual products across 25 different insulin lines and 5 follow-ons across 3 different insulin lines. Thirty-three (59%) of the 56 products were drug-device combinations. Manufacturers of 9 products approved during the study period obtained patents filed after FDA approval that extended their duration of expected protection (by a median of 6 years). Approximately 63% of all patents on drug-device combinations approved during the study period were related to delivery devices. The median duration of expected protection on insulin products was 16.0 years, and the median protection on insulin lines was 17.6 years. An important limitation of our analysis is that manufacturers may continue to add patents on existing insulin products while competitors may challenge patents; therefore, periods of protection may change over time. Conclusions Among several strategies that insulin manufacturers have employed to extend periods of market exclusivity on brand-name insulin products are filing patents after FDA approval and obtaining a large number of patents on delivery devices. Policy reforms are needed to promote timely competition in the pharmaceutical market and ensure that patients have access to low-cost drugs., Author(s): Anders Olsen 1,2, Reed F. Beall 1,3, Ryan P. Knox 1,4, Sean S. Tu 5, Aaron S. Kesselheim 1, William B. Feldman 1,6,* Introduction Insulin remains a central treatment [...]

The article discusses a 2024 study on the attitudes of patients 65 years and older on the use of routine clinical data in making treatment decisions. Results show participants' interest in such data and in how drugs work for them, and their concerns on confounders like populations' similarity of conditions with them, and on common minor side effects. Also noted are participants' common view that their physicians determine the evidence's applicability to them, and recommend a medication.

Building trust in public health agencies like the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has become a key government priority. Understanding the roots of FDA mistrust is important if the agency is to develop targeted messaging and reforms aimed at building confidence in the agency. We conducted a survey of 2,021 respondents in the US probing attitudes toward the FDA. The primary outcome was FDA trust, defined as the mean score that each respondent assigned to the FDA across four prespecified axes: (1) competence and effectiveness; (2) commitment to acting in the best interests of the American public; (3) abiding by the rules and regulations set forth by policy or law; and (4) expertise in health, science, and medicine. On multivariable ordinal logistic regression, FDA mistrust was associated with female gender (odds ratio [OR] = 0.74, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.62–0.88), rural community (OR 0.85, 95% CI 0.75–0.96), conservative political views (OR 0.77, 95% CI 0.74–0.81), worse self‐reported health (OR 0.89, 95% CI 0.80–0.98), lower satisfaction with health care received (OR 0.63, 95% CI 0.56–0.71), less attention to health and science news (OR 0.72, 95% CI 0.64–0.80), and not having children under the age of 18 (OR 0.72, 95% CI 0.60–0.86). These findings underscore the challenges faced by US political leaders in convincing a heterogeneous American public to trust the FDA. The FDA should develop and deploy targeted outreach strategies to populations with lower levels of trust and strengthen internal processes that minimize biases and ensure sound decision‐making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Author(s): Beatrice L. Brown, Aaron S. Kesselheim, Ameet Sarpatwari * Key points Teratogenicity is a common reason for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to apply risk evaluation and [...]