Pharma companies may not like their products being the subject of ICER reports, but they can provide a jumping-off point for manufacturers to expand the conversation of the value of new medicines in the rare disease area.

This annual compilation reviews new developments, trends and outlooks in areas such as biotechnology, biosimilars, biopharmaceuticals, biologics, biomarkers and biosimulation.

HHS announced its new price transparency rules for direct-to-consumer TV ads. Now the industry has to sort out what to do about them.

This is the Age of Big Data – and also the Age of Data Vulnerability. How we as a society square these two realities will be important to all of us as citizens, consumers, and health communications professionals.

The marketplace is changing. It has become cliché to say it. In fact, for years the healthcare market access space has been under pressure to evolve, grow, and reinvent itself – all while digging in its heels and clinging to a vanishing status quo.

Access to treatments for rare diseases depends on a delicate balance of a price that allows for the development of innovative therapies while also being considered “affordable.” A low price for a manufacturer’s therapy would discourage potential developers from focusing their future efforts on new therapies because of a limited return on investments. At the opposite end of the spectrum are barriers to access based on a price that is considered cost prohibitive; utilization is limited in an effort to control costs. The balance between these 2 opposing access decision-making contingencies will determine the degree to which patients with rare diseases will receive the treatments they need.

In healthcare, we are fortunate to have access to code that analyzes data and provides us with customer insights. As marketers, we can now understand these individual customers better than ever before. We know what we need and want to do when it comes to reaching them. But what does all that power and possibility do for them?

The healthcare industry is ever evolving and today’s patients are far more engaged than the previous era of “doctor knows best.” Increasingly, not only are patients involved in managing their day-to-day health, they and their fellow patients, caregivers, and advocates are driving the progress of drug treatments from discovery to delivery as well.

Consolidation has dominated healthcare news over the past few years. Mergers between hospitals, payers, clinics, and other healthcare organizations are turning an ecosystem of individual stakeholders into one dominated by a few giants.

Working in the rare disease space has never been more rewarding than it is today. Technology is turning what was once thought to be impossible into actual, tangible realities for physicians, patients, and families. There are many exciting advancements happening now – in real time – and even more on the horizon that demand our attention and advocacy to help bring them to light.