Jascayd is approved! So when can we start taking the IPF treatment?

For the first time in more than 10 years, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) care teams and patients will have a new treatment option following the Oct. 7 approval of Jascayd (nerandomilast) by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

When I was diagnosed with IPF in January 2017, the only anti-fibrotic medications available to treat IPF were Esbriet (pirfenidone) and Ofev (nintedanib), and both had only been approved in October 2014. In consultation with my care team, I elected to take Esbriet as its side effects were more compatible with my lifestyle. I took it daily from February 2017 until July 9, 2021, the day before my bilateral lung transplant.

The excitement about Jascayd’s approval is still palpable, but questions about the drug’s availability have begun to emerge, the most common one being, “When can the IPF community expect Jascayd to become available?”

The best answer seems to be that it depends.

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Making Jascayd available to IPF patients

Individual pharmacy and therapeutics (P&T) committees will help determine when Jascayd will be added to hospital and health system formularies. Any new drug requires a P&T committee for it to be added to a formulary. These committees function as the standard for adding or removing a drug from a formulary, and make “evidence-based decisions that support the goal of providing optimal patient care while minimizing risks and costs to both the system and the patient,” according to the Cleveland Clinic. Formularies can vary from organization to organization or even within the same company, if it offers different plans.

Private insurance also utilizes P&T committees. For instance, Aetna utilizes an external advisory P&T committee to establish its formulary. While a private insurance plan may elect not to update its formulary until its next plan year, Medicare conducts rolling reviews to update its formulary throughout the year.

The consensus appears to be that a new drug should be added to a formulary within 90 days, but that timeline isn’t set in stone. This new drug won’t appear on all formularies at the same time, especially under private insurance plans, but the patient community will begin sharing information as soon as one of us is prescribed Jascayd.

What questions do you have about the new IPF treatment? I want to help find those answers. When I am at the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation Summit in November, I hope to pose some of those questions to the Boehringer Ingelheim team, which developed Jascayd. Helping the IPF community get the information they need is how I can make every breath count.

Note: Pulmonary Fibrosis News is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The opinions expressed in this column are not those of Pulmonary Fibrosis News or its parent company, Bionews, and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to pulmonary fibrosis.