Author: Peter

Nicole Grassano, PTNN, Pharmacy Week in Review, this weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

As Purdue restructures its business in hopes of signing a multibillion-dollar opioid settlement...Thousands of local and state plaintiffs are fighting Purdue’s attempt to halt litigation as it undergoes a court-supervised restructuring...As part of that deal...the Sacklers agreed to pay $3 billion of their own money while Purdue will reorganize as a public benefit trust...While the Sacklers’ rumored haul from Purdue and its bestselling opioid OxyContin over the years has varied...a restructuring consultant for Purdue, said the family transferred between $12 billion and $13 billion from the company...READ MORE

...Civica Rx has delivered on its promise to supply hospitals with generic medications...Intermountain Health and other nonprofit systems joined forces in hopes of providing more predictable pricing and access to drugs...The company pledges that every hospital, regardless of size, will have the same access to products, and says it will only set one market price. Larger systems will not receive discounts on larger volume purchases and every hospital will have the same contracting terms...READ MORE

Nicole Grassano, PTNN, Pharmacy Week in Review, this weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill...that will make HIV-prevention drugs available without a prescription. It allows pharmacists to dispense both PrEP, or preexposure prophylaxis, and PEP, post-exposure prophylaxis...The legislation also prohibits insurance companies from requiring patients to obtain prior authorization before using their benefits to obtaining the medications...The law requires pharmacists to provide instruction on using the prophylaxis, as well as its possible side effects...READ MORE

Pharmaceutical companies often preach value. Yet, for seven top-selling drugs, prices went up in 2017 and 2018 despite limited new evidence showing patients receiving treatment experienced greater benefit, according to a new report...Taken together, the price hikes added more than $5 billion to U.S. spending on those drugs over the two-year period, a study published...by the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) said...The finding is the latest challenge from a group known for criticizing the drug industry's approach to pricing, and is likely to stir debate at a time when Congress is considering legislation to curb rising drug costs...READ MORE

A CVS Health Corp health plan that uses an outside drug pricing group to help it decide whether to cover certain new medicines has gained little traction with customers...has drawn fierce criticism from patient advocacy groups...The plan, launched a year ago, is based on analyses by the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, a Boston-based group that assesses effectiveness of drugs to determine appropriate prices...Using ICER’s cost effectiveness assessment, CVS decides whether to include second or third medicines entering the market if there are already similar ones in the plan...Opposition to the CVS plan is part of much broader concerns cited by drug companies and advocacy groups, many of which receive funding from the pharmaceutical industry...More than 50 groups, including drugmakers, PhRMA, the industry’s main lobby group, and other advocacy groups, have provided comment during a public input period included in a review by ICER of its assessment methods. Many asked ICER to eliminate price recommendations from its efficacy analyses...READ MORE

If Elko is one of the best places in frontier Nevada to have a medical emergency, Tonopah is one of the worst. The only hospital in the tiny town of 2,400 closed its doors four years ago, leaving the nearest emergency medical care an hour and a half drive away in Hawthorne or two hours away across the California border in Bishop...READ MORE

When generic challengers come for a branded med’s patent, drugmakers have in the past chosen to pony up and stall their rivals with an anticompetitive pact better known as “pay for delay.” In an effort to keep drug prices down, California is looking to end the practice...a new bill...will make California the first state to ban pay-for-delay deals in pharma...AB 824, will make it unlawful for companies to exchange anything of value in return for a halt to patent challenges from generic drugmakers. That new measure could open the door to a range of civil suits against companies seeking to keep generic competitors off the market...READ MORE

Laura Joszt, Managing Editor at The American Journal of Managed Care. Welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network