Author: Peter

Novartis AG must face a U.S. government lawsuit accusing it of paying millions of dollars in kickbacks to doctors so they would prescribe its drugs, after a federal judge ruled in a decision...that the government had offered evidence of a “company-wide kickback scheme.”...U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe in Manhattan also rejected the Swiss drugmaker’s bid to keep key government evidence out of the case, and ruled that the government does not have to prove a direct “quid pro quo” agreement between Novartis and doctors for the company to be liable...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

...the Director General of the World Health Organization sent a letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations recommending...that cannabis and associated substances be rescheduled in the international drug control framework. The changes are reported to facilitate the trade of these substances for medicinal and scientific purposes...

What does the WHO-ECDD recommend?

-Cannabidiol: add a footnote that products containing predominantly CBD and not more than 0.2% Delta-9-THC are not under international control...READ MORE

Congress legalized industrial hemp in December. With it, they also legalized hemp-derived CBD, short for cannabidiol, a cannabis compound that supposedly delivers the calming effects of marijuana without the high from THC...Last year, retail sales of CBD consumer products in the U.S. were estimated at between $600 million and $2 billion, according to investment research firm Cowen. The bank conservatively forecasts sales to reach $16 billion by 2025, with health and wellness products leading the way and food, beverage, beauty and vapor to also play a role.

- From seed to CBD - The current supply chain — from plants, to extraction, to labs — is riddled with issues...

- Wild West...READ MORE

Elite Medical Center...Since it opened...its business model has been based on providing emergency care to tourists...The federally-run Medicare program for the elderly and the state-run Medicaid program for low-income residents just isn’t lucrative and therefore isn’t part of its business model...The rest of Nevada’s hospitals use their privately insured patients to subsidize the cost of treating those covered under Medicare and Medicaid. Hospitals argue that the rates paid by government insurance programs don’t come close to the actual costs of providing care, so they must carefully balance the number of patients they take under each type of insurance in order to stay financially solvent....the other hospitals believe that Elite is siphoning off the well-insured patients at their expense and without shouldering any of the burden for treating those on Medicare or Medicaid. That’s why the state hospital association is pushing for lawmakers to pass AB232, which would require essentially all Nevada hospitals to accept Medicare and Medicaid...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.

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP...reached a $270 million settlement to resolve a lawsuit brought by the state of Oklahoma accusing the drugmaker of fueling an opioid abuse epidemic...The settlement unveiled by Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter...was the first to result from a wave of lawsuits accusing Purdue of deceptively marketing painkillers, helping create a deadly crisis sweeping the United States...Hunter alleged Purdue, Johnson & Johnson and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd engaged in deceptive marketing that downplayed the addiction risk from opioids while overstating their benefits, contributing to the epidemic...READ MORE

New York State...laid out one of the most detailed and sweeping legal cases yet against the family that owns Purdue Pharma…The lawsuit, filed by the state attorney general Letitia James, is one of the very few in a wave of opioid litigation across the country that name the Sacklers. It targets eight family members: Richard, Jonathan, Mortimer, Kathe, David, Beverly and Theresa Sackler, as well as Ilene Sackler Lefcourt...The lawsuit, filed in New York State Supreme Court...seeks to recover the state’s costs for unnecessary prescriptions and related health care expenses, along with financial penalties...The suit also seeks to claw back funds that it alleges were transferred from Purdue Pharma to private or offshore accounts held by members of the Sackler family in an effort to shield the assets from litigation; to order the Sacklers to return any transferred assets; and to restrain them from disposing of any property...READ MORE

Three vending machines in Las Vegas are now providing the opioid overdose reversal drug Narcan for free...The newest vending machine, installed March 14 at the Center for Behavioral Health...offers the drug along with clean needles, personal hygiene and first-aid kits, safe sex information and pregnancy tests...“The vending machine provides easy access that does not require a medical appointment,”...Trac-B Exchange, part of the Harm Reduction Center in Las Vegas, offers infectious disease consulting to community members. Its existing needle exchange vending machines, which also dispense Narcan, are at the Huntridge Family Clinic, 1830 E Sahara Ave., and The Center, 401 S Maryland Parkway...READ MORE

...Eli Lilly pulled the curtain back on the confidential pricing structure for one of its blockbuster drugs...disclosing for the first time what it charges wholesalers versus what many patients typically pay...The company’s list prices for its popular insulin injection Humalog, versus what most patients are charged after insurance company rebates and other discounts, highlight the disparity in prices between uninsured and insured patients. The move is also a pre-emptive one as the Trump administration and Congress pressure drugmakers for more transparency and to lower drug costs...The “net price ” patients actually pay for Eli Lilly’s insulin fell by 8.1 percent to $135 a patient per month in 2018 from $147 in 2014...The net price is the total paid after factoring in rebates and discounts. The insulin’s average list price before the discounts rose 51.9 percent to $594 per patient each month...The Trump administration earlier this year proposed a rule to end the industry-wide system of rebates, a change that Lilly and other pharmaceutical companies welcomed...READ MORE