Author: Peter

The econowonks at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently released the latest projections for U.S. spending on healthcare. These data provide our first official look at post-pandemic U.S. healthcare spending...As you will see below, outpatient prescription drugs dispensed by retail and mail pharmacies are projected to remain a small share (8.4%) of total U.S. healthcare spending. What’s more, taxpayers—via Medicare and Medicaid—will continue to crowd out the private insurance market. One bright spot: consumers will account for an ever-smaller share of drug spending...READ MORE

The specter of particulates has forced another recall—this time on Moderna’s massively successful COVID-19 vaccine Spikevax—and the latest pull isn’t contract manufacturer Rovi’s first brush with contamination, either...Moderna...said it was recalling one Spikevax lot in Europe...The batch contains 764,900 doses made by CDMO Rovi that were deployed across Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden between Jan. 13 and Jan. 14. Moderna yanked the shots because of a “foreign body” found in one vial of the batch made at Rovi’s site in Spain...READ MORE

Attorney General Aaron Ford joined representatives from the state health department and several local governments...to announce that Nevada will soon receive its first installment of money from a pair of major opioid settlements and to highlight the urgency of using those dollars to address the opioid crisis...the state will receive $50 million from two settlements announced by the attorney general’s office earlier this year. The settlements include one with opioid manufacturer Johnson & Johnson that will bring Nevada $53.5 million and another with three of the nation’s largest drug distributors — AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson — that will bring the state $231.7 million. Those funds add to the $45 million the state won last year through a settlement with consulting firm McKinsey & Company...READ MORE

West Virginia's attorney general on Monday urged a judge to hold Johnson & Johnson , Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd, and AbbVie Inc's, Allergan liable for causing a "tsunami" of opioid addiction in the state...The addiction crisis has affected the state's police forces, hospitals, foster care system and jails, with effects that will linger for more than a generation, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said..."This epidemic has impacted virtually all of West Virginia," Morrisey said. "Our lawsuit speaks for all West Virginians who have suffered due to the defendants' unlawful, callous and destructive conduct."...READ MORE

San Francisco's district attorney's office...announced the conviction and sentencing in a high-profile Walgreens theft from last May...Jean Lugo Romero, who pled guilty to felony grand theft and misdemeanor petty theft, was sentenced to 16 months in prison and one-year probation, according to District Attorney Chesa Boudin's office...The brazen incident was caught on video and became an early flash point in examples of viral videos touting crime running rampant in the city. Lugo Romero is seen grabbing items off the shelf from a now-permanently-closed Hayes Valley Walgreens store, placing them into a garbage bag and then riding a bicycle through the store, past an employee and a security guard, to make an escape through the front door...These types of videos have been used as ammunition against Boudin, who critics say is too lenient on crime. Boudin faces a recall election this summer. A recent poll suggests that recall effort has strong support...READ MORE

The leading U.S. drug enforcement agency issued an unprecedented warning to law enforcement nationwide to brace for a spike in “fentanyl-related mass-overdose” deaths as Mexican cartels push the drug into the United States...The Drug Enforcement Administration sent a letter to federal, state, and local law enforcement departments nationwide...alerting officials they should prepare not only for deaths caused by fentanyl to rise but also for mass-casualty events in which a group of people dies as a result of knowingly or unknowingly overdosing...READ MORE

With several efforts to resurrect American drug manufacturing already underway, congressional members on both sides of the aisle are setting their sights on one of the nation’s chief economic rivals...The Senate has signed off on innovation and competition legislation designed to boost American competitiveness, restore the country’s manufacturing base and curb its reliance on China for critical supplies—especially drugs and medical devices...The bill encourages the U.S., the EU and other European countries to work together on “joint strategies to diversify reliance on supply chains away from the People’s Republic of China,” and “especially” so in the medical and pharmaceutical fields...READ MORE

Drugmakers...pledged to speed up the market launch of new drugs in underserved EU member states in a bid to avert stricter regulation by Brussels..European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations said in a statement...its members pledge to file for reimbursement by national health systems no later than two years after EU regulatory approval, "provided that local systems allow it"...The pledge would reduce the time patients wait for new medicines by four to five months in several countries...The lobby group warned that any new rules forcing drugmakers to bring new products to all EU countries within a certain deadline could backfire and discourage companies from bringing some products to public health systems in the region altogether...READ MORE

Most of the defendants in Florida’s lawsuit over the opioid epidemic have settled for more than $870 million, according to the state attorney general. One remains: Walgreens Co. is not giving up...A jury has been seated in Pasco County, Florida, just north of Tampa, to hear the state’s case against Walgreens, a huge drug store chain with more than 9,000 outlets on streetcorners throughout the country. Opening statements are set for early next week...The Deerfield, Illinois-based company says it will not settle...“We are prepared for trial,” said Walgreens spokesman Fraser Engerman in an email...READ MORE

In December, a ransomware attack struck Ultimate Kronos Group, a vendor that Pfizer uses to track work time and pay out hourly staffers...Employees were under- and overpaid as a result...Now, the drug behemoth is repaying those who were shortchanged—but it’s also asking overpaid staffers to return their surplus cash...Pfizer isn’t the only corporation dealing with the fallout of last year’s cyberattack. Tesla and PepsiCo have filed a class-action lawsuit that contends Ultimate Kronos Group owes damages because it was negligent in guarding against an attack...READ MORE