Author: Peter

Amazon is running into challenges in its drug distribution push...Amazon's potential leap into pharmaceuticals has weighed on drug distributors and pharmacies for months, but those companies are getting relief from news that the online retail giant has put at least one of its plans on ice...a unit that sells bulk products to companies—hasn't been able to convince hospitals to get on board with its plan. One reason: The company doesn't have a proper cold-chain logistics network, which is crucial to distributing many drugs...Amazon has now backed away from the effort, the publication reported...The company is pressing ahead with other healthcare projects, though it's unknown whether they involve pharmaceutical sales...

Two medical associations have announced a collaborative value-based payment model for opioid addiction treatment...The payment model, announced by the American Society of Addiction Medicine and the American Medical Association, is aimed at improving care coordination and lowering healthcare spending by reducing costly emergency department visits and hospitalizations...The model increases utilization of and access to medications for opioid treatment, combining them with the appropriate level of medical, psychological and social support services which can be delivered at multiple providers…The model is for outpatient care only...a basic version of the model is already in operation with Optum…the groups have discussed the model with officials at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, as well as its innovation center, which is responsible for new demonstration programs.

Reno Behavioral Healthcare Hospital has officially opened its doors to patients. The behavioral healthcare hospital is the first facility of its kind to be built from the ground up in our community in more than 35 years...The 80,000-square-foot facility is at 6940 Sierra Center Parkway near Target in the Meadowood area of south Reno...The hospital offers 124 beds, and inpatient and outpatient programs for psychiatric and addiction treatment for patients of all ages...represents a new day for mental health and addiction services. Our goal is to raise the standard of care and give people another option for their treatment that has been lacking for many years...

CVS Health is introducing a system to provide customers with greater insight into drug costs and less expensive alternatives. The plan will first be available to those using CVS' pharmacy benefit manager Caremark. Consumers are often frustrated by the difficulty of comparing the cost of treatments...CVS Health wants to make it easier for its pharmacists to find less costly drugs for patients...The drugstore chain is introducing a system that will check for less expensive alternatives, higher quantities at lower costs and discounts. CVS hopes it can help lower costs for its customers and in doing so, make sure they pick up their prescriptions...We want to be known as the retail pharmacy that does the most to help save patients money...The power of this tool, the RX Savings Finder, is we have access to the information that we need to be able to provide options to our customers to save them money...

A European decision to exclude Britain from the EU’s drug approval system from March 30 2019 - the day after Brexit - has raised alarm among drugmakers, who fear the abrupt change could disrupt medicine supplies to patients...The move confounds hopes for continued joint cooperation via the European Medicines Agency, at least during a transition or implementation period until the end of 2020 when the UK will remain closely tied to the European Union...the EMA has appointed experts from other European countries to take over work currently undertaken by Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority from next March...Since the MHRA assesses around a fifth of EU medicines, drug industry leaders fear this sudden handover will cause disruption...The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry said it was clearly in the EMA’s interest to continue to draw on the expertise of the MHRA and it urged London and Brussels to come to an early agreement...

A federal appeals court...declared unconstitutional a 2017 Maryland law that lets the state attorney general sue generic drugmakers who sharply raise prices on medications...The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the main trade group for generic pharmaceutical companies in holding that the law violated the U.S. Constitution by regulating the price of transactions that occur outside of Maryland...the law violated the Constitution’s bar against states interfering with interstate commerce, by targeting wholesale rather than retail pricing in transactions that occur largely outside of Maryland...

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 Drug Enforcement Agency has reached an agreement with 50 attorneys general to share prescription drug data with one another to support ongoing investigations...from its Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System, which collects 80 million prescription drug transactions from manufacturers and distributors each year...Attorney General Jeff Sessions...said the data-sharing pact will “make both the DEA and our state partners more effective at finding evidence of crime.”...Exactly how that data sharing agreement would operate remains fuzzy...

An online pharmacy that bills itself as Canada's largest was fined $34 million...for importing counterfeit cancer drugs and other unapproved pharmaceuticals into the United States...U.S. prosecutors say Canada Drugs' business model is based entirely on illegally importing unapproved and misbranded drugs not just from Canada, but from all over the world. The company has made at least $78 million through illegal imports, including two that were counterfeit versions of the cancer drugs Avastin and Altuzan that had no active ingredient, prosecutors said...judge...approved federal prosecutors' recommended sentences that include $29 million forfeited, $5 million in fines and five years' probation for Canada Drugs...also sentenced Thorkelson (founder, Kris Thorkelson) to six months' house arrest, five years' probation and a $250,000 fine...

Nicole Crisano, PTNN. This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.