Author: Peter

A little more than one week following its reintroduction in the Senate, provider status legislation is again being entertained in the House...the Pharmacy and Medically Underserved Areas Enhancement Act (H.R.592)...will make it easier for Medicare patients in underserved communities to receive care...The...Act would allow Medicare beneficiaries to receive basic care such as immunizations, diabetes management, blood pressure screenings and routine checks from pharmacists. The bill reached impressive levels of bipartisan support… There is currently no avenue for Medicare to directly reimburse pharmacists for providing this care...The work already is underway to build on the momentum that was started in the last Congress, to accelerate the campaign to enhance the quality, accessibility and affordability of patient care through pharmacist-provided services...Pharmacists are highly-accessible, clinically-trained medication experts who can improve health outcomes and reduce overall costs…We hope the common-sense, bicameral, bipartisan legislation, which also generated a lot of support in the previous Congress, can pass both chambers and make it to President Trump’s desk for his signature...

University, health and city officials gathered… at Las Vegas City Hall offered an in-depth review of the UNLV School of Medicine’s progress in establishing the...medical school…city officials believe the school is integral to...develop a...medical district in the central valley...The district, established in 1997 to create an area of concentrated medical activity...covers 684 acres with a core 214-acre area between Charleston Boulevard and Alta Drive, from Rancho Drive to Martin Luther King Boulevard...They have invested more than $36 million in infrastructure in four years and expect to pump in another $97 million in 2018 and beyond...The investment…is expected to pay off...By 2030, the medical school is projected to have an economic impact of $1.2 billion...the growth...provides opportunities for collaboration with local physicians and allows the homegrown medical community to grow alongside the needs of the area...

In February 2016, the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention published Chapter <800> Hazardous Drugs—Handling in Healthcare Settings, which sets standards for handling these drugs. Although those standards will not be implemented until July 1, 2018, the countdown is on— and health-system pharmacists and others who deal with hazardous drugs need to start getting ready now, if they have not started already...The standards will be enforceable by the FDA, state pharmacy boards, and the Joint Commission. This makes understanding what they entail of vital importance to pharmacists and anyone who uses these drugs...Chapter <800> applies to all health care personnel who handle hazardous drugs and all entities that store, prepare, transport, or administer these drugs, with no exceptions based on size or type of facility or on the amount of drugs used...

Patients in the U.K. face yet another barrier to access as a tough budget situation has forced the country’s healthcare system to consider rationing costly drugs...Beginning in April, cancer patients and others could have to line up for medicines that cost NHS England more than £20 million per year...That’s even after those meds have been deemed cost-effective by the National Institute for Care and Excellence...The country’s pharmaceutical association, ABPI (Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry) pointed out some medicines that could see rationing…The agency (NHS) determined that, based on NICE appraisals between April 2015 and July 2016, 81% of medicines would fall under the £20 million a year “budget impact threshold” for a total spend of £125 million. The 19% of drugs above the threshold had a budget impact of nearly £400 million...This is about introducing cost effective, but expensive treatments onto the NHS in a way that does not compromise its ability to fund other areas of work...

The United States and other countries will continue to spend more on specialty medications, and less will be spent on brand-name drugs...spending on drugs in the U.S. will grow at a much slower rate, according to the Quintiles IMS Institute report, "Outlook for Global Medicines Through 2021: Balancing Cost and Value."...

1. THE GROWTH RATE for U.S. spending on medicines will decline by half, from 12% in 2015 to between 6% and 7% in 2017. Plus, prescription drug spending is forecast to grow between 6% and 9% through 2021…
2. U.S. BRAND DRUG PRICES will increase at a slower rate, due both to competition from generics and Congressional backlash over soaring brand prices...Brand prices will increase at 8% to 11% — more slowly than the 12% to 15% in the past three years….
3. SPECIALTY MEDICINES will lift the share of global heathcare spending from 30% in 2016 to 35% in 2021, driven by the adoption of new breakthrough medicines...
4. PATIENT OUT-OF-POCKET COSTS are forecast to decline, despite rising brand prescription costs, as patients shift to newly available generics and receive co-pay assistance for brands…
5. SEVERAL NEW THERAPIES are moving through the registration process around the world and are expected to come to market soon. In the anti-infectives and antivirals category, new treatments for HIV, bacterial disease, anthrax, hepatitis C, and malaria will be launched...

The mental health system in Nevada has long been a lightning rod for criticism, with the Silver State consistently ranking at or near the bottom of most national rankings...But state legislators and health officials say a trio of bills now being drafted would make some small improvements by streamlining licensing of mental health professionals, updating the state’s definition of “mental illness” and making it easier to share information on individuals who have been deemed mentally ill with law enforcement...(Assemblyman James Oscarson)...proposed transferring “responsibility for regulating certain mental health-related professions to the State Board of Health...Another bill...would allow the state criminal record repository to more easily share information with local law enforcement officers. The idea is to help them identify an individual who has been “adjudicated as mentally ill or has been committed to any mental health facility” and is therefore barred from possessing firearms...A third proposal...aims to update the definition of “mental illness” in Nevada statutes...The bill would bring the state into line with the definitions in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders….

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

...Dr. Henri Wetselaar...his medical assistant (David Litwin) and a pharmacist (Jason Smith)...are accused of funneling large quantities of pills onto the streets of Las Vegas through an illegal prescription drug ring...the trial...has provided a window into the scope of the federal government’s crackdown on prescription drug abuse in Southern Nevada...One of the government’s star witnesses is a drug dealer who testified this week about an arrangement she had with Wetselaar and Litwin, who saw clients out of her home twice a week. Carolyn Allen said she would refer clients to Wetselaar, instruct them to complain about back pain, and provide them with the cash to pay for the prescription. Clients would return to her with the prescriptions...she would take the prescriptions to Lam’s Pharmacy, where Smith was the manager. She said Lam’s Pharmacy maintained an entire book dedicated only to her clients. Allen said her clients were prescribed — among other drugs — oxycodone, hydrocodone, Soma and Xanax.

Merck & Co said it agreed to enter into a settlement and license agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co and Ono Pharmaceutical Co Ltd to resolve all global patent-infringement litigation related to its cancer drug, Keytruda...Merck will make an initial payment of $625 million to Bristol and Japan's Ono. The company will also pay a 6.5 percent royalty rate on Keytruda sales from January 2017 to December 2023, and a 2.5 percent rate for the subsequent three years...Bristol will get 75 percent of the royalties and Ono will get the rest.

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