Author: Peter

A prominent organization of defense lawyers in Las Vegas this week formed a committee to explore ways of challenging local law enforcement’s methods for gaining drug convictions...The committee, set up by the Nevada Attorneys for Criminal Justice, will look at the use of what are known as chemical field tests, inexpensive kits used by police and prosecutors to make drug arrests and gain guilty pleas. Officers typically drop suspicious materials into a chemical pouch and look for telltale shifts in color ostensibly meant to indicate the possible presence of illegal drugs. The tests are often the only evidence used to win convictions...The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department crime lab had submitted a formal report detailing the shortcomings of the tests to federal authorities in 2014, and yet to this day the lab still endorses the use of the tests in criminal prosecutions...

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

Though the vast majority of specialty physicians know what biosimilars are, their knowledge about these emerging medications falls short, according to a survey by the Biosimilars Forum...Of 1,201 U.S. physicians polled, 76.8% had heard the term biosimilars within the previous month...Yet respondents exhibited five key gaps in knowledge: defining biologics, biosimilars and biosimilarity; understanding the biosimilar approval process and the Food and Drug Administration’s use of totality of evidence to assess biosimilars; appreciation that biosimilars’ safety profile is expected to be the same as that of the originator biologic; understanding how the FDA makes decisions for extrapolation of indications; and defining interchangeability and the related rules regarding pharmacy-level substitution...With four biosimilars approved by the FDA and more than 60 in development, the survey highlights the need for greater biosimilars education for physicians and health care professionals...

Experts from across the valley have taken a hard look at both the city and state’s mental health care situation, and most agreed that, in order to fix things, it will take time, new professionals and lots of money...Nevada has the fewest clinicians of any state — that’s providers who can sit with you and know what to do. In Nevada, only one in three adults that has mental illness will be able to get help. Only one in two children who have severe mental illness can get any help. There’s not enough of us to go around....the shortage of professionals is the root of many of the problems...part of that is infighting between various designations of health care professionals, which ultimately leads to state licensing complications...We don’t have enough professionals, and when professionals try to move here from out of state, we don’t certify them so they can get to work...positive sign that the Nevada Legislature is discussing collapsing all of the licensing boards — for anything to do with behavioral health — into one entity...our system is so poor that most professionals are celebrating this. We believe it will streamline the system, provide resources and bring professionals into the field...

Justin Gallagher, associate publisher of The American Journal of Managed Care. Welcome to This Week in Managed Care, From the Managed Markets News Network.

Drugmakers currently use the European Medicines Agency as a one-stop-shop to get drugs licensed across Europe, but Britain is likely to drop out of that system if it severs EU ties and leaves the single market in a scenario dubbed "hard Brexit"...An approach to leaving the EU which saw ideological considerations placed above securing the right relationship for the economy and for UK patients would see the UK life sciences sector relegated to a second-tier player...Being cut off from the European system could put British patients at the back of the queue for new medicines because applications for new licenses from Europe...warning comes amid growing concern that Britain's successful pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector could be hit hard...In addition to worries about trade barriers and drug regulation once Britain leaves the EU, industry executives are concerned about their ability to recruit foreign staff and loss of EU science funding...

A long-running debate in Nevada’s medical community is heating up, with doctors challenging a new regulation that would enable dental hygienists to administer Botox to patients for either medical or cosmetic reasons...The State Board of Dental Examiners...last month approved rules that would extend the privilege to licensed dental hygienists...But the Nevada State Medical Association, which represents the state’s practicing physicians, is pushing back. It says use of the toxin should not be extended to dental hygienists, who can be licensed after as little as two years of study at an accredited college, and that dentists should be restricted to applying it to certain areas of the head...Dentists...have called the dispute a "turf war," arguing that physicians are attempting to protect a lucrative and increasingly common medical procedure.

Hefty drug price increases have been an outrage-provoking subject for politicians, the public and pharmacy benefits managers all year long. But another group besides drugmakers has been benefiting from them: dealmakers...Private companies have been taking advantage of climbing prices by buying older drugs on the cheap, hiking their stickers, and reselling them…drug flippers aren’t the only price-hike offenders. Plenty of drugmakers have notched sizable increases on meds that haven’t changed hands at all, and one need only look at key Mylan blockbuster EpiPen...they’re taking advantage of a dysfunctional market...A lot of jacked-up drugs still do fly under the radar...while drug flippers may not be the only group contributing to skyrocketing drug costs, “the bottom line is it all adds up,”...

Bartell Drugs is making sure that visually impaired customers are able to understand their prescription information. The...drug chain...has started offering three solutions for people with visual impairment who can’t read the print on their prescription drug container labels. Based on their need, these patients can now receive ScripTalk audible labels, ScripView large-print labels or Braille labels...It’s extremely important that patients know and understand the instructions for their medications. This can be challenging for our patients with visual impairments…

ScripTalk features a label embedded with a microchip containing all the printed prescription label data. The patient places the container onto a handheld reader and presses a button to listen to the prescription information, including patient name, drug name and medication instructions, as well as pharmacy contact information, contraindications and more.

ScripView is a large-print, booklet-style label attached to the prescription container that enables patients with low vision to read prescription information more easily. The label contains all the same information as the pharmacy’s regular label but in large print. Pharmacist can edit the font size based on the need of the patient.

Braille label tape can be added to a prescription with basic medication information...

Most of Nevada’s hospitals are struggling to make the grade when it comes to patient safety, according to a new report by a national health-care watchdog that placed the state near the bottom of its rankings...The hospital safety grades report, compiled twice annually by nonprofit The Leapfrog Group, ranked Nevada 43rd out of 49 states and Washington, D.C., in terms of the percentage of hospitals earning A grades under its 30-component ranking system...three of Nevada’s 20 ranked hospitals received A’s for patient safety — all of them in Northern Nevada. Four received B’s, and 13 received C’s. No Nevada hospitals received a D or F...In Southern Nevada, three hospitals received B’s and 10 were awarded C’s. The results, released late Sunday, were an improvement for Nevada from Leapfrog’s last report this spring, when only one of 19 ranked hospitals — Renown South Meadows Medical Center in Reno — earned an A and Nevada ranked 46th overall...