Author: Peter

Prescription drug distributor McKesson Corporation is the target of a complaint alleging it fueled West Virginia's prescription drug addiction problem by "failing to identify, detect, report and help stop the flood of suspicious drug orders into the state," Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said…the...complaint…alleges McKesson flooded West Virginia with highly addictive prescription medications, delivering roughly 99.5 million doses of hydrocodone and oxycodone…McKesson…"made no efforts to determine whether the volume of prescription pain killers it was shipping ...was excessive and whether any of the orders it filled qualified as suspicious orders, which should have been refused."…Sales agents and managers received commissions and bonuses based on sales numbers, and made "little to no effort to visit pharmacies" to ensure shipments weren't being diverted to illegal use…"In the near future, the office will seek to join this case with the ongoing matter in Boone County involving 12 other drug wholesaler defendants," he said in a prepared statement…in order to coordinate the Amerisource and McKesson cases and to ensure adequate resources are available to prosecute the McKesson case, the state has awarded an outside counsel appointment...Morrisey also announced Jan. 8 he will be handing off the management of both the Amerisource and McKesson cases to...Anthony Martin and...Vaughn Sizemore and will voluntarily step aside, going further than the rules require. Morrisey has had ties to Cardinal Health, one of the nation's largest drug distributors.

Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. beat analysts’ earnings estimates of fiscal first-quarter earnings estimates, as strong prescription drug trends made up for a retail slump that continues to affect the company...Walgreens drew in shoppers with a better experience and more high-end products after renovating its stores. In the U.S., the drugstore chain’s biggest market, same-store retail shrank fell 0.6 percent in the quarter ended Nov. 30 compared with a year before, Walgreens said in a statement Thursday. It’s a lackluster figure that hasn’t kept up with gains in the prescription drug dispensing business.

• drugstore sales were $20.4 billion, up 4.2 percent from a year ago.
• same-store sales rose 5.8 percent, with pharmacy sales gaining 9.3 percent and retail declining 0.6 percent, Walgreens said, “primarily due to a reduction in unprofitable promotions and the transitioning of seasonal items away from holiday decorations and toward higher quality, giftable items.”
• pharmacies filled 231 million prescriptions in the quarter, up 4.1 percent from a year ago.
• Total sales were $29 billion, up 48 percent, thanks to the merger of Walgreen Co. and Alliance Boots GmbH in Dec. 2014.
• The company raised the low end of its earnings guidance for fiscal year 2016 by 5 cents, to $4.30 to $4.55 per adjusted share.

“Any kind of vertical integration is good,” though Walgreens is focused on digesting its current acquisitions...In October, the company agreed to acquire Rite Aid Corp. for about $9.4 billion and expects the deal to close in the second half of 2016.

Mike Glaicar, Business Development: Pharmacy Times...(PTNN) This weekly video program highlights the latest in pharmacy news, product news, and more. (video)

Docket Alarm’s new suite of tools has components that help give Orange Book litigators a competitive edge…the first legal research platform to provide Orange Book litigators a suite of tools for their practice. The features include the ability to track changes to the Orange Book and related litigation, search correspondence between drug companies and the FDA, and analytics on Orange Book cases in the Patent Trial and Appeal Board…The "Orange Book,"…is the authoritative resource on FDA approved drugs for patent litigators. When a drug company wins FDA approval for a new drug, they submit an Orange Book listing detailing applicable patents covering the new drug and the drug’s labeling. Generic drug manufacturers engage in patent litigation with the branded company over whether the patents listed in the Orange Book are valid and properly cover the corresponding drug.

More than 40 members of the House of Representatives have expressed support for greater pharmacist roles in improvements made to Medicare Part D’s medication therapy management program...CMS announced plans to improve MTM with its Part D Enhanced MTM model in September 2015. The enhanced model aims to look at additional incentives and flexibilities to achieve the goals of the program...Some of those goals include increased communication with pharmacists, prescribers, and patients; improved patient knowledge; reduced medication problems; and improved compliance with medication protocols...The enhanced MTM model test will launch in January 2017...Some of the medication adherence concerns that the Congressional members noted were:

• Nonadherence costs the United States $290 billion annually and makes up 13% of total health care expenditures.
• Patients with several chronic conditions comprise two-thirds of all hospital admissions and are 100 times more likely to have a preventable admission.
• These patients with several chronic conditions visit many different physicians in a year and receive around 50 prescriptions annually on average.
• MTM is currently poorly integrated into health systems. 

Congressional leaders called for retail pharmacists to be included in the enhanced MTM models that will be tested, citing how pharmacists have been shown to improve patient health, reduce costs through fewer hospitalizations and readmissions, and increase patient involvement in their own medication management...Our seniors deserve the most robust and effective MTM program possible—one that includes the utilization of the most trained and highly skilled providers medication management services: local retail community pharmacists...

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion  and CVS Health recently formed a public-private partnership. This partnership aims to increase awareness of the availability of convenient, consumer-centered, recommended preventive services using healthfinder.gov. Healthfinder.gov is a source of easy-to-use prevention and wellness information, designed using health literacy and usability principles...CVS Health, recognizing the important role of informing and engaging patients about preventive care...integrated the myhealthfinder API into the MinuteClinic website in a pilot project conducted jointly with the healthfinder.gov team at the ODPHP...we expect individuals to become more informed and active consumers of clinical preventive services...To extend the reach of federal programs that improve health literacy, and encourage prevention and healthy behaviors...the HHS and CVS Health collaboration could be a model for other retail clinics…Because of retail pharmacies’ consumer and convenience focus, and their important role in connecting patients to and sustaining their relationships with primary physicians, retail pharmacies add valuable perspective and insight to the assessment of preventive care.

Drug Enforcement Administration...announced...Dr. Francisco Huidor-Figureoa, 48, a physician...Montgomery, Alabama, pleaded guilty...to one count of conspiring to distribute oxycodone and one count of conspiring to commit money laundering...During the plea hearing...Figureoa admitted that he worked...a “pill mill.”...was the sole physician employed by the EMED Medical Management Corporation...in Opelika, Alabama...Figureoa sold oxycodone to pill dealers, based on a fraudulent prescription...knew that the recipients of these illegal pills did not need the medicine and that the recipients intended to either abuse the pills or sell the pills to others who would abuse them...Figueroa faces up to 20 years’ imprisonment on each count...Additionally, on the drug distribution conspiracy count...faces a maximum fine of $1,000,000.  On the money laundering conspiracy count, the maximum fine...could be...$500,000, or twice the value of the property involved in the transaction, whichever is greater.

Oregon is making hormonal birth control legally available without a doctor's prescription, and California is set to follow suit. This is great policy, and the rest of the country should follow this example...Before I explain why they should, we should dispense with the policy hopes that easier access to birth control won’t fulfill:

• It won’t end the political fight over the contraception mandate.
• It won’t end the political fights over abortion, either. Easier access to birth control is a great thing. But there is surprisingly weak evidence that making birth control easier to get substantially reduces abortion rates.
• It won’t save the health-care system any significant amount of money.

There are still very good reasons to make birth control available without a doctor visit, starting with the fact that women like it...Absent a compelling reason that women need to see a doctor, it should be as easy as possible for them to get any form of birth control they might like to have...Advocates for keeping doctors involved in dispensing birth control have historically used two arguments.

• The first is that the drugs have side effects -- which is true, but of course, also true of over-the-counter medications...
• The second argument is that we need to keep doctors involved so that women will keep coming to the gynecologist to get their annual exam and pap smear.

Community Pharmacies of Indiana...announced the organization's unanimous decision to support Senate Bill 80, also known as the Pharmacist Legitimization Bill...as a method to control the sale of pseudoephedrine products and decrease meth manufacturing in Indiana without requiring a prescription and unfairly penalizing law-abiding customers...Under the bill, cold medicines containing single-ingredient PSE, such as Sudafed, will remain available for behind-the-counter sales without a prescription. The bill would enable pharmacists to briefly consult with customers seeking products containing single-ingredient PSE, inquiring about symptoms and potentially recommending effective, non-prescription PSE products that contain meth-resistant safeguards, such as Nexafed and Zephrex-D…The bill would also grant pharmacists the legal protection to decline potentially illegitimate sales of PSE products that lack meth-resistant features where appropriate...Pharmacist Legitimization Bill represents common-sense legislation that balances efforts to help curtail the proliferation of meth labs throughout our state while also preserving the customer's ease-of-access to effective cold medicines for legitimate use without the burden of obtaining a prescription every time they have a head-cold…

IBM's cognitive computing system, Watson, has graduated from winning "Jeopardy" to predicting hypoglycemic events for diabetes patients and providing the brains for a customer service robot…IBM CEO Ginni Rometty discussed three partnerships involving IBM's Watson during her keynote speech at CES 2016 (Consumer Electronics Show ) on Wednesday in Las Vegas…Rometty talked about how Medtronic, Under Armour and SoftBank Robotics are using Watson's big data analytics capabilities in vastly different ways.

• Medtronic…is using Watson technology for diabetes management. In a new app rolling out this summer, medical technology firm Medtronic will track a diabetes patient's blood-sugar levels and predict life-threatening hypoglycemic events up to three hours in advance of symptoms.
• Under Armour…hooked up to IBM's Watson because he wanted his customers to get more meaningful data-backed health and fitness insights…The company's UA Record app will provide athletes with timely, evidence-based coaching around their sleep, fitness, activity and nutrition, including outcomes achieved based on others "like you."
• Watson also is providing artificial intelligence for a social humanoid robot called Pepper from SoftBank Robotics. Pepper currently is being used as a customer service robot in a limited number of Mizuho Financial Group's bank branches and Nestle coffee shops in Japan.
• Pathway Genomics unveiled a test version of the Pathway Genomics OME app, powered by Watson. The app merges cognitive computing and deep learning with precision medicine and genetics to enable Pathway Genomics to provide consumers with personalized wellness information...