Author: Peter

…Daiichi Sankyo will cut as many as 1,200 jobs in the U.S. as it braces for the loss of patent protection on top treatment Benicar (olmesartan) and shakes up the organization for a transition to a specialty portfolio in cardiovascular, pain management and oncology. "As we face the loss of exclusivity in the coming year of our largest product, we also look ahead to great opportunities...The cuts will come in the head office at Parsippany, New Jersey, and field-based sales…

We can’t just say we need more and more people engaged, we need to have particular targets'…There's little question that patient engagement is one of the most promising trends in healthcare today…the potential – in terms of cost-savings, personalized patient care and healthier populations …The reality…is that the industry has a long way to go before reaching the Holy Grail of patients harnessing technologies to own their own healthcare and more effectively interact with caregivers and clinicians… five things that need to happen for patient engagement to move from the abstract to the concrete:

• It's time to end information asymmetry
• Less engagement, not more
• Understand what really matters
• Design matters but senses are the real opportunity
• The natural next step: hard science

...first FDA-approved drug (Addyi,flibanserin) for female sexual dysfunction is available in the United States today (Oct. 17), marking a much-anticipated milestone for women who struggle with sexual desire. Sprout, the pharmaceutical company behind the drug, has spent $50m to develop the treatment. But female sexual desire is biologically complex, and this drug won’t work like similar products for men. Here are the key details:

• Who is it for?
• How does it work?
• What are the effects?
• What are the risks?
• How much will it cost?

Health systems’ interest in gaining entry to the specialty-pharmacy market should not be a surprise, considering that specialty drug sales are growing at rates reported to be approximately 19% per year… the 340B pricing program could offer substantial incentives to certain qualifying health systems when they retain specialty-pharmacy prescriptions… Add in the trend of health systems’ entry into risk-sharing contracts, the formation of accountable care organizations, and the consolidation and merging of specialist physician practices… Health systems bring a number of advantages to the specialty marketplace… full integration and availability of clinical information to multidisciplinary health care providers allows for a level of care coordination that is unlikely to be matched by unaffiliated pharmacies.

Sir Richard Branson…talks with Betty Liu about the criminalization of drugs and his release of a report from the United Nations suggesting treating drugs a health care issue and whether or not the United States is trying to suppress the report.

Despite the best intentions of medical professionals, patients often don't feel as if their voices are being heard in the care process… that providers can do more to improve care results and the consumer experience…five ideas for providers to bridge that disconnect:

1. Engage patients as equal partners in the care process
2. Focus on listening
3. Tell patients to seek a diagnosis, not a test
4. Bring care to patients
5. Take better advantage of available data

Ronna B. Hauser, PharmD, vice president of pharmacy affairs for the National Community Pharmacists Association,  discusses what pharmacists need to know about the memorandum of understanding regarding the interstate shipment of compounds.

ICD-10 claims "are flowing successfully," to the tune of approximately $25 billion thus far…"Now the industry must be ready to tackle the next set of challenges: timely and correct reimbursement,"…tracking…days until final bill, an important metric that will signal just how disruptive the code change is to the industry… days until final bill has averages 14.8 days since the Oct. 1, but most of those claims were coded in ICD-9. There are still a few weeks until the wave of ICD-10 claims begin to be paid…troubles with ICD-10 could be felt soon… we continue to anticipate a groundswell of issues in getting claims out the door and an increase in denials and rejections...

Safety issues with first female libido pill (Addyi,flibanserin) may spur better alternatives for women...Most women with low sexual desire won't rush to get the first prescription drug to boost female libido when it becomes available…But they may…spur development of better treatments for women's sexual problems after more than a decade of neglect by most of the world's large drugmakers…Treatments for women's libido issues are an untapped financial opportunity for drugmakers. Analysts estimate the market could be worth over $2 billion, based on academic estimates that between 5 million and 9 million U.S. women may suffer from desire disorders.

Students in Alaska will no longer have to leave their home state to pursue a pharmacy degree...University of Alaska Anchorage and Idaho State University are partnering on a joint pharmacy program that will launch next fall with 10 to 15 students…One of the goals of the program is to encourage more students to stay in Alaska for work after graduation…"The premise is that we get pharmacists—clinical pharmacists—who are reared in the state, who are from here, and who will be networked into the pharmacy community here, so they stay here,"...