- Biggest Roadblocks to Managing COPD (pharmacytimes.com)
Kimberly Henderson, MD, JD, medical director for the Health Systems Alliance at CVS Health and regional medical director for MinuteClinic, discusses the biggest roadblocks to managing COPD and how pharmacists can help overcome those challenges.
- Concierge Pharmacy: Providing Medication Management at Physicians’ Offices (pharmacytimes.com)
Concierge pharmacists are working directly in physicians’ offices to personalize chronic care medication management for patients…. delivering chronic care medication services at the point of care… services can produce better patient outcomes, lower health care costs, and improve Medicare Star Ratings, according to RXVIP… pharmacists pay a visit to the physician’s office 1 day a week…review and evaluate drug interactions, dosing, adverse effects, and adherence. Patients will also be encouraged to make lifestyle changes if necessary…pharmacists employ the CeutiCare ICG Intelligent Clinical Guidance system, which monitors patients and provides medication therapy treatment plans for the physician to review...
- Opioid overdose prevention (japha.org)
Pharmacists have essential role in opioid overdose prevention…one-half of opioid painkiller users are unaware that these drugs are as addictive as heroin. Pharmacists hold many important roles in opioid overdose prevention…An increasing number of insurers pay pharmacists to perform annual comprehensive medication reviews, during which pharmacists can discuss naloxone with patients who have risk factors for overdose…pharmacists can reduce opioid overdose and death in their communities.
- Pharmacist error rate rises as workload climbs (drugtopics.modernmedicine.com)Frequency of and risk factors for medication errors by pharmacists during order verification in a tertiary care medical center (abstract) (ajhp.org)
Hospital pharmacists are aware that they have too many orders to fill on a daily basis – in addition to numerous other job functions, including working with insurers and counseling patients. And now, a new study verifies that the more orders pharmacists fill, the more likely it is for errors to occur… at a large tertiary care medical center… than 1.9 million medication orders that were handled by 50 pharmacists…92 medication error events had occurred during order verification…There was also a lower error rate seen for pharmacists who had a Doctor of Pharmacy degree, compared with those who had a Bachelor of Science degree; however, those results were not statistically significant…
- Quarantine All Sterile Drugs from Compounder Medistat (pharmacytimes.com)FDA Announces Medistat RX’s Nationwide Voluntary Recall of Sterile Drug Products (fda.gov)
All non-expired drugs produced for sterile use by Alabama-based compounder Medistat RX have been recalled due to potential contamination, the FDA is warning pharmacists… recalled products were distributed nationwide between Nov. 1, 2014, and Sept. 3, 2015… FDA investigators and Alabama inspectors observed significant deficiencies that raised concerns about the compounder’s ability to assure the sterility of the drugs it produced.
- Obama Nominates Duke Researcher Robert Califf to Lead FDA (bloomberg.com)
President Obama nominated Robert Califf as the next commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration,...Califf has been deputy FDA commissioner for medical products and tobacco. Before that, he was founding director of Duke’s Clinical Research Institute, the world’s largest academic research organization….
- Biopharma lobbying making this a big fight: Bass (video.cnbc.com)
Kyle Bass, Hayman Capital Management founder and... (video)
- New Technologies to Help Community Pharmacists Support Adherence (pharmacytimes.com)
Eric A Wright, PharmD, MPH, Geisinger Health Research and associate professor at Wilkes University, discusses how new technologies will enhance the ability of a community pharmacist to support medication adherence.
- JPMorgan Picks 7 Pharmaceutical Stocks to Buy (or Hold) in Wake of Interest Rates Hike (thestreet.com)
Are pharmaceuticals a good investment right now, during the wake of anticipated rising interest rates? JPMorgan Chase & Co. thinks so...The analyst especially favors the large-cap pharmaceuticals such as...
- Allergan plc,
- Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc.
- Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited
- Bristol-Myers Squibb Company
- Pfizer Inc.
- Endo International plc
- Akorn, Inc.
- Another tool helping developers navigate the difficult road to approval of drugs for rare diseases (blogs.fda.gov)Rare Diseases: Common Issues in Drug Development Guidance for Industry (fda.gov)
...there are roughly 30 million Americans who suffer from a rare disease. And sadly, about 50% are children.. FDA…recently released a new resource for drug developers — a draft guidance document — designed to help them navigate the difficult and unique challenges of developing and bringing to market…drugs to treat rare diseases...document is intended to encourage drug developers to think early on in the process about all aspects of their program — and encourages careful planning which includes a foundation in strong science. Drug developers for rare diseases are often pioneers…this guidance as another important resource to help support their efforts.