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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is investigating whether the popular heartburn drug Zantac causes carcinogens to form in the bodies of users, in an effort to fully understand the risks posed by the already recalled drug...The issue of whether ranitidine...causes levels of the probable carcinogen N-nitrosodimethylamine to rise in users’ bodies has been raised previously by Valisure, an online pharmacy that originally flagged the potential contamination of ranitidine to the FDA...READ MORE

Canada’s Liberal government is more likely to pass a universal prescription drug plan after losing its majority in Monday’s election, setting the stage for what would be the biggest shakeup of the country’s public healthcare system since it was created in the 1960s...Universal drug coverage would shake up the country’s C$39.8 billion ($30.4 billion) prescription drug market, and cut drugmakers’ revenue by some C$4.8 billion a year by 2027. It may draw opposition from drugmakers, and from private insurers, who could also lose revenue, as well as deficit hawks...READ MORE

A landmark trial over the U.S. opioid epidemic is on track to begin on Monday after drug companies and local governments failed to agree on a settlement on Friday that had been expected to be valued at around $50 billion...Top executives of the largest U.S. drug distributors and drugmaker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd left a Cleveland courthouse on Friday and lawyers for states and thousands of local governments said there was no agreement...After nearly 11 hours of negotiations...it was “profoundly disappointing” that local governments would not go along with a settlement he valued at $48 billion, including $22 billion in cash and $26 billion in products and services...READ MORE

Nicole Grassano, PTNN, Pharmacy Week in Review, this weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

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

One of the current problems with intraoperative resuscitation is the lack of organization...The “Perioperative Pharmacy Attendance for Intraoperative Codes” safety initiative attempts to tackle this problem by addressing the role of “medication procurement, compounding, and time recording.” Pharmacists can quickly assess and provide dosing recommendations...Pharmacist attendance also allows anesthesia professionals to perform alternative tasks during a code, as they are usually responsible for running the code. The anesthesia team and nursing staff can more efficiently procure equipment and supplies because the pharmacy team is now responsible for obtaining the medications...READ MORE

Johnson & Johnson said...it is recalling around 33,000 bottles of baby powder in the United States after U.S. health regulators found trace amounts of asbestos in samples taken from a bottle purchased online...The move marks the first time the company has recalled its iconic baby powder for possible asbestos contamination, and the first time U.S. regulators have announced a finding of asbestos in the product. Asbestos is a known carcinogen that has been linked to deadly mesothelioma...READ MORE

Laura Joszt, PTNN, Pharmacy Week in Review, this weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

A substantial majority of independent pharmacies say they may close their doors in the next two years, and the main culprits are multi-billion-dollar corporate middlemen who are shaking them down for fees on medicines long after the point of sale, according to a new survey by the National Community Pharmacists Association...“Neighborhood pharmacies are being mugged in broad daylight and no one in Washington is doing anything about it,” said NCPA CEO B. Douglas Hoey. “If Congress or the administration don’t act soon, we’re going to see a wave of layoffs and store closures that will leave many patients stranded without access to a local pharmacist.”...READ MORE

Nine widely-used medications have experienced substantial price surges over the past 2 years, adding $5.1 billion to overall drug spending during this time period...7 of these 9 drugs were found by the Institute of Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) to be lacking sufficient clinical evidence to support such price increases. Not only did adalimumab top the list of best-selling drugs last year, but the anti-inflammatory medication ranked first in terms of the most substantial price hikes from 2016 to 2018...READ MORE