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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.

While insurer and hospital groups cheered House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s new drug prices plan, other experts and groups are skeptical of the bill’s chances of ever reaching President Donald Trump...The ambitious plan...drew plaudits from hospital and pharmacy benefit manager groups and fierce opposition from pharma. But major opposition from Republican members of the GOP-controlled Senate could doom the proposal, some experts and groups said...Republicans have blasted the proposal that calls for the Department of Health and Human Services to identify up to 250 brand-name drugs that do not have a lot of competition and aren’t driving up spending...HHS would then negotiate with the makers of those drugs to determine a fair price that Medicare and commercial payers would pay. The price would be linked to an average paid by several developed countries such as Germany and France...READ MORE

The bootleg medications were smuggled across the border and sold to mostly Latino immigrants in public spaces throughout Los Angeles — at swap meets, parks, beauty salons and makeshift stands outside mom-and-pop grocery stores...The drugs were cheap, and the customers — mostly from Mexico and Central America — did not need prescriptions to buy them. Some of the products featured brand names and colorful packaging that immigrants knew well from their home countries…Many were sheer counterfeits. Others, though legal south of the border, were not approved for sale in the United States. Some had expired. Still others would have been legal if sold by people licensed to do so — but none of the sellers held pharmacist licenses or any other medical credential...READ MORE

The top U.S. consumer and trade regulator said...it had warned three companies selling products infused with cannabidiol that it was illegal to advertise that such products could fight disease without providing credible scientific evidence...CBD, has been touted as alleviating countless physical ailments...The Federal Trade Commission said the three unidentified companies claimed, without providing substantiation, that CBD can treat more than two dozen conditions including cancer, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia, epilepsy, diabetes, psoriasis, and AIDS...READ MORE

As U.S. officials press a massive case for alleged generic drug price fixing, authorities in the U.K. have unearthed an example of rivals working a little too closely with each other...King Pharmaceuticals and Alissa Healthcare Research, which both sold the antidepressant drug nortriptyline, admitted to exchanging "commercially sensitive information" in order to keep prices high...The U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority said...it had found the companies exchanged info about prices, volumes and market entry plans for their drugs...READ MORE

Fourteen doctors and other medical professionals were among those charged in fraud schemes that totaled $258 million in California, Oregon and Arizona...Charges were brought...against 34 people for alleged Medicare and Medicaid fraud…The charges targeted schemes billing Medicare and Medicaid for services, testing, and prescriptions that were not medically necessary or not actually provided to beneficiaries...READ MORE

Jaime Rosenberg, welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network

Five of the largest pharmaceutical manufacturers—Eli Lilly, Janssen, Merck, Novartis, and Sanofi—have now publicly reported the 2018 gross and net price changes for their U.S. product portfolios, along with average discounts from list price…These reports shed light on the heated political rhetoric and policy proposals that focus on drugs’ list prices. The reality: brand-name drug makers sold their products at half of those list prices. As you will see, the five companies discounted their average list prices by 44% to 55%...READ MORE

Pinder Sahota has a list, and he is checking it twice. As the U.K. lurches toward Brexit, the Novo Nordisk scientist has become a logistics expert to ensure there is no break in the insulin supply chain when the separation finally happens...The company has tripled its warehouse capacity and stuffed it with 3.8 million packs of insulin, enough to last more than four months. New routes have been plotted to avoid the ports and crossings expected to be the most congested...READ MORE

Recent New and Generic Drug Approvals

This report displays final approvals and tentative approvals of original and supplemental applications for the two weeks beginning on the earliest date listed below. Some approvals may be added to the Drugs@FDA database after this timespan. For comprehensive approval reports, please use the monthly "All Approvals" report on Drugs@FDA.