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Walmart...is moving deeper into the primary care and mental health market, opening a new clinic called Walmart Health in Georgia...Walmart is testing the concept with the initial clinic and will offer primary care, dental, counseling, labs, X-rays and audiology, among other services...READ 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

The United States (HHS Secretary Alex Azar) said...it will provide thousands of doses of HIV medication to treat Venezuelans in Colombia as part of regional efforts to manage care for millions of migrants fleeing the crisis-hit nation...The United Sates will provide 12,000 doses, an HHS spokeswoman said, enough for a year’s medication for 1,000 migrants...“We believe that its vital to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and to treat those who have it because with appropriate treatment individuals who have HIV/AIDS can live healthy, long, productive lives”...READ MORE

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said...that it will move ahead with a long-delayed expansion of its marijuana research program, in a sign that the Trump administration’s hostility to the drug may be waning as a growing number of states have legalized its use...The DEA said it would roll out new guidelines that would allow more growers to produce marijuana for scientific and medical research…READ MORE

Federal health officials issued a national warning...against marijuana use by adolescents and pregnant women, as more states legalize the increasingly potent drug for medicinal and recreational use...Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Surgeon General Jerome Adams made the announcement, with Azar calling marijuana "a dangerous drug."...The warning comes as legal marijuana has grown into a $10-billion industry in the U.S. with nearly two-thirds of states legalizing it, mainly for medical uses. An increasing number of states and localities are also allowing personal, recreational use...Adams said science shows that marijuana is harmful to the developing brains of teenagers and to the human fetus. The drug has also gotten stronger, with a three-fold increase in the concentration of the active ingredient THC in cultivated plants over the last 20 years...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.

The U.S. Food and Drugs Administration said...it was expanding its investigation into impurities in U.S. generic drugs beyond a class of medicines for high blood pressure known as angiotensin II receptor blockers...The agency did not specify which types of additional drugs it was looking at, but said it was testing samples of other medicines with similar manufacturing processes to those in which concerning impurities have been discovered...READ MORE

CVS Caremark is saving money on drug costs by kicking specific products with high inflation off their formularies...The pharmacy benefit manager launched its program for “hyperinflation” drug removals in 2017 in which it will take drugs off its template formulary if they have far cheaper equivalents and their high prices aren’t backed by quality metrics...So far, they've identified five drugs to remove as the default option for docs...Through these efforts, Caremark has saved its PBM clients an average of $15 per 30-day supply on drugs—clients on this formulary model paid on average $88.30 for a 30-day drug supply, compared to $102.58 for other formulary designs...As the program is focused on products like that with high costs compared to alternatives, just five have been pulled from formularies so far—leading to a 99% drop in member use...READ MORE

A federal judge...ruled two patents held by Amgen on its cholesterol drug Repatha are invalid, reversing a February jury verdict that had upheld the California biotech's claims in its legal battle with rivals Sanofi and Regeneron...Amgen said it plans to appeal. Still, it's a setback that strengthens the position of Sanofi and Regeneron, which sell the competing drug Praluent...Litigation between the companies has dragged on since 2014…Both Amgen and Sanofi and Regeneron have since cut their prices to a about $6,000 a year in bids to grow market share. Repatha sales have so far paced ahead of Praluent's…READ MORE

The U.S. government can do more to reduce demand for fentanyl and should stop shifting the blame onto others, China said...in another riposte to Trump administration criticism that China is not helping resolve the drug problem...U.S. officials say China is the main source of illicit fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances that are trafficked into the United States, much of it through international mail. China denies that most of the illicit fentanyl...originates in China...READ MORE