- WHO recommends rescheduling of cannabis (emcdda.europa.eu)
...the Director General of the World Health Organization sent a letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations recommending...that cannabis and associated substances be rescheduled in the international drug control framework. The changes are reported to facilitate the trade of these substances for medicinal and scientific purposes...
What does the WHO-ECDD recommend?
-Cannabis and cannabis resin: remove from Schedule IV (keep in Schedule I) as it is not ‘particularly harmful’
-Extracts and tinctures’: remove from the Conventions...Effectively this will be replaced by a new entry in Schedule III of the 1961
Convention referring to pharmaceutical preparations of cannabis that do not pose a risk to public health.-Delta-9-THC/dronabinol: delete from the 1971 Convention Schedule II and move to the 1961 Convention, Schedule I...
-THC isomers: delete from the 1971 Convention Schedule I and move to the 1961 Convention Schedule I, based on current knowledge...
-Cannabidiol: add a footnote that products containing predominantly CBD and not more than 0.2% Delta-9-THC are not under international control...READ MORE
- CBD is booming. But US farmers struggle to keep up with demand for industrial hemp (cnbc.com)
Congress legalized industrial hemp in December. With it, they also legalized hemp-derived CBD, short for cannabidiol, a cannabis compound that supposedly delivers the calming effects of marijuana without the high from THC...Last year, retail sales of CBD consumer products in the U.S. were estimated at between $600 million and $2 billion, according to investment research firm Cowen. The bank conservatively forecasts sales to reach $16 billion by 2025, with health and wellness products leading the way and food, beverage, beauty and vapor to also play a role.
- From seed to CBD - The current supply chain — from plants, to extraction, to labs — is riddled with issues...
- More religion than science
- Incredibly expensive
- A ‘green rush’
- Vastly different results
- Wild West...READ MORE
- This Week in Managed Care: March 22, 2019 (ajmc.com)
Laura Joszt, Managing Editor at The American Journal of Managed Care. Welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network
- Canada to create national drug agency to help cut cost of medicines (reuters.com)
Canada will create a national drug agency to help cut the cost of prescription medications as part of a plan to broaden the state-funded healthcare program, the finance ministry said in its budget...Unlike other countries with universal healthcare, Canada does not cover prescription drugs, leaving most Canadians to rely on a mixture of public and private insurance plans...Prescription drug spending in Canada has jumped to C$33.7 billion ($25.3 billion) in 2018 from C$2.6 billion in 1985 and a promise to boost drug coverage is set to be a major plank for the ruling Liberals in an election this October...The new Canada Drug Agency would “take a coordinated approach to assessing effectiveness and negotiating prescription drug prices,” which could help lower the cost of medications by up to C$3 billion a year in the long term...READ MORE
- Purdue Pharma agrees to $270 million settlement in Oklahoma opioid case (reuters.com)
OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP...reached a $270 million settlement to resolve a lawsuit brought by the state of Oklahoma accusing the drugmaker of fueling an opioid abuse epidemic...The settlement unveiled by Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter...was the first to result from a wave of lawsuits accusing Purdue of deceptively marketing painkillers, helping create a deadly crisis sweeping the United States...Hunter alleged Purdue, Johnson & Johnson and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd engaged in deceptive marketing that downplayed the addiction risk from opioids while overstating their benefits, contributing to the epidemic...READ MORE
- How government policy has shaped China’s pharma phenomenon (pharmaceutical-technology.com)
- Improving regulatory procedures to encourage innovation
- Encouraging the development of high-quality generics
- Investing in emerging technology like AI
- Better integration into the international pharma market...READ MORE
- March 22 Pharmacy Week in Review: APhA Annual Meeting & Exposition, Epilepsy Foundation Releases New PSAs (pharmacytimes.com)
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.
- Eli Lilly sheds light on confidential drug pricing, discloses charges for popular diabetes medicine Humalog (cnbc.com)
...Eli Lilly pulled the curtain back on the confidential pricing structure for one of its blockbuster drugs...disclosing for the first time what it charges wholesalers versus what many patients typically pay...The company’s list prices for its popular insulin injection Humalog, versus what most patients are charged after insurance company rebates and other discounts, highlight the disparity in prices between uninsured and insured patients. The move is also a pre-emptive one as the Trump administration and Congress pressure drugmakers for more transparency and to lower drug costs...The “net price ” patients actually pay for Eli Lilly’s insulin fell by 8.1 percent to $135 a patient per month in 2018 from $147 in 2014...The net price is the total paid after factoring in rebates and discounts. The insulin’s average list price before the discounts rose 51.9 percent to $594 per patient each month...The Trump administration earlier this year proposed a rule to end the industry-wide system of rebates, a change that Lilly and other pharmaceutical companies welcomed...READ MORE
- Oklahoma top court clears way for Purdue, J&J, Teva to face opioid trial (reuters.com)
Oklahoma’s top court...declined to delay a landmark trial set for May in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit accusing OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP and two other drugmakers of helping fuel an opioid abuse and overdose epidemic in the state...The Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision was a win for the state’s attorney general, whose case is set to be the first to face trial of roughly 2,000 lawsuits nationally seeking to hold opioid manufacturers responsible for contributing to the epidemic...Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter’s 2017 lawsuit accuses Purdue, Johnson & Johnson & Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd of engaging in deceptive marketing that downplayed the risks of addiction associated with opioid pain drugs while overstating their benefits...READ MORE
- CVS is now selling CBD products in California (mercurynews.com)
Select CVS locations in California and seven other states are now selling hemp-derived CBD products...The national drugstore chain will be marketing the topical cannabidiol products as “an alternative source of relief,” CVS said in a statement to NBC News. The chain also will be partnering with another company to test and verify the quality of the CBD topicals sold in 800 drugstores at this point...READ MORE