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Pharmacists have once again been ranked among the most honest and ethical professionals in the United States, according to the results of the latest Gallup poll on the topic...Of the survey’s 1049 respondents, 62% rated the honesty and ethical standards of pharmacists as “high” or “very high.” This percentage of favorable responses was the fifth highest of the survey, with nurses (82%) taking the top spot for the 16th year in a row...Pharmacists performed slightly better on the survey last year, earning favorable scores from 67% of participants in 2016...Other highly rated professionals included in the survey were military officers (71%), grade school teachers (66%), and medical doctors (65%). Lobbyists received the lowest score, with only 8% of survey respondents giving them a favorable rating and 58% considering their ethical and honesty standards to be “low” or “very low.”1

Rite Aid...has now transferred 1,114 stores to Walgreens Boots Alliance as part of a larger deal with the nation’s largest pharmacy chain...In all, Walgreens will over the next few weeks buy 1,932 stores and three distribution centers from Rite Aid for nearly $4.4 billion in cash. Rite Aid...has received “cash proceeds of $2.424 billion, which the company continues to use to reduce debt.”...Before agreeing in September to buy 1,932 Rite Aids, Walgreens had been trying to buy all of Rite Aid before antitrust scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission that ultimately led to the deal’s undoing...As a smaller pharmacy chain, Rite Aid is focusing on eight states largely on the East and West Coats with plans to invest heavily in its pharmacy benefit manager EnvisionRx, which works with employers and government health programs like Medicare to better control drug costs. PBMs are the middlemen between drug makers and patients when it comes to buying prescription drugs and getting discounts for their customers.

Trump administration regulators are not ready to sign off on CVS Health's $69 billion deal to acquire Aetna...The Department of Justice asked the firms to provide more information on Thursday, just as the 30 day waiting period under Hart Scott Rodino Act expired...So far, the Trump administration has shown it's not receptive to vertical integration deals...The DOJ's second notice request extends the waiting period on the CVS-Aetna deal for another 30 days. In the meantime, the firms have scheduled shareholder votes to approve the deal for March 20th.

Leemore Dafny, PhD, interviews Marc Harrison, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer of Intermountain Healthcare.

Dafny:  We’re here to talk about this new initiative that you are spearheading to create a new generic manufacturing company for pharmaceuticals, and I want to start by saying that we’ve seen a lot of vertical integration in health care, typically different health care providers merging, or providers and health plans. But integration of providers into pharmaceutical manufacturing — setting aside a little compounding — is pretty unprecedented. So I just want to start our conversation by asking, why are you doing it?

Harrison:  Well, I guess I’d say necessity is the mother of invention, right? This is not an ambition that Intermountain, nor I suspect the other systems, have had, but as organizations that really try and put our patients at the center of everything we do, some of the issues we’re having around shortages and then secondarily around pricing — they’ve changed the way we’ve thought about things, and so I guess the very few folks in the generic drug industry who are creating these issues, we owe them some thanks because it’s caused us to think creatively.

Nicole Crisano, PTNN. This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

CVS Health...said...it plans to use more than $1 billion in benefits from a new corporate tax cut to boost wages and benefits for workers and reduce debt from its purchase of Aetna...The drugstore chain is gaining $1.2 billion in overall annual tax savings from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed last year....CVS plans to use $425 million annually to increase the starting wage for hourly employees to $11 an hour , freeze employee health premiums for a year and create a new parental leave program...CVS' annualized tax benefit will also be directed toward “data analytics, care management solutions and store service offering pilots to improve health outcomes and lower costs for patients, as well as on debt reduction related to its planned acquisition of Aetna...

Semler Research Center says the US FDA caused the “complete annihilation” of its business after regulators rejected bioanalytical studies on the back of data integrity concerns...In April 2016, the US Food and Drug Administration issued Semler Research Center an ‘Untitled Letter’​ stating evidence it had found of data manipulation in a number of bioanalytical studies during an inspection of its facility in Bangalore, India...The Agency then sent a notice​ to drug sponsors that bioavailability/bioequivalence studies conducted by the contract research organisation would need to be repeated...Semler filed a lawsuit against the FDA, the United States Department Of Health And Human Services and the United States Of America – along with various individuals – for total damages of approximately $50m...The firm claims the FDA’s actions were in violation of the Fifth Amendment, interfered with economic advantages and intentionally inflicted financial distress on the company.

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

When the topic of drug prices comes up, as it so often does in this post-Martin Shkreli world, pharma is always prepared with a rebuttal...Pharma CEOs are now touting that the use of medicines lowers other health-care spending...Studies have shown some truth to the claim, but critics say the support doesn't go that far...most often, pharmaceuticals have the effect of improving or maintaining an individual's health...for example, taking antibiotics to prevent a more severe infection or adhering to medication to manage a chronic condition like diabetes or high blood pressure...In either of those circumstances, taking the medication may also avert hospital admissions and thus reduce the use of medical services...

A Massachusetts pharmacist was sentenced...to eight years in prison after being convicted on racketeering and fraud charges stemming from his role in a 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak that killed 76 people and sickened hundreds more...Glenn Chin, the former supervisory pharmacist at New England Compounding Center, was convicted by a federal jury in Boston in October but was cleared of second-degree murder charges, which would have exposed him to a maximum prison sentence of life...Prosecutors had asked U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns to sentence Chin...to 35 years in prison for overseeing the dispensing of substandard drugs made in filthy conditions at the now-defunct...NECC...Prosecutors said those drugs included mold-tainted steroids...that were then injected into patients, harming at least 793 people in 20 different states...