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The “smart pill” market is expected to nearly quadruple in value to $3 billion by 2025...Driving this growth is an increasing demand for minimally-invasive procedures, as well as better patient monitoring capabilities...

• Medtronic‘s SmartPill...capsule measures pressure, acidity, temperature and transit time as it passes through a person’s gastrointestinal tract...
• CapsoVision...has created...CapsoCam Plus small bowel capsule endoscope system...is designed to give a 360-degree panoramic lateral image of the small bowel to help clinicians spot small bowel abnormalities...
• Olympus Corp...Endocapsule EC-10 system is designed to help doctors visualize the small bowel…and features a 160-degree wide-angle field of view...
• Proteus Digital Health...a pill that can monitor patient compliance...The system helps patients track the ingestion of their medication by sending a message from the pill’s sensor to a wearable patch, which then transmits the data to a mobile app.
• EtectRx...ID-Cap system includes a capsule embedded with a sensor that sends a signal to a battery-powered reader worn around the user’s neck once the pill reaches the stomach...then sends that data to a smartphone via Bluetooth to reach the patient and, ultimately, the physician.

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.

...Food and Drug Administration is asking manufacturers of a common opioid medicine to change the way the drug is packaged, as part of efforts to deter its abuse amid an opioid epidemic...The FDA said...it sent letters to manufacturers of diarrhea medicine loperamide, asking them to ensure that packages contain only a limited amount of the drug that is appropriate for use for short-term diarrhea...The agency wants to eliminate the large bottles in which loperamide is often sold because the abuse of the drug requires such large quantities.

The Food & Drug Administration has released a 2018 Compounding Policy Priorities Plan...FDA also issued a final guidance on mixing, diluting, or repackaging biological products, which describes the conditions under which the agency does not intend to take action when certain biological products are mixed, diluted, or repackaged in a manner not described in their approved labeling. According to FDA, "These policies are intended to minimize public health risks, while preserving access to these products for patients who have a medical need for them."

The industry awoke to the news Tuesday that Amazon.com Inc. was joining with Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. to form a new health-care business, in an attempt by three of the world’s best-known companies to contain the spiraling cost of keeping their U.S. workers healthy...Other groups of big employers have tried to improve worker health care in the past, but none have dethroned the pharmacy-benefit managers who drug companies and some lawmakers claim aren’t transparent about the pricing deals they strike on behalf of health plans, and about how much money they keep for themselves...“They could completely cut out the middlemen here,” said Pratap Khedkar...at...ZS Associates. By doing so, Amazon, Berkshire and JPMorgan could gain more control over their spending and save money pharmacy-benefit managers currently consume...

Scientists around the globe nowadays regularly take to the internet to scrutinize research after it’s been published — including to run their own analyses of the data and spot mistakes or fraud...And as interest in this so-called post-publication peer review has swelled, one lawyer argues, biotech and pharma companies would do well to take note. If companies and their investors aren’t reading these sites, they may be the last to know when industry-funded research is called into question...The most prominent forum for these discussions is PubPeer, where anyone can create an anonymous account and comment on published research papers. Many of the posts on PubPeer point out instances of plagiarism and duplicated or manipulated images — all of which represent retractable offenses and serious scientific misconduct. But posters often note erroneous data, flawed methodology, or even just sloppy thinking that somehow escaped the scrutiny of peer reviewers before the article was published.

Boehringer Ingelheim has inked an outcomes-based contract with pharmacy benefit manager Prime Therapeutics for its oral Type II diabetes drug, Jardiance...The medication is designed to cut the risk of cardiovascular death in adult patients with Type II diabetes and established heart disease...As part of Prime’s CareCentered Contracting program, the outcomes-based deal will focus on the total cost of care for Blue Cross and Blue Shield members taking Jardiance compared to the total cost of care for patients using other diabetes drugs...this outcomes-based contract...represents an important step towards improving outcomes by lowering the total cost of care of people with diabetes...Diabetes and cardiovascular disease put a significant financial burden on the healthcare system, and we are confident Jardiance may improve outcomes by reducing the overall healthcare costs of people with Type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease...

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

...some dispute...findings on the controversial cuts...Increased reimbursements under Medicare Part B overall could offset potential losses for hospitals under changes to the 340B discount program, according to a new analysis...consulting firm Avalere Health analyzed hospital-level data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on reimbursements in 2017 and 2018 and found that 85% of hospitals would receive higher Part B payouts that would minimize the reductions from cuts to 340B discounts...CMS finalized changes to 340B in November, changing its payment rate to 22.5% less than the list price for medication. Previously, it had paid up to 6% more than the list price under the program, and the cuts could equal $1.6 billion in lost payments...Rural hospitals would especially benefit from CMS’ increased Part B payouts, according to Avalere, as those facilities will net an average increase of 2.7%. Urban hospitals will see a 1.4% net increase...The 340B program wasn’t always controversial, but in recent years lawmakers and pharmaceutical companies have expressed concern that too many hospitals have enrolled, taking advantage of the program’s discounts. A study...suggests that hospitals have snapped up physician practices in areas like oncology to boost their 340B discounts but don’t often invest those savings in improving care for low-income patients.

The turmoil at Canada’s largest homegrown pharma company, generics maker Apotex, continues with the resignation of CEO Jeremy Desai even as the company deals with the fallout from the murders of the company’s founder...The resignation of Desai comes six months after Teva filed a lawsuit against him and Apotex claiming that for two years Desai received copies of Teva trade secrets from his girlfriend, Barinder Sandhu, who before her 2016 departure was Teva’s chief of regulatory affairs for its American generics business...Separately, Toronto police...announced that they were investigating the strangulation deaths of 75-year-old Apotex founder Barry Sherman and his 70-year-old wife, Honey, as a targeted double murder...The Canadian billionaire was known to be litigious and was involved in a number of legal battles...