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GlaxoSmithKline is cutting the price charged for its pneumococcal vaccine when given to refugees, following complaints about the product's "exorbitant" cost by medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres...The British drugmaker said...it would provide Synflorix, which protects children against pneumonia and other diseases, at a discounted price of $3.05 per dose to recognized civil society organizations...In Greece, MSF said it had been forced to pay 50 pounds ($65) a dose in local pharmacies in order to vaccinate thousands of refugee children fleeing from conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan...GSK said its offer was made on the basis that others would not seek to reference the special price, which is intended solely to support refugee populations...Previously, the low price of $3.05 price has only been available to the world’s poorest countries.

For all intents and purposes, California Governor Jerry Brown held his nose...as he signed a bill that allows state agencies and businesses to keep EpiPen devices on hand for emergencies...While Brown readily acknowledged that EpiPen is a lifesaver for people with allergic reactions, he simultaneously issued two letters — one to the California State Assembly and the other to US Senate and House leaders — to complain about “predatory pricing” by the manufacturer, Mylan Pharmaceuticals...“I cannot take this action without registering my strong objection to the bill sponsor’s recently reported pricing maneuvers,” he wrote in one of the letters in which he referred to a successful lobbying campaign by Mylan to urge states to make EpiPen widely available...

The run-up to Monday’s approval of a Sarepta Therapeutics drug to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy was marked by unusual bickering inside the Food and Drug Administration, where debate over a key scientific question morphed into a formal dispute, and the head of the drug review division was accused of being too intensely involved in the process for evaluating the medicine...the decision to greenlight the drug fell to the FDA Commissioner, Dr. Robert Califf...he deferred to Dr. Janet Woodcock, the controversial head of the drug review division, who pushed hard to approve the Sarepta medication but clashed with other FDA officials along the way...This has been a highly charged issue and has transformed the Sarepta drug into a litmus test for agency approval of new medicines, notably for diseases with unmet medical needs. Seen through that prism...approving the drug would be detrimental to the FDA approval process on a long-term basis.

...many regional health analysts…are part of a terrifying new trend: the growing number of Syrians who are immune to almost all antibiotics. The only way to treat them is to amputate their affected limbs and inject them with last-resort drugs. For those suffering from less peripheral wounds, the prognosis is even grimmer. If the infection is in the chest or brain, he will die…After five and a half years of death and destruction…the conflict escalates and conditions worsen for civilians and soldiers alike, doctors and aid workers fear antibiotic resistance could soon become deadlier than the Islamic State group…Frazzled medical professionals believe the problem is quickly getting worse, especially in besieged swathes of Syria that doctors can’t reach...In Syria, part of the problem is rooted in the country’s lax attitude toward medications. As in much of the Middle East, antibiotics have long been available without a prescription and are often seen as cure-alls with no side effects. For years, doctors doled them out for everything from headaches to common colds. Farmers in isolated areas self-medicated. Pharmacists who knew the risks prescribed them anyway, fearing their customers would go elsewhere. And with dozens of pharmaceutical factories churning out products across the country, antibiotics became available at low cost to pretty much everyone...the Syrian war still killing and maiming at a pace unmatched in recent memory, doctors and scientists say there’s only one guaranteed way to preserve one of our world’s greatest discoveries...The problem is not the mentality of the doctors; it’s the conflict...We have to treat the conflict to stop antibiotic resistance...

Healthcare organizations and manufacturers are very vulnerable when it comes to their data protection measures, according to the Intel Security 2016 Data Protection Benchmark Study...While the gap between data loss and breach discovery is increasing, healthcare organizations are “sitting ducks,”...the typical data loss prevention approach is increasingly ineffective against new theft targets...Not only is data getting outside of company control, it has probably been used or sold before the theft is noticed...Discovering and preventing breaches internally requires a better understanding of who is behind these thefts, what they are most likely to steal, how they are getting the data out, and the most effective steps to take to improve data loss prevention systems and processes...Healthcare is likely a top target because it holds desireable information - PHI and intellectual property. At the same time, healthcare typically has weaker systems that can be easier for hackers to access...

The experimental drug (eteplirsen) that federal regulators approved Monday will only be used by a few thousand patients...But the approval may have set a precedent that could rocket through the health care system, opening the door for drug makers to get more medicines to market — even with scant evidence that they work...The...decision...elated families struggling with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare and deadly disease....It also touched off a barbed debate between those who applauded the move as giving hope to desperate patients — and those who warned it would backfire since there is no clear evidence the drug works...The approval sets “a dangerous precedent,” said Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Health Research. “A decade from now, will we look back at this approval as a turning point when the FDA ceased to function as a public health agency?”

Justin Gallagher, associate publisher of The American Journal of Managed Care. Welcome to This Week in Managed Care, From the Managed Markets News Network.

Prescription drug prices increased 6.3% over the last year, according to consumer price index data...You’ve been paying more for prescription drugs — and it’s not just Mylan’s EpiPen...Prices for prescription drugs increased 6.3% over the last 12 months, the highest year-long prescription drug price increase in over a year and a half, government consumer price index data shows...Data from the CPI, which examines changes in what consumers are paying for day-to-day goods and services, lends support to the idea that broad changes in health care are having repercussions for consumers alongside health insurers and other players...Drug prices are indeed rising, and have been for many years. But the phenomenon is exacerbated by another health care trend, the rise of high deductible health insurance plans, which shift more of health care costs to consumers...Though other factors, such as new terms of health insurance plans, could also be at play, “I think the hidden secret here is it’s the consumer’s out-of-pocket costs that are increasing,”...Search data...shows that consumers have reacted to the trend by shopping around...

Between 2006 and 2012, antibiotic use in hospitals in general did not change, and the use of a class of drugs tied most closely to antibiotic resistance actually increased, according to a new study...We believe the increases in the use of more powerful and ‘last resort’ antibiotics should prompt further exploration and, where indicated, actions to improve the use of these antibiotics...While the optimal level of antibiotic use or distribution of classes is not really known for every hospital, we know from other studies that inpatient prescribing of antibiotics for some infections is often inappropriate...overall antibiotic use stayed level over time, use of third- and fourth-generation cephalosporins, macrolides, glycopeptides, carbapenems and tetracyclines increased significantly...Doctors are human, they’re worried, they’re behind, they’re concerned about what the patient wants...What we’re proposing is that the strategies to address this should come from a psychological perspective...and should target doctors who give out the most antibiotics...If social pressure leads to overprescribing, maybe it can also curb prescribing rates...

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