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An increasing number of American citizens have been apprehended as they have tried to smuggle illegal drugs into the U.S. since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, an uptick that’s come amid travel restrictions at the border with Mexico...the closure of the southern border to nonessential traffic has sharply limited the number of foreign citizens entering the U.S. by land...Law enforcement officials and drug trafficking experts say the border rules — put in place in April 2020 to curb the spread of the coronavirus — and their lopsided enforcement are driving the rise in U.S. citizens involved in borderland drug busts...U.S. citizens were apprehended nearly seven times more often than Mexican citizens between October 2020 and March 31 for trying to smuggle drugs in vehicles, U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows...READ MORE

...Eli Lilly’s COVID-19 drug factory in New Jersey garnered unwanted headlines for quality control snafus and alleged document tampering. Now, the Department of Justice has stepped in to investigate...Lilly revealed the DOJ has issued a subpoena demanding documents relating to the site in Branchburg, New Jersey. The site produces doses of Lilly's COVID-19 antibody treatment, which has recently faced setbacks for its susceptibility to certain variants...In early May, Reuters reported that employees at the site accused an executive of altering FDA-required documents in an effort to downplay serious quality control problems...READ MORE

Eli Lilly is asking a federal court to stop the federal government from imposing any penalties over its decision to restrict sales of 340B-discounted products to contract pharmacies...The request for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order...comes less than a week after the Health Resources and Services Administration wrote to Lilly and five other drug companies over the contract pharmacy restrictions...The injunction and order show that drug companies appear likely to fight HRSA’s order to immediately offer 340B-discounted drugs to contract pharmacies, which are third-party entities that dispense drugs on behalf of the 340B covered entities...READ MORE

The pace of innovation, the rise of consumerism, an aging population, and the movement toward price transparency means healthcare companies must become more agile and insightful than ever. Six trends have emerged as the top issues affecting healthcare businesses today...READ MORE

1. LEVERAGING BIG DATA
2. SEEING DISRUPTION AS THE NORM
3. EXPANDING THE ROLE OF PHARMACISTS
4. FOCUSING ON TELEHEALTH AND DIGITAL CARE MODELS
5. AGING POPULATION PRESSURING RETAIL PHARMACY
6. ENGAGING PATIENTS TO IMPROVE ADHERENCE

It turns out pharma sales reps didn't need to worry about a pandemic effect on their salaries. Pharma reps’ average pay jumped to $158,013 in 2020 from $151,217 the previous year, according to MedReps’ annual survey...That’s good news for the three-fourths of reps who last March said they were concerned about pay cuts. What actually happened? Only 14% reported earning less money during 2020...READ MORE

In reality, nearly half (44%) of hospital pharmacists experienced a diversion event within the past 12 months, which is up from 37% in 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this “hidden epidemic,” a multi-faceted challenge which poses serious risks to patients, clinicians and healthcare systems...Here are 5 questions frequently asked by health systems seeking to accelerate and improve their efforts to detect and mitigate drug diversion incidents...READ MORE

1. What are the biggest challenges in identifying drug diversion?
2. How have responsibilities for addressing and resolving drug diversion issues evolved?
3. What offers the biggest opportunity to improve diversion identification?
4. When selecting automated systems and software, which capabilities are most critical?
5. How do you justify the cost of technology in a difficult economic environment?

Lawmakers behind the Improving Seniors’ Timely Access to Care Act...not only requires electronic prior authorization for MA plans, but also requires the Department of Health and Human Services to create a process for faster decisions on items and services that commonly get approved...While the bill only applies to MA plans, lawmakers hope to eventually tackle more types of insurance such as commercial plans...READ MORE

Bayer’s efforts to put an end to the consuming Roundup litigation have hit a wall, raising uncertainties over the weedkiller’s future and its impact on the German conglomerate’s financial position...A U.S. federal judge in San Francisco...rejected Bayer’s already revised $2 billion proposal to settle potential future lawsuits alleging Roundup causes cancer. The deal would have put a halt to litigation over four years, during which time eligible plaintiffs could have received compensation of up to $200,000 each...READ MORE

The search for novel therapies has long been a trial-and-error process that costs drug companies a vast amount of time and money. Now, with artificial intelligence (AI) set to transform the pharmaceutical industry more than any other emerging technology, a growing number of pharma and biotech groups are harnessing the cutting-edge tech to minimise the hit-and-miss nature of R&D and discover new therapies with previously impossible speed and accuracy...READ MORE

The convenience of internet shopping attracts many young buyers to turn to social media and internet platforms, not only to buy ordinary goods but also medications...What some fail to recognize – especially young adults – is that is that most social media platforms are designed to keep users engaged by pushing content they believe the individual wants based on their activity on the platform..after multiple clicks or searches, the line between what a user was searching for and what content the algorithm is pushing can quickly become blurred...social media algorithms have become so efficient at suggesting content to users, even passive ones, that they have created a perfect pathway for digital drug dealers to connect to potential victims in a matter of a few clicks...READ MORE