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The Kentucky Senate...approved legislation in preparation for an expected increase in the use of biologically similar medications. The bill’s sponsor says these medicines can substantially save on costs when treating certain diseases...more medications for specific ailments are biological products made from living organisms. Bio-similar drugs, which are much cheaper, are being produced as interchangeable medicines...legislation allows pharmacists to dispense bio-similar drugs in the place of biologics without having to notify the doctor in advance...pharmacists would still be required to notify doctors of interchangeable bio-similar drugs within five days of dispensing. "If a patient has a reaction to a drug and I think I’m prescribing them drug A and you’ve given them drug B, and they may have to come to the hospital with a reaction, I’m the one treating them and assuming that liability," Alvarado (Winchester Senator, Doctor Ralph Alvarado) explained. "I have to know what drug you gave them..."

GlaxoSmithKline’s Pharmaceutical segment has declined substantially in 2015 due to the divestment of its oncology business to Novartis...The...segment reported revenues of $14.17 billion in 2015, compared to about $15.5 billion in 2014...revenues declined by 1% following lower sales of Seretide and Advair, partially offset by increased sales of HIV products Triumeq and Tivicay, and new pharmaceutical products...the...segment’s contribution to total revenues declined from 67.3% in 2014 to ~59.2%...GlaxoSmithKline’s Pharmaceuticals segment is classified into the following two franchises:

1. HIV products are marketed under ViiV healthcare, a company with GSK as a major shareholder, while Pfizer and Shionogi are other shareholders. The company completed the acquisition of Bristol-Myers Squibb’s R&D HIV assets on February 22...HIV products reported growth of 54%...about $3.2 billion...partially offset by declining sales of Epzicom/Kivexa.
2. Global pharmaceuticals - respiratory, cardiovascular, metabolic and urology, immuno-inflammation, and established products...key numbers:

• ...the respiratory franchise, the drugs Seretide and Advair are losing their market share to the generic competition...revenue decline of 7%
• ...the cardiovascular, metabolic, and urology franchise, the drugs Duodart and Jalyn have shown strong performances, while Avodart...is exposed to generic competition since October 2015...sales declined by 9%
• ...the immuno-inflammation franchise, Benlysta is driving growth...sales improved by ~24% while the franchise sales improved by 16%
• ...the established products franchise are losing their market share to generic competition...a revenue fall of 15%...due to lower sales across global markets.
• Other pharmaceuticals franchise include few key products...Augmentin, Relenza, Dermatology products, and rare disease products...revenues...declined by 4%...lower sales for Augmentin, dermatology, and rare disease products, partially offset by the strong performance of Relenza

A skirmish over drug pricing escalated...when the pharmaceutical industry filed a lawsuit to prevent consumer activists in Ohio from pursuing a ballot measure designed to lower the cost of medicines...The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America contends that the activists failed to legally obtain the signatures needed to get their measure on the state ballot. Known as the Ohio Drug Price Relief Act, the proposal would require the state to pay no more for medicines than the Department of Veterans Affairs...The ballot measure is one of a growing number of maneuvers around the country to combat rising prescription drug prices. A similar measure recently qualified for the ballot in California, despite opposition from the pharmaceutical industry...The lawsuit in Ohio follows weeks of jockeying between the activists, the trade group, and elected officials over the process for gathering and approving signatures...While the ongoing dispute focuses on the technical procedures involved in winning space on the state ballot, the clash is really about the cost of medicines...pharmaceutical industry...strongly opposes any efforts to impose price caps or encourage negotiations over prices...

According to URAC (Utilization Review Accreditation Commission), an independent accreditor that establishes benchmarks and standards for pharmacy practice, any "duly licensed pharmacy in good standing within the jurisdiction of its practice that has at least 1 retail location handling prescription intake and dispensing as well as providing and reporting outcomes on medication therapy management and drug therapy management is the type of organization that applies for URAC Community Pharmacy accreditation."...To earn this accreditation, CVS/pharmacy underwent a rigorous evaluation that validated the quality of the patient care and services it provides, including medication therapy management, wellness services, patient counseling and education, and preventive and chronic disease management...community pharmacy standards assessed by URAC include quality measures reporting, quality management and performance oversight, and pharmacy structure, operations, and drug utilization management..."Having a widely recognized and respected accreditation organization such as URAC independently scrutinize our operation and attest to the quality of the pharmacy care and services we provide demonstrates our continued commitment to helping people on their path to better health as a leader in the healthcare industry," Josh Flum, senior vice president of retail pharmacy at CVS Caremark..."Other URAC Pharmacy Quality Management accreditation programs include specialty pharmacy, mail service pharmacy, drug therapy management, pharmacy benefit management, and workers’ compensation pharmacy benefit management.

Moody's Investors Service has reduced its outlook from positive to stable for both the pharmaceutical and medical device industries...The ratings agency...cited multiple headwinds, topped by two impacting both sectors. The strong dollar is reducing company sales outside the U.S., and insurers and other payers are pressing manufacturers to reduce prices in the U.S. and many other countries...Drugmakers also have been hurt by slower-than-expected uptake for many drugs anticipated to eventually produce annual sales in the billions, excepting a new generation of cancer drugs which stimulate the immune system. That's mainly because insurers and some foreign government health programs have been limiting or delaying patient access to new products that cost tens of thousands of dollars a year or more...Moody's...expects growth in earnings...will be 3 percent to 4 percent, down from 4 percent to 5 percent.

Government letters informing doctors they're prescribing vastly more addictive drugs than their peers fall on deaf ears...The doctors...were all writing far more prescriptions for drugs like opioid painkillers than doctors in similar specialties practicing nearby - but the letters didn't lead to changes in prescribing...I think if there is a way to make these letters effective it may be one tool in the arsenal to curb the high rate of opioid deaths...

Among their list of responsibilities, pharmacists serve as an important member of an interdisciplinary care team to protect patient health and safety while minimizing costs...Existing literature shows that by communicating recommendations to prescribing doctors, pharmacists can help to measurably reduce costs, control chronic diseases like hypertension, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia, and improve patient outcomes...The prevalence of prescribing doctors acting upon pharmacist recommendations has been previously studied, with results ranging anywhere from 31% to 81%. Most assessments find that a pharmacist’s recommendation succeeds in modifying a doctor’s prescription about 50% of the time...Doctors are more likely to accept pharmacist recommendations intended to save costs (versus safety or guideline adherence), and they are more likely to accept recommendations to change or stop a medication (50%) than they are to start a new medication (41.7%)...

An increasing number of states are granting physician assistants more autonomy to increase access to patients amid a shortage of doctors and an influx of patients with health insurance under the Affordable Care Act...states are removing bureaucratic barriers that in the past led to redundant tasks or slowed the ability of patients to get the care they needed...for example, Gov. Chris Christie...signed into law legislation that removed the so-called "countersignature requirement," which previously required the PAs’ collaborating physician to countersign all medical orders...lawmakers passing such legislation say they are essentially granting physician assistants the ability to do what they are trained to do. Most have a two-year master’s degree, often from a program that runs about two years and includes three years of healthcare training...PAs are being granted "full prescriptive authority," which will allow them to write prescriptions for controlled substances. Legislation is wending its way through the Florida legislature that would make the state the 49th to have the ability to write such prescriptions.

Health apps, like prescription drugs, come with side effects, it turns out...an astoundingly large number of health apps may be sharing users’ medical information. Many can also switch on smartphone cameras and make changes to the software on your phone...More than 80 percent of the 211 diabetes apps studied did not have privacy policies. And out of a randomly selected subset of 65 apps, 56 of them used tracking cookies, which could allow them to send information about the user to other companies, such as marketing firms...sharing or selling of personal information could lead to discrimination. Users with certain medical profiles...could have a tougher time getting life insurance...The apps are not bound by HIPAA...They are free to trade, sell, and use the information in any way that they want...There’s a lot more than blood glucose tracking on these apps...the fine-print permissions that all users have to accept before downloading a diabetes app, they found that 17 percent asked to track the user’s location, 11 percent sought to switch on the smartphone camera, and 64 percent requested the ability to delete or modify information anywhere on the user’s phone...Most health apps are completely unregulated. If you don’t want your information shared or the memory on your phone tampered with, be very careful about which apps you choose to download.

...the pharmacy job market took its steepest nosedive in 10 years, according to data collected by the Pharmacy Workforce Center...this drop was observed in every region of the country...More than half of the United States currently has a surplus of pharmacists, meaning the number of pharmacists looking for jobs outweigh the number of jobs available. This information comes from the Pharmacy Workforce Center’s January 2016 newsletter, which reflects the most recently collected data from November 2015...Information about the pharmacy job market is submitted confidentially by employer panelists on a monthly basis and collected as part of an ongoing project...let’s be clear about the source of the problem. There are too many pharmacy schools and they are graduating too many students. There is no mechanism for slowing down pharmacy school multiplication aside from the natural forces of supply and demand. Neither the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy nor the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy have any tool to stop the proliferation of pharmacy schools...what this means for the future of pharmacy is lower wages, poorer working conditions, patient safety concerns, and fewer jobs. What we’re seeing is not unlike what other fields such as the legal profession have undergone...It would be great if pharmacy schools would come together and mutually agree to reduce their enrollment, but that’s unlikely...