Category:

National Association of Specialty Pharmacy (NASP) Executive Director James E. Smeeding, RPh, MBA, discusses the relationship between specialty pharmacies and accountable care organizations.

LinkedIn's professional social network appeals to business people, networkers and recruiters, but also to industries that tend to be more cautious on social media. Welcome, pharma...Healthcare, overall, and pharma is definitely on the developmental side of the LinkedIn spectrum...from an advertising perspective...But over the past three years, we've seen a huge growth in having these companies consider LinkedIn as a channel...Many drugmakers have taken a first step, usually by setting up a company page where drugmakers can build up followers and create an audience with employees, colleagues and associates. But pharmas are increasingly using LinkedIn for paid sponsorships and advertising. Sponsored updates and InMail campaigns are beginning to move from testing to a repeat marketing strategy among pharmas...InMail, in which sponsored messages are sent directly to targeted LinkedIn members inboxes, tends to be "safe" for pharma because email bypasses any open comment possibilities...I think there are a lot of opportunities for pharma companies to be the leader and the innovator across their competitive set...Professionals on LinkedIn are connected to peers, colleagues and managers so the platform allows for that much more engagement. You're not hiding behind a handle or showing pictures of family, this is your professional brand...

Hospital says MH-CURE offers care teams secure, access to all clinical communications, pertinent patient information and lab data...Patient care teams at Yale-New Haven Hospital, looking for a faster, more efficient and more secure way to communicate with each other in the emergency room, have adopted smartphone applications to speed up workflows. Eventually, the hospital bucked its traditional methods, which included a public address system and a VOIP wireless phone system, turned to MH-CURE – for Clinical Urgent Response – a smartphone application from Waltham, Massachusetts-based Mobile Heartbeat...MH-CURE offers care teams secure, single smartphone access to all clinical communications, pertinent patient information and lab data. Care team members have a choice of using their own smartphone or sharing hospital-supplied devices. It consolidates clinical communications, including alarms and notifications, pertinent patient information, lab data, texting, voice and photography...Results revealed that the amount of time required for clinicians to locate and transmit information to one another was greatly reduced, allowing staff to spend more time with patients and thus provide better patient care...

Not to be left on the sidelines, several pharma companies took to the airwaves Sunday for the biggest ad show of the year, also known as the Super Bowl. With one of the largest consumer audiences on TV, dozens of advertisers jockey to get their messages in the game, this year at an estimated $5 million per 30 seconds...Valeant Pharmaceuticals nabbed two spots, one for its IBS-D fighter Xifaxan and another for anti-fungal cream Jublia...AstraZeneca ran an unbranded :60 spot addressing opioid-induced constipation, encouraging people to talk to their doctors "and ask about prescription treatment options." The ad included a callout to the website OICisdifferent.com...However, just being in the Bowl doesn't guarantee success with the cheese dip and beer-drinking crowd. In the all-important social conversation around the game, pharma spots ranked in the middle of the pack or even lower...AZ's OIC spot ranked highest among the pharma group at No. 28 for total social impressions, garnering more than 26 million by mid-Monday morning. Xifaxan, which debuted a follow up to its current campaign with new creative in which the 'Gut Guy' races to the restroom at a football game, ranked No. 54. Jublia continued its celebrity star theme...ranked No. 68...

Drugmakers, long reliant on using DTC ads to drive patients into doctor's offices, should rethink that strategy...The marketing model used to be big and bold out of the gate on day one...the industry is starting to challenge that model...The consumerization of healthcare is king, not the consumer...if a patient today requests a new drug or tries to refill an old one, that request may face more resistance from physicians with differing views about a specific medication or from payers that give certain medications preferred status on their formularies than it would have in the past...This raises questions about the effectiveness of traditional branded pharmaceutical advertising campaigns, which perform best in a market where the drug is broadly available...About 47% of Americans ask their doctor questions about a drug, while 30% ask the pharmacist. Nearly half of respondents—43%—say that their pharmacist always or frequently recommends an alternative brand or type of medication in order to reduce out-of-pocket costs...The role of the pharmacist in a formulary driven world is becoming far more dominant...The pharmacist is becoming as good a choice for health counsel...Marketers are seeing a need to better communicate with the pharmacist...

CVS Health...posted $41.1 billion for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, up 11%. For the year, CVS took in $153.3 billion, an increase of 10%...We enjoyed a successful year in 2015, highlighted by excellent performance across our enterprise and two key acquisitions that support our strategy for growth...We grew our core business with the acquisition of Target’s pharmacies and clinics and expanded our reach with the acquisition of Omnicare, the leader in long-term care pharmacy. At the same time, we achieved solid year-over-year growth in revenues, operating profit and earnings per share...We continue to win and gain share across our businesses...outstanding PBM selling season we had for 2016, with gross client wins of $14.8 billion. Our growth in the...specialty market continues to outpace the industry...the year total net revenues in the Pharmacy Services segment increased 13.5% to $100.4 billion...

A medical advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration...recommended approval of a cheaper biosimilar form of Johnson & Johnson's Remicade (infliximab) arthritis drug that could eventually batter sales of the branded product...The panel, by a vote of 21-3, supported use of the biosimilar from Celltrion Inc and Pfizer Inc, called Remsima. The FDA usually, but not always, follows the advice of its advisory panels...The independent panel determined that clinical trials of Remsima showed no clinically significant differences with Remicade in treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and a related condition called ankylosing spondylitis...Moreover, the panel agreed Remsima is likely as safe and effective for other conditions Remicade treats, including psoriasis and inflammatory bowel conditions like Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, even though Remsima was not tested against those conditions.

Walgreens...announced the launch of a new effort to combat drug abuse, introducing two programs that address contributors to the crisis.

1. ...Walgreens will install safe medication disposal kiosks in more than 500 drug stores in 39 states and Washington, D.C., primarily at locations open 24 hours. The program will make the disposal of medications — including opioids and other controlled substances — easier and more convenient while helping to reduce the misuse of medications and the rise in overdose deaths.
2. Walgreens also will make naloxone...available without a prescription at its pharmacies in 35 states and Washington, D.C., rolling out the program state-by-state throughout this year.

Declines in the value of the Egyptian pound coupled with a shortage of foreign exchange have made it harder for Egyptian pharmaceutical companies to import active ingredients they need to make generic medicines millions of poor Egyptians rely on...Though medicines are classed as essential goods, putting them high on the priority list at banks deciding how to allocate precious dollar rations, pharmaceutical companies say they still face serious problems that force them to slow or pause production...A weaker currency has also made it more expensive to import raw materials while the price of finished medicines is fixed by the Health Ministry, forcing manufacturers to stop making some cheap generic medicines to staunch growing financial losses...

U.S.-based health insurers Cigna Corp and Aetna Inc have struck deals with Novartis AG for a performance-based price for the Swiss drugmaker's new heart drug, Entresto...The agreements are among the few performance-based deals that have been made public by drugmakers and managed-care companies, which say they have been having more discussions about linking price to health outcomes in order to cut unneeded drug spending...Under the agreement, Cigna said its payments to Novartis will be linked to how well the drug improves the relative health of Cigna customers...Entresto (sacubitril/valsartan) is approved for the treatment of chronic heart failure...Cigna said payments will be based on a reduction in the proportion of customers who are admitted to hospital for heart failure...Aetna...said it signed a value-based agreement with Novartis that is based on the drug replicating results that it achieved during clinical trials. In trials, Entresto cut hospitalizations and the rate of cardiovascular death related to heart failure...Epstein (David Epstein, head of pharmaceuticals, Novartis)...said that under the deals, Novartis had agreed to a base price and a modest rebate, which would fluctuate based on hospitalizations and savings to the plan...