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Blair Green Thielemier, PharmD…specializes in marketing and implementing new clinical services, such as Medication Therapy Management, in community retail pharmacies. Blair helps to identify opportunities for clinical services, increase workflow efficiency and train pharmacy staff members to offer these services in a sustainable, systematized way…Part D Enhanced Medication Therapy Management model will test methods of optimizing medication use and improving care coordination among Medicare Part D beneficiaries in hopes of finding the most effective ways to attain the objectives of MTM programs. CMS is granting basic, stand-alone prescription drug plans the flexibility to design enhanced MTM programs that include interventions beyond the traditional approach. (podcast 29:19)

Michigan health professionals said… the state's recommendations for curbing prescription drug abuse are on the right track, particularly the call for overhauling or replacing the current prescription monitoring program…The…Michigan Prescription Drug and Opioid Abuse Task Force…released a report with about three dozen recommendations. They included a revamped, stricter prescription monitoring program, more training for physicians and an increase in the number of drug addiction treatment specialists in the state…CEO of the Michigan Pharmacists Association…said it was important to develop regulations around the state's automated prescription service, called MAPS. The system is currently not mandated and has had technical issues in the past…Recommendations for updating or replacing the system as well as requiring all licensed prescribers to register were key…

For those concerned about the rising cost of pharmaceuticals, Congress is proposing some relief. The two-year budget deal proposed by lawmakers this week unexpectedly includes a provision that would require generic drug makers to pay additional rebates to state Medicaid programs for any medicine that increases in price faster than the inflation rate…The cost of new medicines for hard-to-treat diseases, such as cancer and hepatitis C, worry public and private payers, who call them budget busters. And there is growing outrage at companies such as Valeant Pharmaceuticals and...Turing Pharmaceuticals for buying drugs and then boosting the prices to sky-high levels.

...Valeant Pharmaceuticals finally explained its complex interactions with Philidor RX Services, a so-called “specialty pharmacy” that has a previously-undisclosed financial relationship with Valeant...Valeant has been labeled the “Enron of the pharmaceutical industry,” although I don’t know if any of the alleged shenanigans are true…the controversy has tarred the entire specialty pharmacy industry along with manufacturers’ legitimate specialty pharmacy relationships…Philidor RX is not a specialty pharmacy. I also suggest what the Valeant-Philidor relationship could mean for payer surveillance of manufacturers’ copay offset programs…I believe (hope?) that over time, everyone will recognize the differences between a true specialty pharmacy and a company such as Philidor...expect greater scrutiny of manufacturers’ specialty channel strategies. Smaller independent specialty pharmacies should also expect greater oversight, as manufacturers and payers work to validate the business operations of their trading partners.

Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. agreed to acquire Rite Aid Corp. for about $9.4 billion in cash… The…deal…would combine the second- and third-largest drugstore chains in the U.S., with a total of about 12,800 locations, helping Walgreens vault past market leader CVS Health Corp. The acquisition will… will produce more than $1 billion in savings from cost overlaps…the deal is valued at $17.2 billion… Rite Aid shares fell 8.1 percent to $7.97 at 9:55 a.m. in New York, below Walgreens’ offer of $9 a share, reflecting speculation that the transaction will face antitrust scrutiny…Walgreens shares slumped 6.6 percent to $88.90. The deal creates financial savings but does little to change the drugstore chain’s strategic position in the rapidly evolving health-care industry…

Food and Drug Administration warned Novartis AG last week after the Swiss firm was found in violation of manufacturing practices last year at two of its India drug-making plants…The warning, issued to Novartis's generic drugs unit Sandoz on Oct. 22, came after FDA officials inspected its Turbhe and Kalwa sites in western India…The FDA has banned more than 30 drug manufacturing plants in India since 2013, as it ramps up inspections of foreign facilities that supply to the United States. Several of India's largest drugmakers have faced rebukes, hurting the reputation of the industry, an important supplier of cheap generics.

Novartis agreed to pay about $390 million to wrap up federal kickback claims before the $3.3 billion case went to trial. The Justice Department and a number of U.S. states had sought up to $3.4 billion in damages in the case, which zeroed in on the Swiss drugmaker's relationships with specialty pharmacies…settlement, together with other one-time charges, knocked down Novartis' third-quarter net income, which declined to $1.8 billion…Novartis offered special deals to pharmacies to boost prescriptions of its transplant drug Myfortic (mycophenolic acid) in a head-to-head competition with Roche's CellCept (mycophenolate mofetil). The drugmaker set up another scheme to increase refills of its iron chelation drug Exjade (deferasirox)…

The Leapfrog Group has released the second round of its bi-annual hospital safety scores, which show “sluggish” improvement in patient safety among the nation's hospitals…Despite some improvement…hospitals are performing worse in critical areas like the rate of foreign objects left in a patient after surgery and other critical measures that cause hospital acquired conditions. But 133 hospitals, about 5% of all graded facilities, have earned an A, the highest grade, in every score since spring 2012.

Bloomberg's Cynthia Koons reports on earnings for big pharmaceuticals.

Rite Aid had a market value of about $6.4 billion before news reports of merger talks...Walgreens Boots Allianceis near a deal to buy Rite Aid....potentially uniting two of the country’s biggest drugstore chains…meaning a takeover could be worth more than $8 billion after a likely premium from Walgreens. Rite Aid also has $7.4 billion of debt…would create a new pharmacy giant with heightened influence with drug makers, pharmacy benefit managers and others in the health care industry.