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AstraZeneca is not the first company to employ questionable tax-planning strategies, and it certainly won't be the last. But the U.K.-based drugmaker is the latest poster child for tax avoidance…AstraZeneca funneled billions of dollars into the Netherlands to get out of paying corporate taxes back home…AstraZeneca set up a Dutch lending operation and channeled $2.7 billion of internal group loans through its Dutch subsidiaries, charging interest of more than $140 million a year…then registered huge tax breaks in the U.K. and the Netherlands through a process known as "double dipping," or claiming a deduction on the same payment twice…result, the company did not pay corporation tax in the U.K. even though it posted global profits of $4.5 billion in 2013 and 2014.

Without more transparency on how such financial decisions are made…Americans may be doomed to see more generics zoom up in price… under the terms of my insurance with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island, it will cost me $85.54. That’s a 232% price increase for…a drug that has been on the market for about 90 years… Americans spend significantly more for prescription medications than do citizens of any other developed nation. We do so directly, through higher prescription costs, and indirectly, as high drug costs drive up our insurance premiums and our taxes, via higher Medicaid and Medicare costs…negotiations between the industry and insurers feature "no transparency"…The bad news? The situation could get worse, and affect more drugs, more insurance companies and more consumers, as consolidation in the pharmaceutical industry reduces the number of potential rivals in the generic drug field.

Joe Moose, the 2015 Willard B. Simmons Independent Pharmacist of the Year winner..The independent pharmacist and co-owner of Moose’s Pharmacy in Concord, N.C., was honored at the convention’s first general session…with the award…One of Moose’s notable achievements is his role as the lead community pharmacy coordinator for Community Care of North Carolina, which came about as the result of his involvement in a $15 million grant from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, which supports pilot programs aimed at improving outcomes and lowering costs…Joe Moose is at the forefront of efforts to make independent community pharmacies an integral part of a more coordinated and efficient health care delivery system…

Nick Gentile, Director of State Grassroots Advocacy and Political Action for ASHP, discusses how compounding laws vary from state to state.

There is a rich potential to identify health trends…Mining patients' social media data could provide enormous insight into overall health outcomes…By handling social media posts much like big data, it just may be possible to link social media posts to health outcomes…If patients consent to sharing this data, a research database could be created, comparable to that of genomic databases. This database could be used by researchers to better understand the relationship between certain patients and their health.

…mass merchandiser pharmacies offer opportunities to provide patient care that may not be available to those in hospitals or smaller retail pharmacies…gives you a huge patient population to tap into…you really have a great opportunity to impact the lives of those customers…This setting is ideal for pharmacists who truly enjoy interacting with patients and being a resource for health information…we can walk the grocery department with our diabetic patients and discuss the impact their diet has on their blood sugar…mass merchandiser provides a holistic approach to the practice of pharmacy and overall health care…Do not think of a career with a mass merchandiser as a production facility or assembly line meant to mass-produce prescriptions…Remember that each prescription is tied to a person, not a number or a process.

QS/1 this week launched SharpRx...pharmacy management software…brings touchscreen capability and an intuitive design and layout…SharpRx gives small chain and independent pharmacies a more efficient way to fill prescriptions and bill third-party insurance, in turn enabling faster customer service…allowing pharmacists to quickly navigate through the system…to do everyday tasks as quickly as possible…

The government’s "utopian" plan for a seven-day NHS (National Health Service) is doomed to failure due to a lack of doctors, money and diagnostic testing services…This idealised...NHS where you can have seven-day services, access to care seven days a week…sounds brilliant, but I suppose the best predictor of future performance is past performance…need as many as 40% more hospital doctors…if it was to provide full emergency care services at weekends…We are overstretched, overstressed and overloaded, and ministers are out of touch if they think that routine seven-day services are achievable with the current resource and workforce pressures facing our profession…

Marc O'Connor, chief operating officer of Curant Health, discusses methods Curant uses to maintain adherence to specialty drug regimens.

1. Johnson & Johnson
2. Pfizer
3. Novartis
4. Merck & Co.
5. Roche Holding
6. Sanofi
7. Bayer
8. GlaxoSmithKline
9. Amgen
10. McKesson
11. Gilead Sciences
12. Teva Pharmaceuticals Inds.
13. AstraZeneca
14. Abbott Laboratories
15. Eli Lilly & Co.