Category:

...the governor of Massachusetts signed legislation that includes language recognizing pharmacists as health care providers in the state...The new law, S.2984: An Act Promoting a Resilient Health Care System That Puts Patients First, not only expands scope of practice for certain health care providers, but also increases insurance coverage for telehealth services...“This is a culmination of nearly a decade of advocating for pharmacists and their profession in our state,” said Massachusetts Pharmacists Association President Maureen Judkins, PharmD...READ MORE

A new Vizient report highlights trends in drug pricing for pharmaceutical products used across multiple health system settings...Drug price increases remain prevalent in the oncology and rheumatology therapeutic areas, while use of other high-cost drugs appears to have surged in light of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. However, the report also points to an overall trend toward moderation of price increases and the projected effects of biosimilar and generic competition in the marketplace...According to the report, Vizient projects a 2.67% increase in the price of pharmaceuticals purchased by health systems, academic medical centers, pediatric hospitals, and non-acute practices during this time frame...READ MORE

Scientists gave Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine the green light...saying it was almost 92% effective in fighting COVID-19 based on peer-reviewed late-stage trial results published in The Lancet international medical journal...The results, collated by the Gamaleya Institute in Moscow that developed and tested the vaccine, were in line with efficacy data reported at earlier stages of the trial, which has been running in Moscow since September...READ MORE

The U.S. Department of Justice is set to recover more than $3 billion this year from pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers as well as healthcare providers, labs and pharmacies found guilty of healthcare fraud under the False Claims Act. That figure is based upon settlements that were agreed to but not finalized before the end of 2020, and are the direct result of the DoJ’s investigation into the opioid epidemic...READ MORE

It didn’t take long before a morale boost for AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine was overshadowed by disappointment over its waned protection against a newly emerged coronavirus variant...A new study has found AZ’s COVID-19 shot offered “minimal protection” against mild to moderate disease caused by the B.1.351 variant, which was first identified in South Africa, the University of Oxford, the original developer of the vaccine, said...READ MORE

New coronavirus variants have prompted COVID-19 vaccine makers to start developing updates to their existing offerings. To speed their journey to a pandemic-fatigued public, the FDA says it’s developing expedited review rules for the follow-up shots...The FDA’s working on guidance for the types of data needed to support changes to COVID-19 vaccines. The new rules would provide for “streamlined clinical programs” that can demonstrate an immune response to new variants and “can be executed quickly,” FDA’s acting commissioner, Janet Woodcock, said in a statement...READ MORE

McKinsey & Company, the consultant to blue-chip corporations and governments around the world, has agreed to pay nearly $600 million to settle investigations into its role in helping “turbocharge” opioid sales, a rare instance of it being held publicly accountable for its work with clients...The firm has reached a $573 million agreement with attorneys general in 47 states, the District of Columbia and five territories, according to a court filing in Massachusetts on Thursday. Separate deals were announced in Washington State, for $13 million, and in West Virginia, for $10 million...The settlements come after lawsuits unearthed a trove of documents showing how McKinsey worked to drive sales of Purdue Pharma’s OxyContin painkiller...READ MORE

What's the rationale behind COVID-19 vaccine and drug prices? You don’t have a need to know—or so say a couple of the leading contenders...Two major players in the pandemic fight, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, are urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to forestall shareholder resolutions that would require them to disclose how they set prices on their COVID-19 vaccines...Several not-for-profit groups are pushing the two companies—along with fellow pharmas Eli Lilly, Gilead, Merck & Co. and Regeneron—for information on their drug and vaccine pricing decisions, citing the federal money all have received, either for supplies, R&D or manufacturing scale-up. Or all three...READ MORE

With Novavax and Johnson & Johnson data now in hand, the world has efficacy numbers on at least five COVID-19 vaccine programs. That's plenty for analysts to parse—and they're busy doing not only that, but also sizing up the market as the field of top players grows...The upshot? Blockbuster sales to go around, but Pfizer and Moderna will continue to lead the pack, partly thanks to their ability to quickly deploy mRNA against new variants. And for Moderna, at least, that means almost $14 billion in projected sales just this year from one team of analysts...READ MORE

The data is continuing to come in on the various COVID-19 variants, and so far the news is pretty good. Pfizer and BioNTech announced that their COVID-19 vaccine appears effective against an engineered virus developed with three key mutations found in the South African variant. This was conducted in a laboratory test by Pfizer and the University of Texas Medical Branch...the data has not yet been peer-reviewed, it demonstrated a less than two-fold decrease in antibody titer levels. The bottom line is that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is likely effective in neutralizing the E484K and N501Y mutations found in the South African variant...READ MORE