Category:

President Donald Trump said that Americans in the Medicare program for the elderly and disabled will be sent $200 discount cards for prescription drugs within weeks, potentially putting cash in their pockets ahead of his November re-election...Assuming they are sent to 33 million Medicare beneficiaries, the figure Trump used, the cards would cost about $6.6 billion...Money for the cards will be drawn from a demonstration program Medicare uses to test new payment systems and other projects, and the cost will be offset by future savings generated from new price cuts Trump has ordered for drugs bought by Medicare, according to a White House official. The cards can be used for prescription drugs co-pays, the official said, but didn’t elaborate...READ MORE

The US Food and Drug Administration... is expected to issue new, tougher requirements for its approval of a coronavirus vaccine, a move that could obliterate the chances of a shot getting emergency use authorization before Election Day...Regulators could publish the new approval standards as early as this week, and will do so publicly in an effort to bolster Americans' eroded trust in the US to ensure the safety a COVID-19 vaccine...President Trump and his Operation Warp Speed initiative have been pushing for months to have a coronavirus vaccine approved ahead of the November 3...READ MORE

Computer vision company Gauss teamed up with biotechnology company Cellex to develop a rapid, at-home and point-of-care COVID-19 antigen test...While there are other at-home COVID-19 diagnostic tests available, at least two companies are working on rapid antigen tests that can be performed by people at home without involving a laboratory...The Gauss and Cellex test has not yet gained Food and Drug Administration approval. The companies are pushing for FDA Emergency Use Authorization some time this fall...READ MORE

Safe and effective vaccines represent the most effective way to restore the health and economic security disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. To help achieve that goal, the U.S. government launched Operation Warp Speed...to accelerate development and manufacturing of several Covid-19 vaccines, with a goal of having 300 million doses available to the U.S. population by January 2021...Operation Warp Speed is expediting vaccine development primarily by moving clinical trials forward without pauses between phases, and by scaling up manufacturing capacity before knowing if a candidate works...Covid-19 vaccines can help stop the pandemic only if people trust them and want to be vaccinated. To earn and keep the trust of the American people, our government needs to ensure three key needs are met before launching any immunization campaign...READ MORE

• Ensure transparency and confidence in FDA decisions
• Ensure robust active safety monitoring as Covid-19 vaccines are rolled out
• Ensure the distribution and administration of Covid-19 vaccines are equitable and well-executed

U.S. President Donald Trump said...he may or may not approve any new, more stringent FDA standards for an emergency authorization of a COVID-19 vaccine, saying such a proposal would appear political...The Washington Post reported on Tuesday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would issue the guidance to boost transparency and public trust as health experts have become increasingly concerned the Trump administration might be interfering in the approval process to rush out a vaccine...READ MORE

Pharmacist remuneration models in ever-evolving healthcare settings must be examined if global health is to be supported...“A common concern among pharmacy associations worldwide is the long-term financial viability of professional services delivered by pharmacists. These concerns are first and foremost triggered by the impacts of continued price and margin cuts in dispensing of medicines and the non-allocation of funding in many settings for extended professional services and social care,”...“A successful remuneration model is one that promotes sustainable delivery of professional services. These should be integrated into broader health system strategies and, therefore, funding plans...READ MORE

CVS Health is planning to double the number of its drive-thru testing sites by mid-October, the healthcare giant announced...CVS intends to add more than 2,000 sites at its pharmacies in the next several weeks, bringing its total to more than 4,000 nationwide. The new locations will be opened in waves, beginning with 400 new sites opening on Friday...READ MORE

Goals to support the transformation of the pharmacy profession around the world are launched today by FIP...The FIP Development Goals build on 13 Pharmaceutical Workforce Development Goals for pharmacy education developed by the federation in 2016. Additions have been made to these 13 goals and eight new goals have been developed, providing a total of 21 goals relevant to fields of practice and science as well as to workforce and education...READ MORE

The new goals cover:

• Medicines expertise
• People-centred care
• Communicable diseases
• Antimicrobial stewardship
• Access to medicines, devices & services
• Patient safety
• Digital health
• Sustainability in pharmacy

Any way you look at it, the numbers related to coronavirus vaccine candidates in development are impressive. In less than nine months, researchers have advanced 180 experimental coronavirus vaccines at least into preclinical testing. Thirty-five of those candidates are now in clinical studies...The field narrows considerably, though, when we look only at vaccine candidates that have made it to late-stage testing. Currently, only three experimental coronavirus vaccines are in phase 3 clinical trials being conducted in the U.S.:

-AstraZeneca
-Pfizer
-Moderna

Here's how these three coronavirus vaccines in phase 3 testing stack up against each other...READ MORE

Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testified...before the U.S. Senate...He noted that although a vaccine against COVID-19 will likely be available and to begin dosing in November or December of this year, it will be limited. Getting the entire U.S. population vaccinated will likely take “six to nine months.”...He also said that face masks are “the most important, powerful public health tool we have.” He added, “I might even go so far as to say that this face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against COVID than when I take a COVID vaccine.”...READ MORE