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The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said...that it will move ahead with a long-delayed expansion of its marijuana research program, in a sign that the Trump administration’s hostility to the drug may be waning as a growing number of states have legalized its use...The DEA said it would roll out new guidelines that would allow more growers to produce marijuana for scientific and medical research…READ MORE

Sen. Chuck Grassley...is demanding a full accounting from Novartis of its investigation into faulty data it submitted to the Food and Drug Administration in seeking approval for the gene therapy Zolgensma...Grassley seeks records from Novartis related to its internal inquiry into the data manipulation, as well as any tied to its decision to delay informing the FDA until after the agency had approved Zolgensma..."Such conduct is reprehensible and could have an adverse effect on patients,"...READ MORE

Laura Joszt, Managing Editor at The American Journal of Managed Care. Welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network

The U.S. Treasury...imposed sanctions on three Chinese men accused of illegally trafficking fentanyl, acting three weeks after President Donald Trump accused Beijing of reneging on pledges to stem a flood of the highly addictive synthetic opioid into the United States...The trio included a father and son indicted in Ohio...on charges of producing and smuggling fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances. The third man was indicted on similar charges in Mississippi...The United States had pressed China to arrest Fujing Zheng and his father, Guanghua Zheng, and Xiaobing Yan since their indictments...The three men were designated as foreign drug kingpins by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control under a law that freezes any property they control in the United States and bars American citizens from doing business with those properties...The three also face penalties ranging from civil fines of up to $1.1 million per violation to more serious criminal penalties...READ MORE

China said...it was relaxing drug laws to give greater leniency to people who import small amounts of medicines unapproved in China but sold legally overseas...Under the previous law, such drugs were classified as “fake drugs”. Those caught importing unapproved medicines were considered drug smugglers and faced heavy penalties...The change is part of wider revisions to drugs laws and authorities said it recognized how some Chinese, unable to afford expensive foreign-made, brand-name drugs, were turning to the grey market to buy cheaper generic versions that had not been approved by local regulators...READ MORE

...let’s follow the prescription dollar to expose how specialty pharmacies and covered entities profit from 340B prescriptions...You’ll see the indisputable prescription math that permits large specialty pharmacies to share in the 340B discounts that covered entities earn. These pharmacies’ profits can be $1,000 per prescription—far exceeding their typical profits from dispensing a third-party-paid prescription...No wonder PBMs and specialty pharmacies are racing to become 340B contract pharmacies!...READ MORE

Nicole Grassano, PTNN, Pharmacy Week in Review, this weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

Five pharmaceutical companies said...they have filed a complaint in a Canadian court challenging the constitutionality of new Canadian regulations meant to lower patented drug prices, setting up a fight with the federal government ahead of an Oct. 21 election...The complaint was filed in Quebec’s Superior Court by the Canadian arms of U.S.-based Merck & Co and Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Inc, Germany’s Bayer AG and Boehringer Ingelheim, and France’s Servier Inc...The filing ratchets up a confrontation between the pharmaceutical industry and the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which has vowed to make affordability a key plank of its election campaign...The new rules will save patients, employers, insurers and government drug plans money, at the expense of drug company profits in Canada...READ MORE

The state of Florida is partnering with the Military Health System to share prescription drug data to help providers in the state combat the risk of prescription drug misuse and abuse among the military population...the MHS prescription drug monitoring program began sharing the prescription drug data and analytics with 39 databases throughout the U.S., with the goal of enabling data-sharing among all 54 PDMPs across the country...Healthcare providers in Florida now have access to controlled substance prescription data from military health providers and facilities...READ MORE

The Nevada Department of Health and Human Services is threatening to levy roughly $20 million in fines on more than two dozen drug manufacturers that have yet to submit cost and profit reports to the state as required by a 2017 law aimed at better understanding the rising costs of treating diabetes...under Nevada law...companies can be assessed a fine of up to $5,000 a day for noncompliance. With 143 days since the manufacturer reports were due on April 1, each company that has yet to submit a report is facing a fine of up to $715,000...READ MORE