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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.

The 2014 study found that between 1999 and 2010, states with medical cannabis laws had a nearly 25% lower average rate of opioid overdose deaths than states without such laws. Much has changed since 2010 — 34 states have now legalized medical marijuana and the number of opioid overdose deaths was six times higher in 2017 than it was in 1999 — so Stanford University researchers decided to replicate the original study...But when they expanded the time frame through 2017, the association between medical marijuana laws and opioid overdose deaths reversed: States with medical marijuana laws had average rates of opioid overdose deaths that were nearly 23% higher than those without these laws...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

William Husel voluntarily surrendered to authorities in Columbus and was charged in 25 deaths following a six-month investigation by the Franklin County Prosecutor's Office. The patient deaths exposed a stunning case of medical oversight and alleged medical malpractice, and called into question how repeated failures potentially involving 30 or more employees could have gone unchecked for so long...Husel faces 15 years to life in prison per count if convicted. O'Brien said that the doses ordered by the doctor in the 25 deaths "could not support any legitimate medical purpose." Although nurses and pharmacists followed Husel's orders, the doctor remains the main focus of the criminal investigation...Also named in the various civil suits are the Mount Carmel Health System and some pharmacists and nurses. What remains unclear is how Husel could circumvent apparent rules that would require him to order medications through an in-house pharmacy team and then convince a nurse to administer the drug...READ MORE

Despite significant improvements in the number of insured adults and children, Nevada ranked 48th in the nation for overall health care in a 2019 scorecard released by the Commonwealth Fund...The report scored the Silver State at 50th for access and affordability, 51st for prevention and treatment, 38th for avoidable hospital use and cost and 39th for the healthiness of its residents’ lifestyles. The only category in which the state outperformed the national average was in health care disparities — the gap between the level of care received between lower- and higher-income residents — at 24th...READ MORE

As rural hospital closures roil the country, some states are banking on a Trump administration proposal to change the way hospital payments are calculated to rescue them...The goal of the proposal, unveiled by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma...is to bump up Medicare’s reimbursements to rural hospitals, some of which receive the lowest rates in the nation...By law, any proposed changes in the calculation of Medicare payments must be budget-neutral; in other words, the federal government can’t spend more money than previously allocated. That would mean any change would have a Robin Hood-like effect: increasing payments to some hospitals and decreasing them to others...READ MORE

A federal judge...tossed the convictions of a co-owner and former employee of a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy accused of conspiring to help it evade regulatory oversight before its drugs caused a deadly 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak...U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns in Boston ruled that New England Compounding Center co-owner Gregory Conigliaro and former employee Sharon Carter did not have fair warning their actions could subject them to prosecution...Jurors convicted Conigliaro and Carter of conspiring to defraud the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by misleading it into thinking NECC was operating like a conventional pharmacy and not like a drug manufacturer...State-regulated compounding pharmacies produce customized drugs pursuant to patient-specific prescriptions to address individual needs. But prosecutors said NECC was actually a drug manufacturer making medications in bulk...READ MORE

Woodcock is director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. She sat down with BioPharma Dive...for a wide-ranging interview that touched on accelerated approvals, emerging clinical trial designs and her long-term concerns for the agency...

• Renewed debate over accelerated approval
• An adaptive future for clinical trials
• Optimism on continuous manufacturing

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A unit of Insys Therapeutics Inc pleaded guilty...to fraud charges as part of an $225 million deal with the U.S. Justice Department resolving claims that the drugmaker bribed doctors to prescribe an addictive opioid medication...The plea...by the Chandler, Arizona-based Insys’ operating subsidiary, came in one of the few criminal prosecutions to date of a corporation accused of helping fuel the nation’s deadly opioid epidemic...Insys is facing growing financial pressures as a result of the U.S. probe and a decline in sales of its flagship fentanyl pain product, Subsys, which it has said could prompt the company to seek bankruptcy protection...Beyond the plea by subsidiary Insys Pharma Inc, Insys has also entered into a five-year deferred prosecution agreement with the government and agreed to pay $30 million in the criminal case and $195 million to resolve civil claims...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.