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After reviewing tens of millions of insurance claims for the country's 49 most popular brand-name prescription drugs, a team from Scripps Research Translational Institute found that net prices rose by a median of 76 percent from January 2012 through December 2017 -- with most products going up once or twice per year...The substantial price increases were not limited to drugs that recently entered the marketplace, as one might expect, or to those lacking generic equivalents. In addition, the increases often were "highly correlated" with price bumps by competitors...READ MORE

The National Association of Chain Drug Stores RxIMPACT program has launched an Action Alert, urging Congress to provide “DIR fee” relief in time to save pharmacies and to reduce seniors’ out-of-pocket drug costs...pharmacy advocates are contacting U.S. Senators and members of the U.S. House of Representatives to build support for the Phair Pricing Act (H.R. 1034/S. 640). The bill would do what a recent Medicare rule left undone: providing relief from abusive pharmacy direct and indirect remuneration fees. The goal is to assure this is part of a drug-pricing bill that is enacted soon...“If our government is serious about stopping this unacceptable treatment of pharmacies, about reducing patients’ drug costs at the pharmacy counter, and about reducing overall healthcare costs, then they need to close this loophole and end the abuses of pharmacy DIR fees now,” said NACDS president and chief executive officer Steven Anderson...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.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd said...it had agreed to pay an $85 million settlement with the state of Oklahoma days before the company was set to face trial over allegations that it and other drugmakers helped fuel the U.S. opioid epidemic...Claims against Teva focused on the branded opioid products Actiq and Fentora as well as generic painkillers it produced...The trial...was set to begin on Tuesday...Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter has alleged that J&J and Teva, along with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP, carried out deceptive marking campaigns that downplayed opioids’ addictive risks while overstating their benefits...READ MORE

Illicit chemical knock-offs of the extremely potent opioid fentanyl would be put permanently in the same legal class as heroin to boost prosecutions of traffickers and makers of the drugs, under a proposal to be unveiled...by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration...The new classification is meant to help fight a proliferation of chemical look-alikes of fentanyl, known as analogues...DEA Acting Chief Operations Officer Greg Cherundolo is set to go before a Senate committee...to propose that Congress make the measure permanent so that cases against various analogues will not be undercut when the temporary ban lapses...READ MORE

Colorado passed a new law to help slow down the ongoing opioid epidemic in the United States. Instead of giving an opioid prescription, doctors can instead recommend the use of medical marijuana to alleviate symptoms of their conditions...A bill that allows doctors to prescribe medical marijuana to patients instead of opioid has been signed into law in Colorado....Governor Jared Polis signed Senate Bill 13, which aims to help curb opioid addiction. The law will be effective starting Aug. 12...READ MORE

The Canadian government has assured the pharmaceutical industry that new features of its plan to cut drug costs would apply only to new medicines, Health Canada said…The new features of the government’s proposed regulations, which would take into account cost-effectiveness of medicines and their likely impact on government budgets, would be limited to new drugs, Health Canada told Innovative Medicines Canada and BIOTECanada, the patented drug industry’s main lobby groups...The original cost-benefit analysis estimated the new regulations would cost drugmakers C$8.6 billion ($6.4 billion) over 10 years. As an alternative to the proposed changes, drugmakers offered to voluntarily give up C$8.6 billion in revenue over the same period...Exactly how much the new rules will reduce prices depends on implementation details that have not yet been decided...READ MORE

California, Hawaii, Maine and the District of Columbia filed lawsuits...against the maker of OxyContin (Purdue Pharma) and the company’s former president (Sackler), alleging the firm falsely promoted the drug by downplaying the risk of addiction while it emerged as one of the most widely abused opioids in the U.S...allegations...said the company falsely introduced OxyContin in the 1990s as a safe and effective treatment for chronic pain...However, the California’s lawsuit alleges that Purdue and Sackler knew in 1997 that drugs containing oxycodone...were widely abused. Still, company representatives marketed it as not being addictive and downplayed the potential for abuse, the suit states...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

In a cut-throat, protectionist sort of way, it makes sense that Nevada’s existing medical providers want to handicap new competitors. But that doesn’t mean elected officials should be doing their bidding...Elite Medical Center provides hospital and emergency room services near the Strip. It’s a small facility trying to fill an overlooked niche in the market — tourists. It treats an average of 30 patients a day. It boasts that patients see a doctor within minutes of arrival...Most Las Vegas residents would likely have never heard of it, except its competitors keep attacking the facility. Other hospitals are upset that Elite Medical Center doesn’t accept Medicaid and Medicare as payment methods...But why would hospitals care if a competitor didn’t accept certain payment methods? That would seem like an opportunity to lure those customers...The medical field needs innovation. Nevada won’t get it by stifling providers who dare to do things differently...READ MORE