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Nicole Crisano, PTNN. This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

After a successful pilot program with Kroger’s pharmacies, Ohio’s prescription drug monitoring program is the first in the United States to offer advanced analytics for pharmacists and health care providers...The State of Ohio Board of Pharmacy is working with Appriss Health, provider of a comprehensive platform for substance use disorder, to enhance the state’s PDMP, known as Ohio Automated Rx Reporting System...The PDMP now provides NarxCare, an advanced analytics and patient support solution, to Ohio prescribers and pharmacists, in clinical workflow and via OARRS, to assist in clinical decision-making and promote patient safety. The analytics are available for free to Ohio healthcare providers and pharmacists accessing OARRS via electronic health records and pharmacy management systems...NarxCare...aggregates and analyzes prescription information from providers and pharmacies...then presents visual, interactive information — as well as advanced analytic insights, complex risk scores...The system also provides tools and resources that support patients’ needs and connects them to treatment, if necessary.

Fentanyl billionaire John Kapoor is set to plead not guilty this morning on charges of racketeering, mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to violate the anti-kickback law...The founder and former CEO and chairman of ...Insys Therapeutics, Kapoor became a billionaire in 2013 because of the skyrocketing sales of that company’s Subsys, a form of the powerful opioid fentanyl that is sprayed under the tongue. He was arrested and charged on October 26 for allegedly leading a conspiracy to use fraud and bribes to market the drug and is set to appear in federal court in Boston...for his arraignment...Prosecutors...allege that Kapoor and six other executives...were arrested and charged...as part of a superseding indictment, offered bribes and kickbacks to doctors and nurses to get them to write large numbers of Subsys subscriptions to patients, most of whom did not have cancer.

Nicole Crisano, PTNN. This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

Trauma surgeons at University Medical Center are spearheading an awareness campaign to train the public on how they can stop someone from bleeding to death if they get shot or stabbed...Called “Stop the Bleed,” it’s part of a national campaign launched by the White House in October 2015. The goal is for people to get trained to help in a bleeding emergency before EMTs arrive at the scene...Doctors credit concertgoers for saving many lives during the Oct. 1 mass shooting by applying pressure on wounds before the victims could get treatment...UMC is offering the program for businesses who want hospital staff to train their employees at their site, along with schools, athletic teams and other groups. There are also sessions where the public can come to UMC for training, he said...“This is for every single person to obtain this training, to the average soccer mom to any construction zone and anybody we already teach CPR,” Fraser (Dr. Douglas Fraser, UMC trauma surgeon) said. “This is a movement, so we’re not relying on 911 in mass incidents. Time is of the essence, and they may not have time to get there. Innocent bystanders can become health care providers in order to stop the bleed right in front of you.”...Kuhls (Dr. Deborah Kuhls, UMC trauma surgeon) said she and others will lobby the Nevada Legislature in the 2019 session to require companies, governments and others to place wall-mounted Stop the Bleed compression kits with special gauze and tourniquets wherever heart defibrillators are placed. Several states have proposed the kits in public facilities, she said.

The FDA has been helping dozens of U.S. drugmakers in Puerto Rico get power and supplies to their plants in the wake of the infrastructure disaster left by hurricanes Irma and Maria. But with a shortage of saline getting worse in the U.S., the FDA is moving three Baxter plants on the island to the front of the line...FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb today said that state and federal authorities have been responsive to its request that a “subset of critical production facilities,” including those plants that manufacture IV saline bags, get priority in getting fuel for their generators and hooked back to the grid ahead of others...“Unfortunately, most manufacturers are still relying on generator power, and even those that have returned to the electrical grid continue to face interruptions as the grid is rebuilt," Gottlieb said. "We’re hopeful that these companies manufacturing medically important products will see their power needs addressed on an accelerated basis.”...A shortage of some presentations of the medically essential saline solution has fettered hospital care since at least 2014. But the issue immediately got worse when hurricanes knocked down power lines and tore up roads in Puerto Rico, interrupting production and distribution from more than 40 U.S. plants on the island, including Baxter’s three producing saline...

Nevada’s health exchange is looking to once again run its own enrollment site, a move off the healthcare.gov platform that could save the state millions of dollars...The Silver State Health Exchange is planning to issue a request for information in December and will likely issue a request for proposal in March, said Heather Korbulic, the agency’s executive director. She said the healthcare.gov platform limits the exchange’s access to information and how much time customers can spend shopping for plans...“We’ll just take the same business processes that we use with healthcare.gov right now and remove healthcare.gov and put in private technology,” she said. “So we limit any kind of disruption.”...She said the exchange can show that it has a plan that will comply with regulations while still going to a private option. If the new platform is in place by 2020, the exchange would save $6 million...

The US Food and Drug Administration this week began adding four-letter meaningless suffixes at the end of newly approved biologics' nonproprietary names, signaling a shift in policy from only adding the suffixes to biosimilars' nonproprietary names since 2015...The first additions of the meaningless suffixes came for...approval of Roche's Hemlibra (emicizumab-kxwh), one of the first new medicines in nearly two decades to treat people with hemophilia A, and...approval of Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical's Mepsevii (vestronidase alfa-vjbk) to treat pediatric and adult patients with a rare inherited condition called mucopolysaccharidosis type VII (MPS VII), also known as Sly syndrome...The newly added suffixes were not preceded by an announcement from FDA, though the shift was not entirely unexpected...Back in January, FDA finalized guidance on how biosimilars and their biologic reference products' names should include this four-letter, FDA-designated meaningless suffix attached at the end of the nonproprietary name...But until this week, only new biosimilars had the suffixes attached to their names. The agency did not respond to a request for comment on why new biologics' nonproprietary names included the suffixes this week.

It may be a cross between the Eurovision Song Contest, a papal conclave and a social club raffle but a ballot among EU ministers...could hurt Europe’s pharmaceutical industry and the health of millions...It will fix the new home of the European Medicines Agency, which must leave London by 2019 when Britain leaves the European Union; most of its 900 staff may refuse to move to many of the 19 cities in the running, the EMA warns. Replacing them would delay drug approvals and patient safety checks...Yet the result, diplomats agree, is utterly unpredictable; months of horse-trading on issues unrelated to healthcare will end up in hours of haggling between secret ballots in Brussels...It could even come down to drawing lots...Senior officials liken the process to Europe’s annual TV music schlock-fest, when the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest is often determined by viewers phoning in votes for acts from like-minded neighbouring states and historic allies...British bookmaker Ladbrokes has Milan the 2-1 favorite to secure the EMA...seasoned diplomats hesitate to quote odds: “The most likely result is one that will be perverse,” said one, recalling previous upsets behind closed doors...Another referred to closeted cardinals electing popes at the Vatican: “In the end,” he said, “We will get the white smoke.”

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