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House and Senate legislators introduced bills...require health plans to cover the growing number of oral chemotherapy pills as favorably as they do intravenous chemotherapy. But an insurance trade group says that as long as drugmakers continue to increase the prices of the oral drugs, parity legislation amounts to a “shell game” that will push up everyone’s premiums.

China has rejected a Gilead Sciences Inc patent application related to its costly hepatitis C drug, a U.S. advocacy group said, adding the move may lead to other countries to consider rejecting patents…..Gilead has drawn fire for the cost of its top-selling drug Sovaldi, priced at $1,000 per pill…..its patents have been challenged in the U.S., India and Europe.

A change to Tricare's compounded medication coverage policy May 1 slashed costs for these medications by more than 74 percent in less than a month. But for some patients, the switch has been anything but easy.... reimbursements for approved compounds drop from nearly $1 billion in the first four months of 2015 to just $4 million in May.

Merck & Co Inc has agreed to pay $5.9 million to resolve claims that a former unit fraudulently promoted a drug used to treat pink eye for unapproved purposes, U.S. authorities announced on Wednesday……promoted its drug AzaSite to healthcare providers for uses the Food and Drug Administration had not approved as safe and effective.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality is currently funded to the tune of about $440 million… If the House Appropriations Committee has its way, that funding will vanish in FY16. AHRQ supports research…That includes studies on health information technology, patient safety, disease prevention, care management…...

Attested to meaningful use even as the hospital continued to use paper records.….. chief financial officer…sentenced to federal prison after admitting to meaningful use fraud,…sentenced…to 23 months in prison…..false statement….was a meaningful user of electronic health records, when the hospital did not meet the requirements of the federal EHR Incentive Programs.

Mallinckrodt Plc’s Questcor Pharmaceuticals Inc. faces a multistate antitrust investigation, according to a Texas attorney general’s office letter revealing that state’s participation in the probe…. Medicaid fraud unit of the Texas attorney general’s office asked for information for an investigation into potentially inflated prices of drugs,….

Emphasizing the importance of quality and affordability, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores urged the Senate ....to look to pharmacy in providing accessible, cost-effective preventive health services that can improve care for Medicare patients with chronic conditions.

Pharmacists in California will soon be able to prescribe birth control. That’s under a new state law that grants expanded authority to pharmacists. While some doctors’ groups are skeptical, lawmakers say pharmacists can fill a need for primary care providers, especially in rural areas.

California health officials failed to ensure that more than 9 million residents enrolled in Medi-Cal (Medicaid)managed care plans had access to doctors when they needed them, the state auditor said in a stinging report Tuesday. Health officials might have learned about those problems from calls to an ombudsman’s office – but thousands went unanswered every month.