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While many companies are still unsure of the law’s effects, some have begun to warn investors about the likelihood of lower sales and reduced profitability...Biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies are still parsing the U.S. drug pricing law enacted in August, but recently have begun to warn investors of looming impacts to their development plans and to future sales...In regulatory filings and earnings calls over the past few weeks, major drugmakers described significant uncertainty over how the law will be implemented and how it might directly affect their business. But some have been more specific, with Merck & Co. and Amgen noting they expect it to impact future sales. And a few, including Eli Lilly, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and Alkermes, have cited the law specifically in decisions to cut back or reshape their drug research...READ MORE

Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Illinois, and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, wrote a letter to CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure...calling out CMS to use new funding and existing authority to expand Medicare coverage. The letter comes amid rising rates of addiction deaths exacerbated in part by the pandemic...While Medicare does cover low-intensive levels of substance use disorder like therapy and high levels of care such as inpatient treatment, experts and advocates worry that CMS does not cover the full continuum of care for beneficiaries...READ MORE

Local pharmacies are welcoming the news they will soon be able to refill some prescriptions for customers who don’t have a family doctor...But they agree with doctors who have said the change is not a long-term solution to the shortage of physicians...Overall, however, it is really needed right now, said Moez Karim, pharmacy manager, at The Pharmacy in Langley...“A lot of patients, especially in this area, they’re either seniors or they have real difficulty getting access to doctors and their family doctors. Often times, they are seeing them on the phone. I think they’re falling through the cracks. This is one way of reducing their stress.”...Minister of Health Adrian Dix announced last week that, starting Oct. 14, pharmacists across B.C. will be able to renew prescriptions for a wider range of medications so that people in B.C. can access medication “in a timely fashion and ensure continuity of their treatment.”...READ MORE

Nevada’s governor...said the state is launching a prescription discount card, a method of softening the rising costs of medications that is also used in Washington and Oregon...The digital card, called ArrayRX, saves an average of 80% on generic prescriptions and up to 20% on brand name drugs and is free for Nevadans, Governor Steve Sisolak said. For those without health insurance, the card is set to lower costs significantly...Those with health insurance will be able to compare their costs with ArrayRX, and can opt for whichever option is cheaper...READ MORE

CVS reported a quarterly loss of more than $3 billion to cover its share of a global opioid settlement, but its third-quarter earnings blew past Wall Street estimates...The pharmacy retail giant said that it had a $5.2 billion charge in the third quarter for a settlement relating to its role in the opioid crisis. The settlement resolves "substantially all opioid lawsuits and claims filed by other states, political subdivisions and tribes against the company to be paid over 10 years, beginning in 2023...READ MORE

Amid an increase in fatal and non-fatal overdoses — including many caused by fentanyl misuse — Gov. Steve Sisolak and state health officials are creating a statewide task force focused on reducing and responding to the issue...The Joint Advisory Task Force will determine how to reduce the risk of overdose, prepare the state and local jurisdictions if overdoses increase, and provide technical assistance, guidance and resources to lower risk, as well as improve overdose response and recovery...Read More

In addressing a mountain of price-fixing claims in the United States, Teva has shown a preference for dealing with charges on a state-by-state basis...Teva agreed to settle with Georgia for $3.346 million, the company checked a third state off its price-fixing litigation list and then crowed about the success of its strategy...The agreement comes on top of settling price-fixing claims with Mississippi last year for $925,000 and with Louisiana five months ago for $1.45 million...The figures are relatively modest compared to the $420 million Teva agreed to pay investors earlier this year who alleged that the company concealed a price-fixing scheme which allowed it to raise the cost of some of its drugs by more than 1,000%...The allegations came to light three years ago when 43 states sued 20 generic drugmakers for divvying up markets and raising prices on more than 100 drugs...READ MORE

...recent busts, largely made possible by advances in tapping criminals’ encrypted phones, underscore a reality that European drug authorities have been warning about: More cocaine than ever is pouring into the continent, where South American chemists, traffickers and local mafias are helping to bring it to market...With increasingly clever ways of smuggling the drug and its coca base — including infusing cocaine into plastic chips, charcoal or clothes — authorities and analysts believe they may be finding only 10% to 15%, or even as little as 1%, of what’s coming into Europe, a booming market for cocaine that now rivals the one in the United States...READ MORE

After years of fits and starts...the red ribbon was cut, and the Kirk Kerkorian Medical Education Building at UNLV was finally complete...The $125 million, 135,000-square-foot building — located just blocks away from the university’s existing medical campus and a pair of hospitals — has been billed as a critical medical infrastructure investment for the region, long plagued by severe physician shortages...But in the end, it was neither UNLV nor the Nevada System of Higher Education that shepherded the project over the finish line. It was a private company, the Nevada Health and Bioscience Corporation...READ MORE

A new report finds that 1,216 pharmaceuticals increased their prices past the inflation rate of 8.5% from July 2021 to July 2022, with an average hike of 31.6%...The report and a second report on price trends released...by the Department of Health and Human Services underline how a new provision in the Inflation Reduction Act—an inflationary cap on Part D costs—will affect prices right as the cap is implemented Oct. 1...READ MORE