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Two high-profile cases in the pharma world have featured similar headlines this month—and they're not flattering to the legal profession...In both instances, allegations of attorney misconduct have cropped up, shifting focus from the lawsuits themselves to the people arguing them...First, HIV advocates battling Gilead Sciences say a U.S. Patent & Trademark Office official harbored a pro-industry bias. And second, J&J lawyers say their counterparts in talc litigation stonewalled questions about expert testimony and otherwise played foul with the rules...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.

“The announcement made today puts politics over patients. Eliminating the biologics provision in the USMCA removes vital protections for innovators while doing nothing to help U.S. patients afford their medicines or access future treatments and cures. The only winners today are foreign governments who want to steal American intellectual property (IP) and free ride on America’s global leadership in biopharmaceutical research and development...“We cannot support abandoning provisions that protect American companies and raise standards abroad. We hope that Congress and the Administration will pursue international trade agreements that hold foreign governments accountable by ensuring that they protect and value the ongoing discovery of much-needed medicines to treat and potentially cure the world’s most devastating diseases.”...READ MORE

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law last month new legislation that allows pharmacists in the state to initiate and dispense HIV medication without a prescription. The law, SB159, was amended to say that “a pharmacist may initiate and furnish HIV preexposure prophylaxis” and “a pharmacist may initiate and furnish HIV postexposure prophylaxis.” Previously, only pharmacists in specific collaborative practice agreements were able to dispense the drugs independently.In order to dispense either preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) or postexposure prophylaxis (PEP), pharmacists will need to complete a boardapproved training program, according to the law...READ MORE

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co...said it won a $752 million jury verdict against Gilead Sciences Inc in a U.S. patent dispute relating to technology for treating cancer...A jury...awarded the damages after finding that Yescarta, a treatment sold by Gilead’s Kite Pharma unit, infringed on a patent exclusively licensed by Bristol-Myers’ Juno Therapeutics division...The patent at issue in the lawsuit...relates to CAR T-cell immunotherapy for cancer...READ MORE

China has become the world’s largest producer and exporter of “active pharmaceutical ingredients,”...China’s dominance puts both the health of Americans and our national security at risk...a new report from the U.S.-China Economic Security Review Commission...China’s pharmaceutical industry “is not effectively regulated by the Chinese government” and has been responsible for a number of drug safety scandals...Our dependence on Chinese pharmaceutical products, the commission concluded, means “the American public, including its armed forces, are at risk of exposure to contaminated and dangerous medicines.”...READ MORE

In 2018, $198 billion worth of acquisitions took place in the life sciences sector, which includes pharma and biotech, up by $20 billion over 2017 but well below big years between 2014 and 2016...The FTC's close scrutiny of potential antitrust violations in biopharma acquisitions seems to have cast a shadow over transactions large and small, from megamergers like Bristol-Myers Squibb-Celgene and AbbVie-Allergan to comparatively small plays like Alexion-Achillion and UCB-Ra...At its root is the regulators' concern that big pharma wants to hold onto overlapping projects to hedge against the risk of failure or market competition, which could have a detrimental effect if enough promising medicines don't get developed...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

Home Depot Inc. executives said the nation’s opioid crisis could be contributing to an unexpected surge in thefts from its stores...The company said organized criminals are stealing millions of dollars’ worth of goods from it and other retailers and storing the merchandise in warehouses. The theft, which retailers call shrink, has gotten so bad that it will narrow Home Depot’s operating profit margins next year, executives said during a meeting with analysts and investors...“This is happening everywhere in retail,” Chief Executive Officer Craig Menear said. “We think this ties to the opioid crisis, but we’re not positive about that.”...READ MORE

Germany’s Bayer has agreed with plaintiffs to postpone its next two U.S. lawsuits over the alleged cancer-causing effects of its glyphosate-based weed killers to allow more time for talks on a settlement...The company, which is facing 42,700 U.S. plaintiffs, is widely expected to eventually buy itself out of the litigation, with analysts currently estimating the size of a future settlement at $8-$12 billion...Bayer agreed with the plaintiff to delay for about six months a case in the California Superior Court for Lake County scheduled for Jan. 15, a company spokesman said in a written statement...READ MORE