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A landmark trial over the U.S. opioid epidemic is on track to begin on Monday after drug companies and local governments failed to agree on a settlement on Friday that had been expected to be valued at around $50 billion...Top executives of the largest U.S. drug distributors and drugmaker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd left a Cleveland courthouse on Friday and lawyers for states and thousands of local governments said there was no agreement...After nearly 11 hours of negotiations...it was “profoundly disappointing” that local governments would not go along with a settlement he valued at $48 billion, including $22 billion in cash and $26 billion in products and services...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

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

As Purdue restructures its business in hopes of signing a multibillion-dollar opioid settlement...Thousands of local and state plaintiffs are fighting Purdue’s attempt to halt litigation as it undergoes a court-supervised restructuring...As part of that deal...the Sacklers agreed to pay $3 billion of their own money while Purdue will reorganize as a public benefit trust...While the Sacklers’ rumored haul from Purdue and its bestselling opioid OxyContin over the years has varied...a restructuring consultant for Purdue, said the family transferred between $12 billion and $13 billion from the company...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.

A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds the rise of STDs nationwide broke a new record for the fifth consecutive year...Nevada continues to top the list for the highest rate of primary and secondary syphilis...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.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's plan to require direct price negotiation between the federal government and the pharmaceutical sector would reduce Medicare drug spending by $369 billion over a decade...drugmakers are likely to push back by raising list prices and reducing research and development spending, which in turn could lead to a reduction in the number of new drugs coming to market...Drugmakers...saying price controls would extend to the private sector and reduce industry revenue by as much as $1 trillion over 10 years...READ MORE

Facing a raft of talcum powder lawsuits nationwide, Johnson & Johnson has already been on the wrong side of big penalties in New Jersey and California. Two weeks after losing a case in the latter, J&J can take solace in notching another defense win...A Torrance, California, jury returned a defense verdict to J&J...in a lawsuit alleging the drugmaker’s talc products caused 60-year-old schoolteacher Carolyn Weirick to develop mesothelioma. The verdict followed a five-week retrial after an original jury failed to reach a decision...Despite...setbacks, J&J has emerged mostly unscathed from the talc litigation with no negative verdicts surviving appeals so far...READ MORE

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill...that will make HIV-prevention drugs available without a prescription. It allows pharmacists to dispense both PrEP, or preexposure prophylaxis, and PEP, post-exposure prophylaxis...The legislation also prohibits insurance companies from requiring patients to obtain prior authorization before using their benefits to obtaining the medications...The law requires pharmacists to provide instruction on using the prophylaxis, as well as its possible side effects...READ MORE