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The Trump administration...said it will require drugmakers to disclose the list price of prescription drugs in direct-to-consumer television advertisements, part of the government’s efforts to lower costs for U.S. consumers...The list price would be included if it is equal to or greater than $35 for a month’s supply or the usual course of therapy. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said that the 10 most commonly advertised drugs have list prices ranging from $488 to $16,938 per month or usual course of therapy...TV advertising requirement would work to drive down list prices alongside a recently proposed rule aimed at requiring that drug rebates, or discounts, be passed on to Medicare patients when they buy the drugs...The advertising rule...was originally suggested as part of President Donald Trump’s “blueprint” to lower U.S. drug prices...READ MORE

FOUR TAKEAWAYS ON THE STATE OF SPECIALTY PHARMACY IN 2019
1) Specialty drugs continue to drive the pharmacy and PBM industries, though growth is slowing.
2) The larger independent specialty pharmacies are pulling ahead.
3) Many smaller independent pharmacies are struggling—and want to cash out.
4) Hospitals and health systems are battling—and partnering with—PBMs over specialty pharmacy
...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.

Federal prosecutors charged drug distributor Rochester Drug Cooperative and its former CEO with drug trafficking charges...the first criminal charges for a pharmaceutical company and executives in the nation's ongoing opioid crisis... This prosecution is the first of its kind: executives of a pharmaceutical distributor and the distributor itself have been charged with drug trafficking...The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York charged Rochester Drug Cooperative...with "knowingly and intentionally" violating federal narcotics laws "by distributing dangerous, highly addictive opioids to pharmacy customers that it knew were being sold and used illicitly,"...RDC was also charged with failing to properly report thousands of suspicious orders of oxycodone, fentanyl and other controlled substances to the Drug Enforcement Agency...READ MORE

Researchers at GoodRx...found a 2.9% price hike across brand-name and generic drugs in the first quarter of 2019. Most of that was reported in the first week of January, when drugmakers often raise their prices...Large cities are where drug prices are often highest, GoodRx’s team found. Drugs cost nearly 17% more than the national average in New York City, 14% more in San Francisco and about 10% more in Los Angeles...Meanwhile, prices were lowest in Atlanta and Houston, where they were about 20% below the national average...READ MORE

The founder of Insys Therapeutics Inc on Thursday became the highest-ranking pharmaceutical executive to be convicted in a case tied to the U.S. opioid crisis, when he and four colleagues were found guilty of participating in a scheme to bribe doctors to prescribe an addictive painkiller...A federal jury in Boston found John Kapoor, the drugmaker’s former chairman, and his co-defendants guilty of racketeering conspiracy for engaging in a scheme that also misled insurers into paying for the drug...READ MORE

Expectations were high last year for three new migraine drugs hitting the market from Amgen Inc, Eli Lilly and Co and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries...But a small group of external medical experts who quietly advise U.S. health insurers on new drugs was not impressed, according to a private meeting held at UnitedHealth Group’s OptumRx offices...These relatively unknown expert committees have been involved in drug coverage decisions for decades. Their identities are kept secret due to federal regulations aimed at preventing pharmaceutical industry interference. The committees make their decisions based on a drug’s clinical value, independent of cost, pharmacy benefit managers say. But their power has grown more recently with the consolidation of most of the U.S. pharmacy benefits business under OptumRx, CVS and Express Scripts. Taken together, their three advisory committees now guide drug coverage for more than 90 million Americans...READ MORE

The ePrescription is intended to generate added value for patients in Germany - and to stimulate digitisation in the healthcare market...The ePrescription is to be established in Germany by 2020. In April, German health minister Jens Spahn spoke at the DMEA 2019 (formerly conhIT) in Berlin about its benefits and opportunities in Germany...discussed the...implementation and the added value resulting from ePrescription and other online services for digitising the German healthcare system... The e-recipe will bring real added value. If we combine it with on-line consultations or pharmacy delivery services, the range of services offered to patients will be extended to bring the digital component to healthcare...READ MORE

Samantha DiGrande, Welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network

Specialty pharmacies dispense some of the most expensive, sensitive, and life-saving medications to patients, the kinds of medications that can cost more than $100,000 a year. Unfortunately, the way these prescriptions are being filled today is often chaotic and ripe for fraud, is different in each state, and potentially is about to get even worse for patients...When new prescriptions come in to these pharmacies, they go through what is often a very slow prescriber credential verification process that can involve manually calling or looking up licenses for the prescribing physicians on various board websites. When refills arrive, the pharmacies usually don’t verify prescriber licenses at all. The prescriber’s license could have expired, or the physician moved to a new state, had their license revoked, retired, or passed away...This means that patients are sometimes getting drugs from unlicensed prescribers or are being kept waiting for medications because of slow manual verification. It’s a process that lets through a lot of fraud and abuse...READ MORE