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A pharmacy group is taking a wait-and-see approach after California Governor Gavin Newsom announced several drug reforms–including a state generic prescription drug label...If the proposed reforms are approved, California would be the first state to have its own generic drug label...“A major cause of skyrocketing prescription drug prices is bargaining asymmetry, by which the pharmaceutical industry, often wielding monopoly power, is left unchecked, in the absence of a strong counterparty at the bargaining table…” Newsom said in the executive order...Although the California Pharmacists Association applauded the Governor’s “commitment to the healthcare of all Californians and ensuring all patients can continue to have access to affordable, life-saving medications," the organization said in a press release...CPhA declined to say whether it supports a state prescription drug label...READ MORE

Gianna Melillo, welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network

Quality, speed, and price has been referred to as the "Unattainable Triangle". Fast, good, cheap—pick 2. Every business faces this question every time the doors are open for business. You can’t possibly have all 3. When you try to improve 1 side of the triangle, the other 2 sides will be impacted...think about our individual struggle with the triangle. How many of us are in low quality, high stressed jobs because of our “price” (salary)? In a fulfilling pharmacist career, the focus is always on quality...READ MORE

Chris Collins, a former Republican lawmaker and longtime ally of President Trump, was sentenced Friday to 26 months in prison, according to local reporters, months after pleading guilty to insider trading for illegal dealings surrounding an Australian biotech company...Collins, who leaked confidential information about a failed drug trial to his son and other associates, resigned his seat in Congress in October after entering a guilty plea. His sentencing caps a three-year saga that also implicated his family, at least four fellow congressmen, and Trump’s onetime health secretary. All have been dogged by allegations that they acted unethically, and in some cases illegally, when they purchased or sold shares of Innate Immunotherapeutics...READ MORE

With federal prosecutors laying waste to Insys' executive team, one big domino was still left to fall: Founder and former CEO John Kapoor, who had a leading role in the drugmaker's opioid kickback scheme. Now, Kapoor will face a stiff prison sentence that sets the bar for executives in the opioid industry...A federal judge in Boston sentenced Kapoor...to five and a half years in prison for his role in a doctor kickback scheme to boost subscriptions of Subsys...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.

It might not come as a surprise for many pharma watchers, but a new GlobalData survey found drug pricing and reimbursement remain the industry's top concern for 2020. In the survey, 49% of respondents said pricing and reimbursement is their top worry for the year...Behind drug pricing, 14% of respondents said they're concerned about the U.S. political divide, while other threats included Amazon and biologics patent expirations...READ MORE

Safety net providers are pushing back on the growing use of “2-tiered” policies among payers and pharmacy benefit managers under the 340B Drug Pricing Program that provide lower reimbursement rates for 340B-covered entities compared with non-340B entities...The practice has been challenged in court, finding its way to state legislatures through safety net providers who argue the practice is impacting their ability to serve more patients and offer comprehensive services…HHS has declined to intervene on the issue of 2-tier pricing under the 340B program, with both the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Health Resources and Services Administration suggesting that they do not have authority to regulate this practice...READ MORE

Amazon has filed to trademark “Amazon Pharmacy” in Canada, the U.K. and Australia, signaling a potential move into selling prescription drugs outside of the U.S...The ‘Amazon Pharmacy’ branding is relatively new...Filing a trademark doesn’t necessarily mean that international expansion is imminent. But it does suggest Amazon will eventually go global, which is in line with its typical business strategy, and this first crop of trademark filings might signal which countries the company is likely to explore next...READ MORE

With tens of billions of dollars in sales pumping into their coffers each year, the world's largest publicly traded pharmaceutical companies can be extremely profitable investments for shareholders...But impressive profits––and the welcome return on investment that comes with them––don't always translate into more innovation or long-term value. Megapharmas spend a lot of money each year investing in short-term returns for their shareholders—including executives—instead of investing more of those profits into R&D...How can publicly traded companies best return value for investors?... A premium must be placed on new products and novel launches because if you don’t do that and you invest in buying back your stock instead of buying for your future, then you have satisfied the short term need for some shareholders but you have, in the long term, lost value...READ MORE

1. Johnson & Johnson
2. Pfizer
3. Merck & Co.
4. AbbVie
5. Bristol-Myers Squib
6. Gilead Sciences
7. Amgen
8. Eli Lilly