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The White House announced the launch of the first federally supported test-to-treat site, a part of the White House test-to-treat initiative designed to improve access to COVID-19 antiviral oral medications for certain high-risk patients. In response, ASHP sent a letter to Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator, requesting the administration dramatically expand access to COVID-19 antivirals in all communities by removing the federal barrier preventing pharmacists from initiating therapy with these time-sensitive medications...READ MORE

Former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli was released from prison on Wednesday after serving most of his seven-year sentence for lying to hedge fund investors and defrauding drug company investors...Shkreli, 39, was released from a prison in Allenwood, Pa., and moved “community confinement,” or a halfway house overseen by the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ New York Residential Reentry Management Office, the AP reported. The bureau said his projected release date is Sept. 14...READ MORE

The Food and Drug Administration has determined that the risk of a rare, but serious, clotting syndrome tied to Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine warrants limiting its use to adults who either can’t or won’t get another available shot...The agency is taking stricter measures following a new analysis...has uncovered 60 known cases of the side effect, nine of which were fatal. The overall rates remain very low — about 3.23 cases per million vaccinations with J&J’s shot and 0.48 deaths per million. Regulators still aren’t sure exactly which factors put people at risk for the disorder, which initially appeared most common in younger women. It isn’t associated with either Pfizer’s or Moderna’s vaccines...READ MORE

The petition, going to Senator Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen, pleads Congress to take action...Both Senators have cosponsored legislation to cap out-of-pocket insulin costs at $35...Senators Cortez Masto and Rosen also support giving Medicare more power to negotiate drug prices, and they are pushing for penalties that would keep drug companies from increasing prices faster than the rate of inflation..."I've seen it in my own family with my grandmother who had to make the decision whether she could put food on the table or pay for her drugs," said Senator Cortez Masto. "She was living off of Social Security after she retired. No senior, nobody should have to go through that."...READ MORE

Jose Maria Fernandez Sousa-Faro, president of European pharmaceuticals giant PharmaMar, has been charged by police with being falsely vaccinated against Covid-19. Dr. Sousa-Faro has been caught up in a scandal in Europe involving people being added to the National Immunization Registry in exchange for large sums of money...Police allege that Sousa-Faro arranged to be injected with a saline solution instead of a Covid-19 vaccination and paid thousands of dollars to have his name added to Spain's immunization register, as confirmed by police sources and reported by El Periodico de Espana...READ MORE

CVS Health has asked Gov. Phil Scott to veto H.353 — a last-ditch effort to block a bill it says would raise prescription drug costs for Vermonters with private insurance...H.353 started out as a bill to make drugs more affordable by regulating pharmacy benefits managers, third-party companies that negotiate medication coverage plans for consumers with private insurers. But revisions of the bill, as it worked its way through the House and Senate, would have all but guaranteed that specialty drug prescriptions given to patients in health care settings, including expensive cancer medication, would be filled at the University of Vermont Health Network’s pharmacy in Burlington, rather than through cheaper mail-order pharmacies that insurers prefer...READ MORE

List prices of branded drugs in the U.S. rose by an average of nearly 5% last year, according to a report released...by Iqvia, a consultancy and research services provider. After accounting for the rebates and discounts pharmaceutical companies often pay insurers, however, the average increase was 1%, the fifth year in a row that net price growth has tracked below general inflation...Rebates and discounts on drugs don't necessarily translate to lower out-of-pocket costs for patients, and some, such as people covered by Medicare Part D or on high-deductible insurance plans, are more vulnerable to rising list prices, often referred to as a drug's wholesale acquisition cost...READ MORE

Ill-dissolving capsules can hamper drugs’ effectiveness or render them useless, which is especially concerning when they’re used to treat seriously sick blood disorder patients...Teva Pharmaceuticals ran into just such a problem during routine stability testing of its thrombocythemia drug anagrelide. Thanks to a dissolution test failure—when med takes longer to dissolve once ingested—Teva is recalling one lot of 0.5-mg capsules in the U.S. No other batches are affected, the company added...READ MORE

Over the past few years, the Food and Drug Administration has come increasingly under scrutiny for its program to grant speedy approvals to drugs that show early signs of benefiting patients with life-threatening diseases...These so-called accelerated approvals have ushered in many new therapies, particularly for cancer. But they have also ginned up substantial controversy in several cases...because they brought to market high-priced therapies that weren’t proven to help people...Drugmakers have also faced criticism for dragging their feet on the follow-up studies meant to definitively show their medicines work...Soon, the FDA could receive new authority to compel pharmaceutical companies to follow through with these confirmatory studies and to order withdrawal of drugs that fall short of their initial promise...READ MORE

Self-Administered Hormonal Contraceptives Dispensed Without a Prescription

Senate Bill (SB) 190 was passed during the 2021 legislative session. The language to the bill can be located here. SB 190 permits a pharmacist to dispense a self-administered hormonal contraceptive to a patient under a protocol established by regulation by the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy without a prescription from a practitioner.

Nevada Medicaid Fee-for-Service Transition of Pharmacy Benefits Management to Magellan Medicaid Administration, Inc

On July 1, 2022, Magellan Medicaid Administration, Inc, (MMA) will assume the administrative operation of pharmacy benefits management on behalf of the state of Nevada Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Health Care Financing and Policy for the Nevada Medicaid fee-for-service...READ MORE