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Despite aggressive advocacy efforts by state-based pharmacy organizations and individual New York pharmacists, Gov. Andrew Cuomo this week vetoed legislation to help to rein in costly pharmacy benefit manager practices by giving the superintendent of insurance licensing and regulatory authority over PBMs. This regulatory authority would put an end to the lack of transparency, oversight, and accountability that has allowed PBMs to engage in anticompetitive practices to the harm of the state’s patients and small-business community pharmacies...READ MORE

Christina Mattina, welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News NetworkHere are the results of our online poll of the top healthcare stories for 2019.

5. A judge strikes down Medicaid work rules in Kentucky and Arkansas.

4. The uninsured rate hits a 4-year high.

3. Doctors link a mysterious lung illness to vaping.

2. An appeals court brings uncertainty to the future of the ACA.

1. Dr Scott Gottlieb steps down as FDA commissioner.

Biotechnology was one of the decade’s best investments as a dizzying pace of clinical innovation fueled the discovery of treatments once thought beyond the reach of modern medicine. A more aggressive FDA also aided the trend...An investor who purchased shares of the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF in December 2009 is now up more than 350% in returns. In other words, a $1,000 stake in biotech in 2009 would now be worth over $4,500...Industry experts point to breakthroughs in the treatment of diseases like hepatitis C, multiple sclerosis and a variety of malignancies for biotech’s big decade and the eye-popping profits the industry’s therapies promise...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.

Only 1 in 10 California pharmacies have programs to take back unused prescription opioids and just one in five give consumers accurate disposal information, according to a study that suggests drugstores could do more to help combat substance abuse...The study results suggest that many pharmacies may be falling short as educators and as places for safe disposal...READ MORE

Nicole Grassano, PTNN, Year in Review, this weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

Christina Mattina, welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network

A Chinese court sentenced the scientist who created the world’s first “gene-edited” babies to three years in prison...for illegally practising medicine and violating research regulations...He Jiankui...said he had used gene-editing technology known as CRISPR-Cas9 to change the genes of twin girls to protect them from getting infected with the AIDS virus in the future...The backlash in China and globally about the ethics of his research and work was fast and widespread...“They have crossed the bottom line of ethics in scientific research and medical ethics.”...READ MORE

Ongoing threats to the safety of intravenous (IV) drug delivery include drug shortages and lack of IV product standardization, according to an expert panel...The panel of health care providers developed recommendations...The findings...were published in the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy.

The panel’s findings include:

1. The panel believes in the overall superiority of manufacturer ready-to-use products, and says they are the safest IV drug delivery systems, followed by outsourced, ready-to-use, pharmacy compounded, point-of-care activated, and nonpharmacy compounded at point of care.
2. Drug shortages and lack of standardization are the 2 most significant threats to IV drug safety.
3. Variations in IV medication concentrations during transitions of care within the same institution or between different facilities can increase the likelihood of a medication error, leading the panel to identify lack of standardization as a major threat to safety.
4. Manufacturer-prepared products are the safest IV drug delivery system, and manufacturer-prepared, ready-to-administer products are preferred for patient use whenever possible...
5. Specialized education, training, certification, and competency with regard to compounding of sterile preparations should be required for pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and other involved health care providers...
6. A legislative and regulatory framework that supports and encourages IV medication safety in all settings (such as physician offices) should be developed…READ MORE

There’s a theme developing in the 2020 outlooks Wall Street analysts covering big pharma are putting out this week: next year is looking good for the sector...Morgan Stanley’s David Risinger upgraded his view on the industry to Attractive from In-Line...“We expect novel disease treatments, combined with limited patent expiration exposure, to yield healthy growth in the coming years,” Risinger wrote. He also said that pricing in the U.S. would be “healthy” in 2020...Still, while Risinger doesn’t believe it’s likely that U.S. politicians will succeed in regulating drug pricing in the near term, that may not last. “The sustainability of high U.S. drug pricing remains a concern, and we cannot rule out risks,”...READ MORE