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As U.S. officials press a massive case for alleged generic drug price fixing, authorities in the U.K. have unearthed an example of rivals working a little too closely with each other...King Pharmaceuticals and Alissa Healthcare Research, which both sold the antidepressant drug nortriptyline, admitted to exchanging "commercially sensitive information" in order to keep prices high...The U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority said...it had found the companies exchanged info about prices, volumes and market entry plans for their drugs...READ MORE

Becoming temporarily blind in 2015 was Robert Hoey’s wake-up call to take control of his Type 1 diabetes... Now he’s diligent in monitoring his glucose levels...Medicaid will only pay for him to receive 100 test strips a month, and Hoey typically uses anywhere from 180 to 210...he often purchases the remaining test strips he needs from what experts describe as a mostly unregulated — and potentially dangerous — gray market of entrepreneurs flipping pre-owned test strips...The chemical mixture on a test strip used to measure blood sugar can be damaged by heat or moisture. And unlike with licensed pharmacies, the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy does not regularly inspect flippers’ operations to ensure products are being properly stored. There’s also the potential of expired or counterfeit test strips being sold...READ MORE

Jaime Rosenberg, welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network

Big M&A has returned to pharma smack in the middle of a fierce drug pricing debate—and a group of senators is urging the Federal Trade Commission to weigh those deals accordingly...Of particular interest? AbbVie's proposed $63 billion Allergan buyout and Bristol-Myers Squibb's Celgene merger...M&A has been picking up across the economy...pharma included. And specifically in the drug industry, “consolidation is occurring against a backdrop of ever-rising prescription drug spending and reports that one in four people taking prescription drugs have difficulty affording their medication,” ...READ MORE

Five of the largest pharmaceutical manufacturers—Eli Lilly, Janssen, Merck, Novartis, and Sanofi—have now publicly reported the 2018 gross and net price changes for their U.S. product portfolios, along with average discounts from list price…These reports shed light on the heated political rhetoric and policy proposals that focus on drugs’ list prices. The reality: brand-name drug makers sold their products at half of those list prices. As you will see, the five companies discounted their average list prices by 44% to 55%...READ MORE

Pinder Sahota has a list, and he is checking it twice. As the U.K. lurches toward Brexit, the Novo Nordisk scientist has become a logistics expert to ensure there is no break in the insulin supply chain when the separation finally happens...The company has tripled its warehouse capacity and stuffed it with 3.8 million packs of insulin, enough to last more than four months. New routes have been plotted to avoid the ports and crossings expected to be the most congested...READ MORE

The top U.S. consumer and trade regulator said...it had warned three companies selling products infused with cannabidiol that it was illegal to advertise that such products could fight disease without providing credible scientific evidence...CBD, has been touted as alleviating countless physical ailments...The Federal Trade Commission said the three unidentified companies claimed, without providing substantiation, that CBD can treat more than two dozen conditions including cancer, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia, epilepsy, diabetes, psoriasis, and AIDS...READ MORE

While insurer and hospital groups cheered House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s new drug prices plan, other experts and groups are skeptical of the bill’s chances of ever reaching President Donald Trump...The ambitious plan...drew plaudits from hospital and pharmacy benefit manager groups and fierce opposition from pharma. But major opposition from Republican members of the GOP-controlled Senate could doom the proposal, some experts and groups said...Republicans have blasted the proposal that calls for the Department of Health and Human Services to identify up to 250 brand-name drugs that do not have a lot of competition and aren’t driving up spending...HHS would then negotiate with the makers of those drugs to determine a fair price that Medicare and commercial payers would pay. The price would be linked to an average paid by several developed countries such as Germany and France...READ MORE

The bootleg medications were smuggled across the border and sold to mostly Latino immigrants in public spaces throughout Los Angeles — at swap meets, parks, beauty salons and makeshift stands outside mom-and-pop grocery stores...The drugs were cheap, and the customers — mostly from Mexico and Central America — did not need prescriptions to buy them. Some of the products featured brand names and colorful packaging that immigrants knew well from their home countries…Many were sheer counterfeits. Others, though legal south of the border, were not approved for sale in the United States. Some had expired. Still others would have been legal if sold by people licensed to do so — but none of the sellers held pharmacist licenses or any other medical credential...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.