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New technology to disinfect N95 masks worn by health care workers is now in Nevada, but a major nurses union is questioning the effectiveness of the process...The Battelle Critical Care Decontamination System has been used to clean more than 1,700 of the N95 masks since early May. It uses vaporized hydrogen peroxide to kill the novel coronavirus, which causes the respiratory disease COVID-19...The new sanitization process is intended to make that equipment last even longer if necessary...Battelle says the system can clean a mask for up to 20 reuses, but National Nurses United, the country’s largest union of registered nurses, has repeatedly called for the process to be halted immediately...Union president Zenei Cortez wrote in a statement that union members reported their decontaminated masks came back deformed and their straps had lost elasticity. The masks’ ability to filter out dangerous particles depends on their snug facial fit...Similar concerns were also raised by a local hospital worker and member of the Nevada chapter of Service Employees International Union...READ MORE

A new computer algorithm might be the next step toward accurate prediction of adverse drug reactions..Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research announced the creation of an open-source machine learning tool capable of predicting drug adverse effects (Aes)...The study, published in The Lancet journal EBioMedicine, examined 2 databases: 1 that reported adverse drug reactions and another with 184 proteins that specific drugs are known to interact with. Investigators constructed a computer algorithm to develop associations between the drug reactions and the 184 individual proteins...The algorithm discovered 221 associations, some known and some new. These associations indicated which proteins contribute to certain AEs and which may not...The new algorithm could help predict these AEs before the drug goes to human clinical trials, as well as before and after it enters the market...READ MORE

CVS Health will try delivering prescriptions with self-driving vehicles in a test that begins next month...The drugstore chain said...that it will partner with the Silicon Valley robotics company Nuro to deliver medicines and other products to customers near a Houston-area store...A CVS spokesman said the prescriptions will routinely be delivered within an hour of being ordered...Nuro has previously started partnerships to test the delivery of pizzas for Domino’s or groceries for Kroger, also in the Houston area. This is the company’s first venture into health care...READ MORE

Within the last month or so, more Las Vegas Valley medical offices have started offering telemedicine appointments in response to the COVID-19 outbreak — part of a nationwide trend that has seen an explosion in use of the technology. A big selling point is that many patients are uneasy about going to a doctor’s office because of the risk of getting infected or infecting others…Some doctors and telemedicine experts say the COVID-19 outbreak is spurring more acceptance of telemedicine — a change that could have a long-lasting impact on the nation’s health care system… Telemedicine took off in Nevada after Gov. Steve Sisolak’s stay-at-home order and social distancing guidelines, cardiologist Dr. Jeffrey Levisman said. “It’s an attempt to continue to provide medical care, especially for patients who are sick and elderly who are at a higher risk of getting the virus and (experiencing) a bad outcome.”…READ MORE

...CureVac has reportedly snared a big partner to help build its game-changing RNA "printers" that could turn global interest back in its favor...Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted Thursday that the electric carmaker had signed on with CureVac to make portable molecular RNA printers—what Musk called "RNA microfactories"—to help produce doses of the German vaccine maker's COVID-19 shot candidate...CureVac has previously touted its work on portable "printers" for its mRNA-based vaccines, which would allow the company to produce shots at scale in farflung locations without the standard logistical concerns...CureVac says its mRNA vaccine candidates direct cells to make proteins or antigens against various diseases. The platform encapsulates mRNA in a shell of lipid nanoparticles to protect it for delivery. The RNA printer itself—essentially a vaccine production device—can make “more than a hundred thousand doses” in a couple of weeks, the biotech says. It could work in a hospital pharmacy to help produce personalized medicines, for instance, as well as in outbreak regions...READ MORE

The U.S. biopharmaceutical industry depends on reliable intellectual property protections to promote the development of new treatments and cures for patients. Strong IP protections are especially important as innovators work around the clock making substantial investments at risk to develop solutions to help prevent infection and treat those with COVID-19...many of the existing medicines and investigational medicines in clinical trials for COVID-19 exist today because of IP and other incentives that drove their initial research...Strong and reliable IP protections support America’s robust innovation ecosystem by promoting innovation and affordability for patients who rely on new treatments and cures...READ MORE

Digital health technology is transforming every aspect of pharmacy practice, whether it deploys robotics to fill prescriptions, uses analytics to track medication data, or offers access to digital therapy. Pharmacists in both the hospital and retail settings are using recently developed technology to prevent adverse drug effects, monitor the use of antibiotics, modify unhealthy behavior, and promote medication adherence...Not only can technology make a pharmacist’s day more efficient by automating repetitive tasks, but new digital health products are providing more insight into data and the opportunity for real-time patient interaction...READ MORE

Monitoring Medication
Digiceuticals and Behavior Modification
Preventing Adverse Effects
Antibiotic Stewardship in Real Time

The company’s SoteriaRx platform offers on-dose technology and detection services for authenticating a broad range of medications...(which)...protect patients from counterfeit products...on-dose authentication provides a powerful tool for tracking medicines from plant to patient and provides a level of supply chain authenticity and transparency not previously available. By incorporating microtags, the pill itself effectively becomes a barcode which can be digitally read and recorded, providing instant authentication...the incorporation of microtags essentially turns the pill itself into a barcode. This can be digitally read and recorded for authentication..READ MORE.

The novel COVID-19 virus has now infiltrated our communities on a global scale, forcing pharmacies to quickly adapt in order to sustain operations in the new normal...pharmacies everywhere are experiencing a dramatic influx in demand, but dwindling supply of resources and staffing...in a world increasingly influenced by technology, there is ample opportunity to leverage automation within pharmacies that can not only improve operations and maximize efficiency, but support patient wellness while growing their business and profits...

Adherence Pouch Packaging
- unit-of-use packaging alone saved more than 46.5 minutes per 100 prescriptions filled compared to count-and-pour dispensing.

Medication Synchronization and Adherence
- pharmacies can adopt medication synchronization, meaning all of a patient’s prescriptions are synchronized to be refilled on the exact same day of the month, eliminating the need for separate call-ins and pickups...READ MORE

The biopharma industry has struggled to recruit patients into clinical trials that adequately reflect the diverse patient populations they hope to reach with new products. Failure to improve minority subgroup participation now will cost trial sponsors later...New Research from the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development reveals the extent to which minority groups are absent from clinical trials supporting new drug and biologic approvals...Additional tools are emerging to help sponsors effectively recruit and enroll underrepresented patient populations in clinical trials...READ MORE