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Laura Joszt, assistant managing editor at The American Journal of Managed Care. Welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network

Federal regulators...approved the first mobile app to help treat substance use disorders...The app, developed by a start-up called Pear Therapeutics, is designed to be prescribed by clinician and used alongside counseling...Pear's technology digitizes a form of talk therapy called cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, which focuses on "examining the relationships between thoughts, feelings and behaviors...Pear Therapeutics is part of a burgeoning category of health start-ups known as digital therapeutics. The idea is that software can improve a person's health, without the same cost and side effects of medical treatment...Pear's app has not been approved to treat opioid dependence, but...the company has developed a version of the software that is currently under submission. It's designed to be used alongside opioid replacement therapies.

It was an audacious undertaking, even for one of the most storied American companies: With a single machine, IBM would tackle humanity’s most vexing diseases and revolutionize medicine...promoting its signature brand — Watson — IBM sought to capture the world’s imagination, and it quickly zeroed in on a high-profile target: cancer...But three years after IBM began selling Watson to recommend the best cancer treatments to doctors around the world, a STAT investigation has found that the supercomputer isn’t living up to the lofty expectations IBM created for it. It is still struggling with the basic step of learning about different forms of cancer. Only a few dozen hospitals have adopted the system, which is a long way from IBM’s goal of establishing dominance in a multibillion-dollar market...While it has emphatically marketed Watson for cancer care, IBM hasn’t published any scientific papers demonstrating how the technology affects physicians and patients. As a result, its flaws are getting exposed on the front lines of care by doctors and researchers who say that the system, while promising in some respects, remains undeveloped...

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

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

The drugmaker Allergan announced...that it had transferred its patents on a best-selling eye drug to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe in upstate New York — an unusual gambit to protect the drug from a patent dispute...Under the deal, which involves the dry-eye drug Restasis, Allergan will pay the tribe $13.75 million. In exchange, the tribe will claim sovereign immunity as grounds to dismiss a patent challenge through a unit of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The tribe will lease the patents back to Allergan, and will receive $15 million in annual royalties as long as the patents remain valid...The surprising legal move rippled quickly through the pharmaceutical world...setting off speculation about whether other drug companies would soon follow suit in order to protect their patents from challenges through a patent-review process that the industry despises...If Allergan succeeds in holding onto its patents, “we will probably see multiple branded companies housing their patents with Indian tribes...

The use of health IT has exploded in the last decade, and that means better health care...Electronic health records, computerized prescriber-order-entry systems, and barcode-assisted medication administration systems have now become almost universal in hospitals nationwide...According to the “ASHP National Survey of Pharmacy Practice in Hospital Settings: Prescribing and Transcribing — 2016,” nearly 100% of hospitals across the United States have adopted these technologies...Survey results reveal that the use of health IT by hospitals has led to a rapid increase in “paperless care.”... ASHP CEO, Paul W. Abramowitz, PharmD, said in a statement that, in addition to improving medication safety, the increased use of information technology shows great potential for pharmacists to spend more time providing comprehensive medication therapy management in and across all settings of patient care. “These positive findings move us closer to achieving ASHP’s vision that medication use will be optimal, safe, and effective for all people all of the time.” Abramowitz said.

As generic drug manufacturers are gearing up to argue that a deal Allergan Plc made with a Native American tribe to shield patents from administrative review is a sham, some experts say the generic companies are in uncharted legal territory...Last week, Allergan announced it would transfer the patent rights to its Restasis dry-eye treatment to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, which will license them back to the company in exchange for ongoing payments...Richard Torczon, a lawyer for generic drug company Mylan NV, said the tribe is abusing the defense of sovereign immunity, which he said is intended to shield tribes that get dragged into court without their consent...“The tribe here has not been dragged into this proceeding against its will,” Torczon said during a hearing...before three judges from the patent board. “It has deliberately by its own admission targeted these proceedings for exactly this kind of revenue-generating opportunity,”

Quest Analysis of 3.4 million tests shows evidence of dangerous drug combinations...A majority of test results from patients taking prescription medications show signs of drug misuse—including potentially dangerous drug combinations...The Quest Diagnostics Health Trends study is based on analysis of the company's de-identified laboratory data, believed to be one of the largest nationally representative datasets of objective laboratory information of patients prescribed opioids and other commonly abused medications. Physicians order laboratory services to aid their ability to monitor patients for signs of prescription or illicit drug misuse or abuse...(The report, "Prescription Drug Misuse in America: Diagnostic Insights in the Growing Drug Epidemic")

• evidence of misuse has declined in recent years, 52% of test results showed evidence of potential misuse in 2016, suggesting a majority of patients took their prescribed drugs in ways that were inconsistent with their physician's instruction...
• disturbing patterns of concurrent drug use. Among more than 33,000 specimens tested for opioids, benzodiazepines, and alcohol in 2016, more than 20% were positive for both opioids and benzodiazepines, more than 10% were positive for both opioids and alcohol, and 3% were positive for all three...
• 19% of specimens positive for heroin in 2016 were also positive for nonprescribed fentanyl...
• drug misuse rates were high among most age groups and both genders. However, adolescents (10 to 17 years of age) showed a striking improvement, with the rate dropping from 70% to 29% between 2011 and 2016...
• Misuse rates were higher for men and women of reproductive age (58%) than in the general study population (52%)

Laura Joszt, assistant managing editor at The American Journal of Managed Care. Welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network