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Mike Glaicar, Business Development: Pharmacy Times...(PTNN) This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

An influenza vaccine produced in tobacco plants could make a big impact in the market if it reaches the market in the US in time for the 2018-19 flu season, says a market analyst...The vaccine - currently being tested in phase III trials by Mitsubishi Tanabe - has clear advantages over not only vaccines produced via the traditional route in eggs but also newer vaccines produced in cell culture...Mitsubishi Tanabe's candidate is one of a number of flu vaccines in development based on the expression of virus-like particles - self-assembled units that are closer in structure to the wild-type virus than subunit-based vaccines made in eggs. Clinical trials suggest they may be able to provide greater and longer-lasting protective immunity...By incorporating influenza genetic material into tobacco leaves new vaccines can be made in as little as four weeks - six times faster than egg-based methods - which means producers can match circulating flu strains more closely. They can also react quickly if a new strain of the virus starts to emerge...plant-based manufacturing offers reduced infrastructure costs and can slash production times in half...If the company's product, or one like it, is approved, GlobalData expects a novel vaccine that boasts a rapid, plant-based manufacturing process to have a significant impact on the seasonal influenza vaccine landscape...

GW Pharmaceuticals announced positive results of late-stage trials of a cannabis-based drug meant to treat children's epilepsy, CNBC's Jim Cramer said the medication could someday replace the opioid oxycodone as a leading prescription painkiller...Prices for the British company's U.S.-listed shares more than doubled on Monday on news of the test results for Epidiolex...the drug could make doctors in the U.S. less hesitant to prescribe cannabis-based drugs. "If you want to prescribe actual medical marijuana, a real doctor is reluctant to do it because there is no uniform standard, and all you really want is the pure cannabinoid...This is a way to get rid of a terrible, terrible drug, oxycodone...Phase 3 results of Epidiolex (cannabidiol)...is being investigated for Dravet syndrome, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Tuberous Sclerosis Complex, three rare, extremely debilitating epilepsy syndromes that begin in infancy or early childhood...

Mike Glaicar, Business Development: Pharmacy Times...(PTNN) This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

LexisNexis Risk Solutions, a leading provider of data, analytics and technology, on Monday announced the rebranding of Health Market Science, its most recent acquisition, as LexisNexis Risk Solutions in the Pharmacy market. The rebranding initiative reflects the organization’s commitment to combine its industry-leading public records footprint and prescriber data, leveraging analytics and big data technology in the pharmacy space...Over the last four years...we have...achieved – a very specific course for growth within the health care data analytics market, and the pharmacy space has been a top priority since day one...We are pleased to have partnered with all of the major retail pharmacy chains and the majority of the Pharmacy Benefit Managers...In a market with an increasingly stringent and complex regulatory environment, pharmacies without the ability to perform real-time compliance checks put themselves at risk. By combining the referential database with the company’s public records footprint, analytics and big data technology, LexisNexis Risk Solutions can offer a continuum of prescriber data assets, analytics and services that allow pharmacy customers to remain compliant.

24/7 Wall St. has collected five big FDA decisions coming up in March and added some color, along with the trading range and price target.

1. Opko Health - FDA had accepted its New Drug Application for Rayaldee (calcifediol)...hyperparathyroidism in patients with stage 3 or 4 chronic kidney disease and vitamin D insufficiency.
2. Acadia Pharmaceuticals - FDA will review data included in Acadia’s NDA for Nuplazid (pimavanserin) for the treatment of psychosis associated with Parkinson’s disease
3. Radius Health - submission of the NDA...for the investigational drug Abaloparatide
4. BioMarin Pharmaceutical - pegvaliase for the treatment of phenylketonuria
5. Alder Biopharmaceuticals - chronic migraine study...evaluating quarterly self-injectable administration of ALD403

PillDrill won this year’s Drug Store News/ECRM Most Innovative Product Award...PillDrill was developed to be a smart, friendly medication tracking system that simplifies the task of everyday pill taking. It gives reminders when pills need to be taken, tracks what’s being taken with a quick scan and sends real-time adherence updates to those people involved in the patients' well-being...We learned early on that medication adherence is not a technology problem, it’s a human problem...So what makes PillDrill special is that it’s completely user-centric. It’s not some complicated piece of hardware, and it’s not an app; those things don’t really work for people in their everyday context…PillDrill is a light overlay onto an existing routine that provides all the benefits of a technology product without any of the hassles.

CMS said it plans to add about 1,900 diagnosis codes and 3,651 hospital inpatient procedure codes to the coding system…On Oct. 1, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will add another 5,500 codes to the ICD-10 diagnostic library, officials announced…The addition will come exactly one year after ICD-10, with its nearly 70,000 billable codes, replaced the dated, and much more compact, ICD-9 code set… The new and revised ICD-10-CM (Clinical Modification) and ICD-10 PCS (Procedure Coding System) codes will be included in the hospital inpatient prospective payment system proposed rule for fiscal 2017…

Starting on March 27, the way prescriptions are written in New York State will change. Gone will be doctors’ prescription pads and famously bad handwriting. In their place: pointing and clicking, as prescriptions are created electronically and zapped straight to pharmacies in all but the most exceptional circumstances...New York is the first state to require that all prescriptions be created electronically and to back up that mandate with penalties, including fines and imprisonment, for physicians who fail to comply. Minnesota has a law requiring electronic prescribing but does not penalize doctors who cling to pen and paper...Just as doctors putting away their pads will face a culture change in New York, so, too, will patients, who will no longer be able to shop around for the shortest waiting time or the best price for their medications...“It’s probably driven us to prescribe more standardized regimens and more standardized dosing,” said Dr. Paul A. Testa, the chief medical information officer at NYU Langone. “And the reality is, there is always the phone. If I have a doubt, I can call the pharmacy.”

FlavoRx debuted its newest piece of pharmacy equipment — the FlavorMaster — the reconstituting and flavoring device...The FlavorMaster uses FlavoRx’s Fillmaster water dispensing technology and its flavors, making reconstitution available with the press of a button...pharmacies have the power to boost pediatric adherence and improve a child’s health outcome...