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CBI’s Specialty Therapies Forum, the conference that brings together healthcare and pharmaceutical thought leaders to share best practices for managing specialty therapies…an opportunity to discuss not only strategies for managing the cost of specialty therapies, but also to provide the latest information and case studies dedicated to ensuring access and quality care in specialty benefit management. New to the agenda this year is a workshop dedicated to Specialty Pipeline Management.

Dialogue led by key thought leaders:

Avella Specialty Pharmacy | Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts | Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota | Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina | Denver Health Medical Plan | Fairview Specialty Pharmacy | Florida Blue | Gorman Health Group | Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield New Jersey | Independent Health | NSHOA Cancer Centers in NY | Rutgers RWJ Medical School | Walgreens | Walmart | Widener University

Despite the howling from political candidates trying to make the top drug-makers their whipping boy in populist campaign efforts, the need and demand for pharmaceuticals will only continue. This is especially the case when you consider that we now live in a world with an aging population that is going to be popping more and more doctor-prescribed pills…While pricing and cost concerns won’t go away completely until the election cycle winds down, now may be an ideal time to add the top yielding stocks to portfolios for 2016…The companies we found have long histories of paying and raising their dividends, and make good sense for conservative growth and income portfolios.

• Abbott Lab
• Eli Lilly
• Merck & Co.
• Pfizer

Mike Glaicar, Business Development: Pharmacy Times...(PTNN) This weekly video program highlights the latest in pharmacy news, product news, and more. (video)

Everyday Health, Inc., a…provider of digital health marketing and communications solutions, and Videology, a…software provider for converged TV and video advertising…announced the launch of TVRx, a solution for pharmaceutical and health-oriented marketers to target relevant health audiences across television and digital video. The…partnership combines Everyday Health's…audience reach and analytics…with Videology's…platform for planning, executing and measuring video campaigns across any screen…"Television remains a staple for advertisers in the health vertical. However, as the industry focuses on smaller patient populations and consumer viewing fragments across multiple screens, the ability to reach the right audiences with relevant messaging has become more difficult,"…"TVRx addresses this challenge by enabling advertisers to find the right audience - regardless of viewing screen - and achieve a desired marketing outcome…"TVRx takes everything that is great about TV and incorporates the enhanced targeting and measurement capabilities of digital, to provide the most sophisticated targeting and ROI measurement across both linear TV and digital video.

Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding has dropped out of a high-profile project to develop an antibiotic for treating "superbug" infections…"Roche has decided to discontinue its involvement in the clinical development of the investigational antibiotic RG7929/POL7080 for the treatment of patients with severe Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections and will return the asset to Polyphor,"…Roche spokesman said that antimicrobial resistance remained a major threat to public health and Roche would continues to focus on this unmet medical need as part of its infectious disease research and development strategy.

Food and Drug Administration should allow the importation of pharmaceutical products from Canada if they meet certain stipulations, Sens. Chuck Grassley and John McCain wrote in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell… senators call on FDA to “immediately” certify the importation of prescription drugs

• if they are off patent and are no longer marketed by the drug developer,
• if there are “significant and unexplained” price increases,
• if no direct competitor product is currently marketed and the introduction of a new drug will benefit US consumers, or
• if the drug is “produced in another country by the name brand manufacturer that initially developed the drug or by a well-known generic manufacturer that commonly sells pharmaceutical products in the United States.”

Drugs could also be imported from countries outside of Canada “with similar regulatory regimes related to drug approvals,”…As far as how FDA could go about allowing such imports, the senators point to the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 that allows FDA to permit pharmacists and wholesale retailers to import drugs from Canada.

Pfizer's record-setting proposed purchase of Allergan for about $160 billion will not only be the biggest health-care sector deal ever, it will also be one of the largest tax inversions in recent history…Tax inversions...are frowned upon by politicians and the Treasury Department. But efforts to penalize companies for making such deals seem to be falling flat…Tax inversions are a better deal for companies that already have substantial sales abroad, or (like pharmaceuticals) rely on high-margin businesses based on intellectual property…while inversions have continued at an unusually high rate, overall merger and acquisition activity has been slowing…By value, U.S. inversion deals accounted for about 4 percent of global M&A activity in 2014 and 2015 — up from 2 percent or less in the three years before that…It remains to be seen whether Treasury Department rules meant to prevent tax inversions will have an impact. The regulations do not apply to the Pfizer deal, which will result in a company with about 56 percent ownership in the U.S. — the rules only apply to companies with 60 percent or higher.

China, already a global powerhouse in high-tech areas…is turning its industrial might to the challenge of making more of its own drugs for a vast and aging population… China is the world's second biggest drugs market behind the United States…Increasing local competition is part of a structural upheaval in China's hospital-dominated prescription drug market. Selling drugs to patients at a hefty mark-up - especially off-patent Western "branded generics" - often accounts for 40-50 percent of Chinese hospitals' revenues. But the authorities are now pushing a policy of zero mark-ups, initially in smaller county hospitals...Pivotal to the transformation of the market is the China Food and Drug Administration…The watchdog has promised to speed up approval of innovative new drugs, which can take 5-7 years…It's probably been taking everyone a little by surprise…As we hit the next decade in the 2020s, I'd be very surprised if there wasn't at least a top 20, if not top 10, global pharma player that was headquartered in China.

You may need a thick skin to withstand the rising cost of some dermatology medicines…A new study finds that prices of some widely prescribed creams and pills for skin conditions rose rapidly between 2009 and 2015. Of the 19 brand-name medicines analyzed, the retail prices of seven more than quadrupled…Prices for some generic drugs also rose considerably. Between 2011 and 2014, there was a mean increase of 279 percent, although prices for a few drugs remained largely unchanged…“The prices have skyrocketed with no justification,”…“This is a manifestation of anarchy pricing, which is what you get when you don’t have a competitive free market or competent government actions to protect patients,”...

After weeks of criticism from patients, doctors and other drugmakers for hiking a life-saving medicine to more than 50 times its former price, Turing Pharmaceuticals is reneging on its pledge to cut the $750-per-pill price…the…company is reducing what it charges hospitals, by up to 50 percent, for…Daraprim (pyrimethamine). Most patients’ co-payments will be capped at $10 or less a month. But insurers will be stuck with the bulk of the $750 tab. That drives up future treatment and insurance costs…Daraprim…patent expired decades ago. It is the preferred treatment for…toxoplasmosis, which mainly threatens people with weak immune systems…Carlos del Rio, chairman of the HIV Medicine Association, called Turing’s changes “just window dressing.”…Turing’s move comes after a pharmacy that compounds prescription drugs for individual patients, Imprimis Pharmaceuticals, started selling a custom-made version for 99 cents per capsule…Del Rio noted that while hospitals treat many patients initially, most are then treated at home for a couple of months, so the lower hospital price doesn’t help…Imprimis chief executive…said…that orders are pouring in for its version of Daraprim from doctors, and the company has dispensed more than 2,500 capsules since Oct. 22.