- Imprimis Pharma to take on Allergan’s Restasis with cheaper product (reuters.com)
Shares of Imprimis Pharmaceuticals Inc sky-rocketed as much as 91 percent on Thursday, after the company said it would launch a cheaper alternative to Allergan Plc’s controversial dry eye drug, Restasis, by next month...Imprimis’ therapy will cost 99 cents for a month’s supply, with refills starting at $79 a month and the company will start selling prescriptions on Nov. 1, Imprimis’ Chief Executive Mark Baum told Reuters...a U.S. judge on Monday invalidated the patents on Allergan’s Restasis on grounds that they cover ideas that are obvious and analysts now expect generic competition for the drug as soon as next year...Imprimis, which makes compounded medications for costly prescription drugs, on Thursday said it would offer a customizable topical formulation of cyclosporine — an off-patent chemical used in Restasis...If successful in bringing forward a product, Imprimis’ compounded cyclosporine-based formulation will have not been tested in controlled trials, FDA reviewed or approved...
- Join Together Northern Nevada To Hold Prescription Drug Round Up (ktvn.com)Take Back Day (takebackday.dea.gov)
Join Together Northern Nevada is holding a semiannual “Prescription Drug Round Up” day on October 21 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The goal of the round up is to collect unused, unwanted and expired prescription - or non-prescription - medications.
Locations:
- Raleys - 18144 Wedge Parkway, Reno
- CVS – 55 Damonte Ranch Parkway, Reno
- SaveMart – 105—N. McCarran Blvd., Reno
- Smith’s – 175 Lemmon Drive, Reno
- Scolari’s – 4788 Caughlin Parkway, Reno
- UNR Student Health Center, 1664 N. Virginia Street, Reno
- CVS - 680 N. McCarran Blvd, Sparks
- CVS – 5151 Sparks Blvd., Sparks
You may also drop off your pet medications and liquid form of medications.
- Cancer drug study data was falsified, says AstraZeneca (telegraph.co.uk)
An early lab study supporting a cancer drug bought by British drugmaker AstraZeneca was falsified, the company has admitted...AstraZeneca bought a majority stake in US rival Acerta Pharma at the end of 2015 for $4bn on the strength of its novel drug acalabrutinib under development for treating blood cancers and solid tumours. More than 2,000 patients are taking part in more than 25 acalabrutinib clinical trials...Last month Acerta retracted an abstract, published in medical journal Cancer Research in August 2015 – four months before the AstraZeneca investment – purportedly showing the drug was effective in treating solid tumours in mice...AstraZeneca admitted this evidence had been fabricated. It blamed a “former Acerta employee who acted alone to falsify a pre-clinical data set provided through external collaborations”. It confirmed the incident pre-dated its investment and US medicines regulator the Food and Drug Administration had been notified...AstraZeneca added: “It’s important to note that this isolated issue had no impact on the integrity of acalabrutinib data in any clinical trials, and there was no risk to patient health.”...
- Chicago moves closer to easing pharmacist workload (chicagotribune.com)
Chicago has moved a step closer to placing major restrictions on pharmacist workloads in a bid to improve consumer safety...The City Council Finance Committee on Tuesday approved a measure that would allow Chicago pharmacists to fill prescription orders for no more than 10 patients per hour, as well as guaranteeing meal and washroom breaks. It also would require pharmacies to post a list in plain sight showing which pharmacists and technicians have worked shifts longer than eight hours...The proposal's sponsor, Ald. Edward Burke, the committee's chairman, said he hoped to bring the plan up for a vote in the full City Council...The...alderman has argued that the proposal would reduce the "undue levels of stress" on pharmacists caused by pressure from retailers to fill hundreds of prescriptions a day. Pharmacists working constantly for as long as 12 hours a day have said they worry about losing focus during busy shifts and potentially putting their customers in jeopardy...Along with the 10-patient-per-hour limit, Burke's Chicago proposal would give pharmacists who work at least seven hours in a shift two 15-minute breaks and one 30-minute meal break. A pharmacy also would need to schedule at least 10 pharmacy technician hours per 100 prescriptions filled.
- Federal judge refuses to halt diabetes drug transparency law (reviewjournal.com)
A federal judge...denied a request by pharmaceutical companies to immediately block a Nevada law requiring them to detail diabetes drug prices and disclose manufacturing costs and research investments come July...The reason, he said: July is more than nine months away...“I don’t see immediate and irreparable harm here,” U.S. District Judge James Mahan said after hearing arguments for and against the request in Las Vegas. Mahan said he might reconsider if the request were made in March or April, but he facetiously added, “My crystal ball is broken.”...At Tuesday’s hearing, Robert Weiner, who represented the pharmaceutical groups, argued that acts as a penalty for companies wanting to raise prices after Nov. 1 and before the July disclosure date...“This is a competitive disadvantage, and it chills us now,” Weiner said...Arguing against the injunction, Las Vegas Chief Deputy Attorney General Linda Anderson said the law is intended to protect diabetes patients in Nevada.
- Judge invalidates Allergan patents on dry-eye medicine Restasis (cnbc.com)
A Texas judge invalidated Allergan patents on its dry eye medicine Restasis on the grounds that the patents cover obvious ideas...Judge William Bryson issued the ruling in federal court in Marshall, Texas, in a longstanding dispute between Allergan and generic drugmakers led by Mylan NV and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd...The ruling could enable the generic drug companies to sell their own versions of Restasis, which generated around $1.5 billion in sales for Allergan last year and accounted for more than 10 percent of the company's revenue...Allergan's stock price dropped about 5 percent on the news...The patents at issue were the same ones Allergan transferred to a Native American tribe in an effort to protect them from administrative review...
- Shortages of drugs and saline reported as Puerto Rico hurricane damage lingers (fiercepharma.com)
Shortages of drugs and saline produced in Puerto Rico are beginning to materialize after Hurricanes Irma and Maria wreaked havoc on production on the island, which produces about 10% of the U.S. drug supply including products like Lipitor and blood thinner Xarelto...Saline solution was already suffering supply restraints before the storms knocked out power to plants across island, affecting saline production at a facility operated by Baxter International...The company, which has said it lost days of production as a result of the storms, has put customers on allocation of sodium chloride and will try to make up for some of that supply by importing saline and glucose from plants in Australia and Ireland...The FDA has said that there are about 40 drugs manufactured in Puerto Rico, 13 of them exclusively, and that shortages of some of those will be materializing within days. The storms knocked out power, and while manufacturers have backup generators, they could be without commercial power for months. Most of the facilities that have resumed production, maintain only partial operations…
- Veterans’ lawsuit claims Big Pharma bribes in Iraq helped finance terrorism (fiercepharma.com)
Pharma companies have faced a gamut of allegations over the years, but a new lawsuit ups the ante by alleging several drugmakers paid bribes in Iraq that helped fuel terrorism...the lawsuit alleged that top pharma companies Pfizer, Roche, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca paid bribes to secure healthcare contracts in Iraq. Those payments ultimately supported terrorism that hurt or killed U.S. service members...More than 100 veterans or their family members are suing the drugmakers under the Anti-Terrorism Act...The lawsuit said the "terrorist-finance mechanism was straightforward: the terrorists openly controlled the Iraqi ministry in charge of importing medical goods, and defendants—all of which are large Western medical-supply companies—obtained lucrative contracts from that ministry by making corrupt payments to the terrorists who ran it."
- Missouri appeals court overturns $72 million verdict against Johnson & Johnson over talc cancer risks (cnbc.com)
J&J won the reversal of a verdict in favor of the family of a woman whose death...stemmed from her use of the company's talc-based products...J&J, which won one Missouri trial, says it faces lawsuits by 4,800 plaintiffs nationally asserting similar claims over its talc-based products...It also faces cases in California, where in August a jury awarded a woman $417 million...Johnson & Johnson...won the reversal of a $72 million verdict in favor of the family of a woman whose death from ovarian cancer they claimed stemmed from her use of the company's talc-based products like Johnson's Baby Powder...The Missouri Court of Appeals for the Eastern District said that given a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that limited where injury lawsuits could be filed, the case over Alabama resident Jacqueline Fox's death should not have been tried in St. Louis.
- Week in Review: October 13, 2017 (pharmacytimes.com)
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.