- Current Legislative Efforts in Addressing Rising Drug Costs (pharmacytimes.com)
Christopher Topoleski, Director of Federal Legislative Affairs for ASHP, talks about the ongoing legislative actions aimed at addressing rising medication costs in the drug industry.
- This Week in Managed Care: June 9, 2017 (ajmc.com)
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
- New Breast Center in South Reno (ktvn.com)
There is a new place in town to help women stay on top of their breast health. The Summit Surgery Center at Saint Mary's Galena now houses a one-stop shop for wellness and preventative care...Along with 3-D mammography, "We also have ultrasound technique, MRI, CT scanners. So, this is the area women would come for the preventative diagnostic measures,” explains Medical Director Dr. Shelli Tiller…We want to have preventative medicine for people, but if you get to the point where something goes wrong and you have to go to the surgical side of things - that's where my portion comes in." From biopsies to outpatient surgery....
- This Week in Managed Care: June 2, 2017 (ajmc.com)
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
- FDA requests removal of Opana ER for risks related to abuse (fda.gov)FDA Seeks to Pull Pain Pill Off Market, Citing Risk of Abuse (bloomberg.com)
...the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requested that Endo Pharmaceuticals remove its opioid pain medication, reformulated Opana ER (oxymorphone hydrochloride), from the market. After careful consideration, the agency is seeking removal based on its concern that the benefits of the drug may no longer outweigh its risks. This is the first time the agency has taken steps to remove a currently marketed opioid pain medication from sale due to the public health consequences of abuse...The FDA’s decision is based on a review of all available postmarketing data, which demonstrated a significant shift in the route of abuse of Opana ER from nasal to injection following the product’s reformulation. Injection abuse of reformulated Opana ER has been associated with a serious outbreak of HIV and hepatitis C, as well as cases of a serious blood disorder (thrombotic microangiopathy). This decision follows a March 2017 FDA advisory committee meeting where a group of independent experts voted 18-8 that the benefits of reformulated Opana ER no longer outweigh its risks...
- Pill Club Offers Pharmacy-Free Birth Control At Lower Costs, Plus Free Goodies (forbes.com)
Birth-control delivery services have understandably been on the rise, with each one trying to combine the best medical, financial and legal fit for patients in mobile form. A new app on the scene aims to streamline both process and cost for users by eliminating the pharmaceutical middleman and shipping wholesale medicine direct from its home base to patients' own...The Pill Club is on a mission to make getting birth control as easy and cost-effective as possible, and even fun...founder Nick Chang...these goals are made possible by a fundamental difference between his app and others on the market--namely, that it provides all prescriptions and products in-house, without needing to involve the pharmacies and pharmacy prices that many users are looking to avoid...serving as its own functional pharmacy is what will allow The Pill Club to make the difference for patients who want to acquire birth control but have faced all-too-common hurdles to getting it…I always saw that there were a number of hurdles facing women getting access to birth control. There are structural ones, such as needing to go to the doctor for a prescription, and visiting pharmacies again and again to fill that prescription...what we set out to do: to connect telemedicine with telepharmacy...
- Evzio price hikes boosted Kaléo’s rebate bill but it hasn’t paid up, PBM lawsuit claims (fiercepharma.com)
Kaléo Pharma's price hikes on the lifesaving overdose med Evzio haven’t only angered lawmakers. A leading pharmacy benefit manager, Express Scripts, is going after the tiny drugmaker for unpaid rebates triggered by the exponential price increases...Express Scripts sued...claiming Kaléo owes it $14.5 million in unpaid rebates. The company’s coverage contract with Kaléo includes two types of rebates, a "formulary rebate" designed to secure coverage and a "price protection rebate" to limit exposure to dramatic price hikes….Kaléo faced Congressional heat earlier this year, when more than 30 senators wrote to the drugmaker seeking information about the drastic price hikes. According to the lawsuit, Kaléo took Evzio’s price from $718 per unit in September 2014 to $4,687 by November 2015...The senators wrote that they were "deeply concerned" about the price hikes that came amid an opioid-abuse epidemic...
- Pharmacy Week in Review: June 9, 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.
- Sandoval vetoes bill requiring advance notice of price hikes for diabetes-related drugs (reviewjournal.com)
Gov. Brian Sandoval...vetoed a bill that would have required drug manufacturers to notify the state in advance of planned price increases for diabetes-related drugs, among other provisions...Sandoval said that while Senate Bill 265 had well-intentioned provisions related to access to affordable health care, the measure also contained potentially detrimental consequences for Nevadans, “not the least of which is the possibility that access to critical care will become more expensive, more restricted, and less equitable.”...“SB 265 fails to account for market dynamics that are inextricably linked to health care delivery and access to prescription drugs,” Sandoval said. “This failure cannot be overlooked, and it could cause more harm than good for Nevada’s families.”...Sandoval also said there was insufficient evidence to support the notion that the measure would lead to lower drug costs…
- Ohio sues five drug companies over opioid crisis (reuters.com)Ohio files suit against 5 drug companies over opioid addiction (americanthinker.com)
The state of Ohio...sued five major drug manufacturers, accusing them of misrepresenting the risks of prescription opioid painkillers that have fueled a sky-rocketing drug addiction epidemic...The suit, filed by Attorney General Mike DeWine, comes as a growing number of state and local governments are suing drugmakers and distributors, seeking to hold them accountable for a deadly and costly opioid crisis...The five companies Ohio sued were Purdue Pharma LP, Johnson & Johnson's Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc unit, a unit of Endo International Plc, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd's Cephalon unit and Allergan Plc...The suit...seeks to halt deceptive practices, a declaration the companies acted illegally and unspecified damages to the state and consumers...