- Coming urgent care facility in southwest valley could be busiest in Las Vegas (reviewjournal.com)
University Medical Center officials plan to open a new urgent care facility in Enterprise, which could become the hospital’s busiest clinic...Beginning in July, UMC will lease a 6,067-square-foot suite in the Blue Diamond Ranch Shopping Center, located at the intersection of Blue Diamond Road and Decatur Boulevard. The clinic will open the same month...“We found this specific community to be under resourced for health care and heard from the community that they would like a UMC Quick Care in their neighborhood,” UMC CEO Mason VanHouweling wrote…The new facility will offer walk-in treatment, X-ray imaging and a handful of lab tests including rapid strep tests, rapid pregnancy tests and urine dipstick analysis. Two doctors will work there when it opens...
- Pharmacy Week in Review: February 3, 2017 (pharmacytimes.com)
Kelly Walsh, PTNN. This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.
- Is the PCSK9 patent fight giving Amgen’s Repatha a boost? Script numbers say so (fiercepharma.com)
As Sanofi and Regeneron scramble to keep their PCSK9 cholesterol drug Praluent on the market, Amgen’s rival drug Repatha already appears to be chipping away at its market share...For the week of January 20, Repatha’s prescription total hit 3,231, ahead of Praluent’s 2,859...The Praluent partners are of course embroiled in a patent fight against Amgen, which claims that Sanofi and Regeneron knowingly stepped on its patents in developing Praluent. A district court jury sided with Amgen, and the judge in the case granted Amgen’s request for an injunction that would push Praluent off the market...Sanofi and Regeneron hope that the threat is short-lived; they’re trying to persuade the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., to put off the injunction while their patent appeal is heard. In their request for a stay, the two companies argued that they have a good chance of winning their appeal and that pulling Praluent in the meantime would do great damage to Regeneron.
- Walgreens, Rite Aid amend deal to $7 per share, extend end date (drugstorenews.com)
Walgreens Boots Alliance and Rite Aid on Monday morning extended their previously announced definitive merger agreement under which Walgreens Boots Alliance will acquire all outstanding shares of Rite Aid...The retail pharmacy operations also restructured a new deal that would value Rite Aid at between about $6.8 billion and $7.4 billion, depending on required store divestitures, down from an initial acquisition cost of $9.4 billion...Under the terms of the amendment, the parties have agreed to reduce the price for each share of Rite Aid common stock to be paid by Walgreens Boots Alliance...price will be a maximum of $7 per share and a minimum of $6.50 per share...Walgreens Boots Alliance will be required to divest up to 1,200 Rite Aid stores and certain additional related assets if required to obtain regulatory approval...
- Touro geriatric fellowships’ aim to keep doctors in Nevada (reviewjournal.com)
A fellowship program being developed at Touro University Nevada aims to put a dent in the doctor shortage locally while also providing more skillful care to Southern Nevada’s senior population...The school’s geriatrics fellowship program will fill a critical gap as the only such program in Southern Nevada when it launches in July, said Dr. John J. Dougherty, dean of Touro’s College of Osteopathic Medicine...The one-year-program, which is recruiting two fellows this year but will grow to four positions in 2018, was approved about two years ago through a national governing medical board... funding was a portion of the $10 million in graduate medical education funding set aside in Gov. Brian Sandoval’s budget for “attracting, educating and retaining” qualified new doctors in Nevada...Statistics suggest that people who complete their graduate medical education in Nevada are more likely to stay and practice here, which is one of the key reasons for the push to increase local residencies and fellowships...A fellowship program being developed at Touro University Nevada aims to put a dent in the doctor shortage locally while also providing more skillful care to Southern Nevada’s senior population...
- The top 10 drug launches of 2017 (fiercepharma.com)
- After an unusually slow year for new drug approvals—the FDA greenlighted just 22 meds in 2016—it remains to be seen whether drugmakers can do much better in 2017. One thing’s for sure, though: No matter what total the industry tallies up this year, the crop will bring some would-be blockbusters and market disrupters.
At the top of the list...is Ocrevus (ocrelizumab), the Roche multiple sclerosis drug that’s promising to shake things up in more ways than one...
Sanofi and Regeneron hot-shot Dupixent (dupilumab) could make a big splash in severe atopic dermatitis, assuming payers don’t get in the companies’ way.
Ditto for Biogen's Spinraza, which in December became the first FDA-approved product to treat spinal muscular atrophy—but whose high sticker could raise eyebrows at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening pricing action.
Tesaro and Neurocrine are looking for their first-ever FDA approvals, in breast cancer pill niraparib and tardive dyskinesia therapy Ingrezza, respectively.
...Kite Pharma is aiming to get the first-ever CAR-T cancer drug to market, with a candidate, KTE-C19, that the oncology community will be watching closely as the next big thing in immunotherapies.
Novartis’ ribociclib...which aims to challenge Pfizer’s Ibrance in the CDK 4/6 breast cancer space.
...semaglutide, Novo Nordisk's weekly GLP-1 drug, a would-be successor to the company's blockbuster Victoza…
- After an unusually slow year for new drug approvals—the FDA greenlighted just 22 meds in 2016—it remains to be seen whether drugmakers can do much better in 2017. One thing’s for sure, though: No matter what total the industry tallies up this year, the crop will bring some would-be blockbusters and market disrupters.
- Contentious flu vaccine policies at hospitals are based on flawed research, study says (statnews.com)
It’s an edict that comes out every autumn in many hospitals: If health care workers don’t get a flu shot, they will face consequences. Some make vaccinations a condition of employment. Others require unvaccinated staff to wear surgical masks near patients for weeks during flu season...But a new study is calling into question the scientific evidence underpinning these increasingly common hospital policies — and could fuel challenges to the contentious orders...The study...concludes that the research used to justify mandatory flu shots for health sector workers is flawed, and that the policies cannot plausibly produce the benefits that had widely been assumed...the bottom line of our paper is to say there is no valid scientific evidence, even now, underpinning enforced health care worker immunizations...trying to mandate that health care workers take the flu vaccine is well-intentioned, but is taking away resources and the focus on what our main priority needs to be, which is getting a better influenza vaccine...
- This Week in Managed Care: February 3, 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
- Inherited pay-for-delay penalties are getting expensive for ‘cash-strapped’ Teva (fiercepharma.com)
Teva is eager to start moving in the right direction after a particularly rocky 2016. Problem is, it’s still paying for pay-for-delay decisions made by its products’ previous owners...the generics giant last week agreed to a $225 million settlement with a group that picked up Bayer antibiotic Cipro...Also...the FTC refiled charges against Watson and former parent Actavis, claiming they illegally blocked a lower-cost generic version of Endo’s Lidoderm after entering into a pay-for-delay pact with Endo...All things considered, “the cumulative sum of fines is getting noticeable”—especially for “cash-strapped” Teva...The Israeli company earlier this month walked down its previously outlined 2017 guidance by more than $1 billion after new 2016 launches didn’t hit their marks. And some analysts think Teva’s new revenue forecast—a range of $23.8 billion to $24.5 billion--may still be too high...
- Trump’s Crusade on Drug Pricing Puts Both Parties on the Spot (bloomberg.com)
Donald Trump has a chance to rally his core supporters as well as left-wing Democrats, wrapping himself in the populist flag to take on the politically powerful drug industry...He is vowing to keep a campaign pledge to push legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, a practice currently prohibited by law. Proponents say this would reduce drug prices and Medicare costs for the federal government. Medicare pays for about 29 percent of prescription drugs in the U.S. and would have considerable leverage...If Trump goes all out on this issue, it will be near impossible for….Democrats to side with the industry over a Republican president whom they accuse of representing the interests of the rich.