- Some drug makers are better corporate citizens than others (statnews.com)
...a new nonprofit (JUST Capital) created by...hedge fund manager has ranked nearly 1,000 publicly traded companies to determine the extent to which they pursue "just" policies and practices. And leading the pack among drug makers is Amgen...The goal is to maintain an information clearinghouse that can be used to spur companies to make improvements while, at the same time, giving the public tools to make more informed decisions about purchasing, investing, and employment...40,000 Americans to gauge their views on "just" behavior by corporations...the team identified...nine categories...fair pay; the quality of employment benefits; workplace treatment; product attributes; customer satisfaction; leadership and ethics; supply chain standards; and environmental performance...Of the nearly two dozen publicly traded US drug makers, the biggest names largely dominate the rankings, although some smaller companies also ranked highly. After Amgen, the top 10 is rounded out by Biogen, Johnson & Johnson, Agilent Technologies, Eli Lilly, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Quintiles, United Therapeutics, BioMarin Pharmaceutical, and AbbVie...the rankings did incorporate fines and violations racked up by drug makers. And there have been many of those in recent years in which companies reached settlements for illegal marketing, paying kickbacks to doctors, and offering bribes to officials and health care providers in foreign countries
- Pharmacy Week in Review: December 1, 2016 (pharmacytimes.com)
Ed Cohen, Executive Vice President Pharmacy Advocacy, Pharmacy Times, This weekly video program highlights the latest in pharmacy news, product news, and more.
- Patients give Hy-Vee’s Amber Pharmacy high marks (chaindrugreview.com)
Hy-Vee Inc. subsidiary Amber Pharmacy ranked the highest out of all U.S. specialty pharmacies in patient satisfaction with pharmacy staff in a survey conducted by Zitter Health Insights...Fielding responses from more than 3,000 patients across 38 U.S. specialty pharmacies, the...survey assessed a range of aspects of patient satisfaction. Amber said that its pharmacists, nurses, pharmacy technicians and billing department scored 100%, and its customer service representatives scored 95%...A key component of the survey was the Net Promoter Score, an index of 1 to 100 that gauges patients’ willingness to recommend their pharmacy to others. Amber said its NPS across all categories was 74, the second-highest score of all pharmacies assessed...The...survey also assessed patient satisfaction in therapeutic categories...Amber led the transplant category with an NPS of 83 and was among the top two pharmacies in the oncology and rheumatoid arthritis categories.
- Renown Expands Telehealth To Four Rural Nevada Communities (thisisreno.com)
Renown Health is expanding its video health consultation network to four rural hospitals in Nevada...The videoconferencing service, known as telehealth, allows doctors in Reno to connect with patients in rural areas who may not have access to specialty services, like neurology or pediatrics...Kirk Gillis is the vice president for accountable care with Renown, and he says the need for specialty care in rural areas is critical...“A patient in a rural community, and their primary care provider in that community said, ‘You need to see a specialist.’ The nearest specialist is 200 miles away in Reno, Nevada. They may or may not forego that care, because they may or may not be able to make that trip,” he says...Four hospitals in Nevada have joined the network, including those in Lovelock, Hawthorne, Battle Mountain and Caliente.
- Mylan CEO accepts full responsibility for EpiPen price hikes, but offers little explanation (statnews.com)
...Mylan Pharmaceuticals CEO Heather Bresch accepted "full responsibility"...for the price hikes that caused national outrage..."If EpiPen had to be the catalyst to show what hardworking families are facing, it will have been worth it," she said...referring to the upfront costs that many people encounter with high-deductible health plans. Mylan increased the price of an EpiPen two-pack nearly 550 percent to $608 over the past decade...Bresch reiterated remarks she made...at a congressional hearing...citing a lack of transparency in the pharmaceutical pricing system for the controversy surrounding the product. She justified the price increases by pointing to what she insisted were "investments" made to improve the device and patient access...the company has made plans to sell its own authorized generic version of EpiPen at roughly half the price. And...agreed to a $465 million settlement with the Department of Justice for shortchanging Medicaid over rebates...Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission was asked by various lawmakers to investigate whether Mylan violated antitrust laws because the contract for one option in the discounted school program, at one time, contained a clause forbidding school districts to buy rival products...
- What the Surgeon General Gets Wrong About Addiction (realclearhealth.com)
The Surgeon General's new report, "Facing Addiction in America," is the first time the office has explicitly addressed addiction to illicit drugs...the report is timely...(it) provides a solid summary of established findings, the Surgeon General perpetuates key misconceptions that have come to dominate the field of addiction.
- The first dubious claim is that addiction is a "brain disease."...the point of medicalizing addiction is well-intentioned: obtaining more funding for addiction research and treatment, combatting the "shame and stigma"...and softening criminal and other punitive approaches...over-medicalizing addiction shortchanges the crucial role of motivation in recovery. At the same time, it hypes the promise of medication...
- ...another logical lapse in the report, the Surgeon General presents a choice: "It’s time to change how we view addiction,"..."Not as a moral failing but as a chronic illness that must be treated with skill, urgency and compassion."...This may sound benign, and we of course support treating addiction with skill, urgency, and compassion. At the same time, the Surgeon General’s proposed choice is a false one.
- ...the Surgeon General subscribes to what we call the "shame narrative," the idea that people with drug problems are too ashamed to ask for help...has made people with substance use disorders less likely to come forward and seek help."...this sounds reassuring…Why insulate individuals from the adverse consequences of their behavior when those very consequences often motivate them to seek help?...Stigmatization is a normal dimension of human interaction; it can exert a civilizing effect on communities, and it is often the basis of the anti-drug messages we give to children...
- Escalation Of Antibiotic-Resistant Infections Is A ‘Train Wreck’ (kunr.org)
The increase in antibiotic-resistant infections is an escalating medical problem. The misuse of antibiotics has enabled some bacteria to adapt, rendering some drugs ineffective...According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 2 million people in the United States become infected with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotic each year. And more than 20 thousand die annually as a result...To learn more about this public health threat, Reno Public Radio’s Anh Gray sits down with Dr. James Wilson, who heads the Nevada Center for Infectious Disease Forecasting at the University of Nevada, Reno...
- This Week in Managed Care: December 2, 2016 (ajmc.com)
Sara Belanger with The American Journal of Managed Care. Welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network
- Implementing cloud marketing technology (pharmaphorum.com)
Sanofi Pasteur MSD’s journey to digital has helped sales rep engagement, as well as compliant content creation and distribution...Nearly three years ago, Sanofi Pasteur MSD1 was preparing to launch three new products and decided to take the opportunity to incorporate new, digital channels for better customer engagement… we proposed to reframe our commercial strategy with new technology…The company chose to standardise globally on a cloud-based multichannel CRM solution. Armed with new digital capabilities fully integrated across email, face-to-face, and web, the company’s sales representatives immediately began sending compliant emails directly from the system to customers and personally engaging with healthcare professionals via self-directed, interactive web presentations...The company tripled the expected adoption rates six months ahead of forecasts...To improve the speed of content development and distribution, Sanofi Pasteur MSD took a two-pronged approach...First, it sought to consolidate its agency partners globally, to harmonise content development and increase content reuse across the company...Second, the company looked to streamline content production by adopting a cloud-based commercial content management solution with a critical digital asset management component...The results were transformational, with content production centralised, but with local regions still able to adapt content to meet specific regulatory or cultural needs. And, as it was a cloud-based solution, global agencies now had easy access to promotional assets.
- Donation of deactivation pouches will let locals safely dispose of prescription drugs (reviewjournal.com)
A national pharmaceutical company on Thursday donated 60,000 drug-deactivation pouches to help combat prescription opioid abuse in Southern Nevada through a new partnership with Roseman University of Health Sciences...Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals also will help...distribute the pouches to local families for free at health fairs and drug abuse education events...The pouches, which can hold up to 45 pills, are designed to render prescription opioids safe for disposal by using carbon to deactivate the active ingredients. Users can then fill the pouch with water, seal it and safely throw it in the trash without fear of contaminating the environment or having someone consuming the discarded drugs…The pouches are just one way that state officials, educators and health-care experts are attacking the high number of prescription drug-related deaths in the state.