- Delegation is key to advancing the pharmacy profession (pharmaceutical-journal.com)
To realise new ways of working means moving away from traditional professional boundaries and enabling the pharmacy workforce to take on different roles if it benefits patients...the demand for pharmacists’ clinical skills as medicines experts continues to grow. Medicines optimisation spans all pharmacy services....In order to deliver this, maximising the skills, knowledge and experience of the rest of the pharmacy team is an absolute necessity...As pharmacists’ clinician role continues to evolve and become embedded in new areas...pharmacy technician, can help to support them.
- Education and training...realigning functional tasks and providing confidence in delegating duties is to ensure there is a defined education and training pathway that assures the public and the profession of a competent practitioner at every level.
- Expanding roles...Pharmacy technicians, as registered and accountable professionals working across the same pharmacy environments as pharmacists, can be used to release pharmacists’ time to undertake additional clinical responsibilities.
- Blurred roles...The expanding responsibilities of pharmacy technicians may help give clarity to the role...However, there is no clear distinction between a newly registered pharmacy technician and a dispensing assistant...requires greater clarity around the role of the dispensing assistant...This must be resolved if pharmacy technicians are to further their practice and help release pharmacists to conduct more clinical work.
- Working together...Pharmacy technicians will not be substitutes for pharmacists but, as foundation practitioners, they can work closely together, exercising autonomy and judgement within limited parameters...Working together for the benefit of patients will allow pharmacy to embrace the changes that are needed to relieve pressure on the UK healthcare system.
- Solving the Mystery of Employer-PBM Rebate Pass-Through (drugchannels.net)
Manufacturers pay billions in rebates to pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). How much of that money do PBMs share with their plan sponsor clients...As far as I know, the only public answer comes from the Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute’s new 2015-2016 Prescription Drug Benefit Cost and Plan Design Report (Free download with registration)...According to the PBMI’s survey data, only three-quarters of employers directly receive a piece of manufacturer rebates. Some employers get 100% of the rebates. Others get a portion, sometimes with a guaranteed minimum amount...I also highlight PBMI data about the prevalence of spread pricing (as opposed to pass-through pricing) as a means for employers to compensate PBMs. Despite what you may have heard, many employers still seem to prefer spread pricing models...
- Drugstores galore: Another CVS being built on the Las Vegas Strip (vegasinc.com)
The drugstore arms race on the Strip is ratcheting up another notch...Workers are building a roughly 20,190-square-foot CVS store near the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road, in front of Bally’s. The two-story property will have a pharmacy and is scheduled to open in May…It’s the latest Walgreens or CVS to land in the famed tourist-packed casino corridor, where the drugstores make big money — and pay big rents — selling medicine, food, alcohol and such Vegas-themed souvenirs as shot glasses, margarita cups, ash trays and gallon-sized flasks...This lucrative slice of commerce on the boulevard is only growing...CVS opened a store last year in the new three-story mall at Treasure Island and now has four outposts in the resort corridor, including the one at Bally’s.
- Drug Price Hikes and Shortages Have Similar Roots, Experts Say (ashp.org)
Experts say that recent increases in the prices of off-patent generic drugs are closely tied to the drug shortages that have plagued hospitals for years...They have the same root cause: a lack of competition in certain parts of the generic market...The first indication we had of problems in the generic market were not prices; they were shortages. Hospitals were having serious problems filling prescriptions...The second manifestation we're getting now is the higher prices for certain generic drugs...without competition, drug companies can raise their prices several thousand percent simply overnight...arbitrary and unpredictable inflation is not sustainable for our hospitals, especially when we receive capitated payments for most of our patients...hospitals handle such high prices in the same way they do drug shortages: by rationing drugs, stocking smaller quantities, and devoting "huge hours of manpower" to managing the problem...the business strategy driving the price hikes affects a relatively small number of drugs but is destabilizing reimbursement practices surrounding those medications...compounding pharmacies could play a greater role in preventing price hikes affecting off-patent drugs...Other potential solutions...included speeding FDA's review of marketing applications for older generic drugs that have no competition in the marketplace and instituting price regulations for these drugs akin to the regulations that affect public utilities...
- French drug trial volunteer dies: hospital (reuters.com)French drug trial disaster leaves one brain dead, five injured (reuters.com)
A man left brain dead after a drug trial in northwest France died on Sunday, said the hospital where he was being treated...The Rennes hospital said in a statement that five other volunteers were in stable condition after they were admitted last week...In total, 90 people took part in the trial of the drug made by Portuguese pharmaceutical company Bial, which is intended to treat mood and anxiety issues, as well as movement coordination disorders linked to neurological issues...It was not yet known what caused the tragedy, said Francois Peaucelle, the head of Biotrial, the company that conducted the trials for Bial.
- Fighting for Drug Pricing Transparency – Pharmacy Podcast (pharmacypodcast.com)
Ron Lanton – with True North Political Solutions brings another Health Policy Check-Up Segment with State Rep. Heidi Brooks with the state of Maine House of Representatives. They discuss MAC Drug Pricing Transparency and other pressing issues to our pharmacy industry. (podcast 23:19 minutes)
- Specialty pharmacy is a lucrative opportunity for community pharmacy (drugtopics.modernmedicine.com)
The traditional pharmacy business model is under siege as it faces challenges from healthcare reform and competition. As community pharmacies scramble to survive, the specialty pharmacy model offers a lucrative opportunity for growth...The key to success? You’ll need to understand and prepare for a wide variety of challenges on fronts ranging from accreditation to marketing. That’s the message from community pharmacists who are urging their colleagues to take advantage of the growth in specialty pharmacy.
- What is specialty pharmacy?....The definition is not clear cut...
- Here are common characteristics of specialty drugs: They’re pricey, sometimes even shockingly expensive...treat a rare and chronic illness...injectable or infused...Complex manufacturing is required...special requirements for storage and handling.
- Complex patient monitoring is required (eg, for compliance and side effects).
- Help available in specialty arena...a number of companies are working to give independent pharmacists a helping hand in the specialty pharmacy arena.
- Accreditation...It’s expensive, and it’s confusing...
- Marketing to physicians.
- Marketing to the public.
- Willingness to deal with issues like reimbursement rates and performance standards.
So why bother with all this? “There’s huge opportunity for growth,” Clark said, and a chance to provide high-quality care to patients who need it. “But we have growing pains,” he cautioned. “You’ve got to be patient.”
- Walmart to close more than 250 stores globally (drugstorenews.com)Here’s a list and map of all the Walmart store closings in the US (qz.com)
Walmart said it will close 269 stores worldwide this year, including many of its smallest stores, in an unprecedented move CEO Doug McMillon characterized as being more disciplined about growth...Plans call for the company to close 154 locations in the U.S., including the company’s 102 smallest format stores, Walmart Express, which had been in pilot since 2011. Walmart said it will focus on strengthening its large format supercenters, optimizing Neighborhood Markets which average about 40,000-sq.-ft., growing the e-commerce business and expanding pickup services for customers. In terms of closures by format type, the company said the 154 U.S. locations consist of 23 Neighborhood Markets, 12 supercenters, seven stores in Puerto Rico, six discount centers and four Sam’s Clubs...Walmart did not disclose how many of stores slated for closure contain a pharmacy. However the figure is expected to be less than the total because many of the affected stores are small formats that did not contain pharmacies...(Nevada - Supercenter at 4350 N Nellis Blvd. in Las Vegas closed, today 1/17/16)
- Tools to choose effective cancer treatment are too many, too rigid: oncologists (modernhealthcare.com)
On a typical day, oncologist Dr. Linda Bosserman spends hours poring over lists meant to guide clinicians toward the optimal course of treatment. These "clinical pathways" are based on the cancer's stage and location in the body, and patient-specific factors, like comorbidities...Then, after she and the patient have chosen a plan, Bosserman says she spends hours explaining to payers how and why the choice was made...Because payers and for-profit companies create and distribute these pathways and because many are tailored to different agendas, the process is laden with inadequacies, conflicts of interest and “unsustainable” administrative burden...Pathways are here to support doctors and patients, but they need to be comprehensive and they need to be practical...For each patient and for each type of disease, a provider may be faced with multiple pathways created by different interest groups...these may include payers, who incentivize certain pathways by offering increased reimbursement or shared savings. Benefit management organizations, or intermediaries between providers and payers, also create pathways that favor cancer drugs...They should not be about limiting care to patients, but rather making sure the care patients get is the best evidence-based care.
- Two drug makers engage in a murky battle over the use of the Merck name (statnews.com)
What’s in a name?...Plenty, especially if you happen to run a company called Merck. In fact, there are two drug makers with that moniker. One is based in the United States and the other is headquartered in Germany, but is formally known as Merck KGgA (Merck Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien). And not surprisingly, they are warring over use of the name — again...To be specific, the company in Germany has the rights to use the Merck name everywhere in the world, except in the US and Canada. However, the English High Court has just ruled that the other Merck — the drug maker that is based in the US — breached a 46-year-old agreement and infringed on a trademark by using the name ‘Merck’ alone in the United Kingdom...In the lawsuit filed today, the US Merck argues that its German rival is deliberately pursuing a confusing corporate branding campaign as part of a revamped US business to bolster its presence in oncology...why do both drug makers have the same name?...The original Merck was established as a drug manufacturer in Germany in the 1800’s, but a Merck descendant later immigrated to the US and created a unit known as Merck & Co., which is based in New Jersey. But the company was confiscated by the US government during World War I and later established as a separate drug maker...Perhaps all of this would make more sense if the companies were renamed ‘Murk.’