- This Week in Managed Care: The Top Stories of 2019 (ajmc.com)
Christina Mattina, welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News NetworkHere are the results of our online poll of the top healthcare stories for 2019.
5. A judge strikes down Medicaid work rules in Kentucky and Arkansas.
4. The uninsured rate hits a 4-year high.
3. Doctors link a mysterious lung illness to vaping.
2. An appeals court brings uncertainty to the future of the ACA.
1. Dr Scott Gottlieb steps down as FDA commissioner.
- Medical breakthroughs, looser FDA made biotech stocks one of the decade’s best investments (cnbc.com)
Biotechnology was one of the decade’s best investments as a dizzying pace of clinical innovation fueled the discovery of treatments once thought beyond the reach of modern medicine. A more aggressive FDA also aided the trend...An investor who purchased shares of the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF in December 2009 is now up more than 350% in returns. In other words, a $1,000 stake in biotech in 2009 would now be worth over $4,500...Industry experts point to breakthroughs in the treatment of diseases like hepatitis C, multiple sclerosis and a variety of malignancies for biotech’s big decade and the eye-popping profits the industry’s therapies promise...READ MORE
- December 20 Pharmacy Week in Review (pharmacytimes.com)
Nicole Grassano, PTNN, Pharmacy Week in Review, this weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.
- This Week in Managed Care: December 13, 2019 (ajmc.com)
Laura Joszt, Managing Editor at The American Journal of Managed Care. Welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network
- 2019 Year in Review (pharmacytimes.com)
Nicole Grassano, PTNN, Year in Review, this weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.
- This Week in Managed Care: December 20, 2019 (ajmc.com)
Christina Mattina, welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network
- HHS releases proposed rule to import drugs from Canada to lower the price for consumer (healthcarefinancenews.com)Trump proposes rule for importing drugs from Canada; industry says it won't cut costs (reuters.com)Trump plan would allow states to import drugs from Canada (politico.com)Sally Pipes: Canadian drug imports are a dose of bad medicine (sunjournal.com)
The Department of Health and Human Services has released a proposed rule this morning that proposes to lower the price of drugs for consumers by allowing pharmaceutical manufacturers to import certain prescription drugs from Canada...In addition, the Administration has announced the availability of a new draft guidance for the industry that describes procedures drug manufacturers can follow to facilitate importation of prescription drugs, including biological products, that are FDA-approved, manufactured abroad, authorized for sale in any foreign country, and originally intended for sale in that foreign country...READ MORE
- Drug Shortages, Product Standardization Plague IV Drug Delivery (drugtopics.com)
Ongoing threats to the safety of intravenous (IV) drug delivery include drug shortages and lack of IV product standardization, according to an expert panel...The panel of health care providers developed recommendations...The findings...were published in the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy.
The panel’s findings include:
- The panel believes in the overall superiority of manufacturer ready-to-use products, and says they are the safest IV drug delivery systems, followed by outsourced, ready-to-use, pharmacy compounded, point-of-care activated, and nonpharmacy compounded at point of care.
- Drug shortages and lack of standardization are the 2 most significant threats to IV drug safety.
- Variations in IV medication concentrations during transitions of care within the same institution or between different facilities can increase the likelihood of a medication error, leading the panel to identify lack of standardization as a major threat to safety.
- Manufacturer-prepared products are the safest IV drug delivery system, and manufacturer-prepared, ready-to-administer products are preferred for patient use whenever possible...
- Specialized education, training, certification, and competency with regard to compounding of sterile preparations should be required for pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and other involved health care providers...
- A legislative and regulatory framework that supports and encourages IV medication safety in all settings (such as physician offices) should be developed…READ MORE
- Pharmaceutical Stocks Had a Rough Year. Here’s Why 2020 Could Be Better. (barrons.com)
There’s a theme developing in the 2020 outlooks Wall Street analysts covering big pharma are putting out this week: next year is looking good for the sector...Morgan Stanley’s David Risinger upgraded his view on the industry to Attractive from In-Line...“We expect novel disease treatments, combined with limited patent expiration exposure, to yield healthy growth in the coming years,” Risinger wrote. He also said that pricing in the U.S. would be “healthy” in 2020...Still, while Risinger doesn’t believe it’s likely that U.S. politicians will succeed in regulating drug pricing in the near term, that may not last. “The sustainability of high U.S. drug pricing remains a concern, and we cannot rule out risks,”...READ MORE
- Sackler-owned opioid maker pushes overdose treatment abroad (apnews.com)
The gleaming white booth towered over the medical conference...advertising a new brand of antidote for opioid overdoses. “Be prepared. Get naloxone. Save a life,” the slogan on its walls said...Some conference attendees were stunned when they saw the company logo: Mundipharma, the international affiliate of Purdue Pharma — the maker of the blockbuster opioid, OxyContin, widely blamed for unleashing the American overdose epidemic...Here they were cashing in on a cure...“You’re in the business of selling medicine that causes addiction and overdoses, and now you’re in the business of selling medicine that treats addiction and overdoses?”...“That’s pretty clever, isn’t it?”...“end-to-end provider” — opioids on the front end, and addiction treatment on the back end...READ MORE