- December 21 Pharmacy Week in Review: CVS-Atena Merger is Challenged, and Healthy Tips for Enjoying the Holidays (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.
- Novartis unit teams up with medical marijuana producer, marking milestone for pharma (statnews.com)
Medical marijuana has stepped onto the global stage...In what appears to be a first for marijuana and a major pharmaceutical company, a Novartis subsidiary and a Canadian producer of medical cannabis products have agreed to market them around the world...Tilray Canada announced the agreement...Under the deal...Tilray and Sandoz will work together to supply and distribute non-smokable medical cannabis products (co-branding eight oil and capsule medical cannabis products)...the two companies will target. Tilray now sells its products in 12 countries and has operations in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Portugal, and Latin America...
- The Top 5 Biosimilars Articles for the Week of December 10 (centerforbiosimilars.com)
Samantha DiGrande for The Center for Biosimilars®, your resource for clinical, regulatory, business, and policy news in the rapidly changing world of biosimilars.
- December 14 Pharmacy Week in Review: Walmart Announces New Telehealth Service for Veterans, Study Weighs Risks and Benefits of Statins (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.
- FDA panel backs prescribing opioid overdose reversal drug along with painkillers (reuters.com)
An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration....recommended prescribing the opioid overdose reversal drug, naloxone, along with addictive painkillers...The recommendation of the panel underscores concerns about the growing opioid overdose epidemic...FDA studies found that co-prescribing naloxone to all patients who are prescribed painkillers could increase annual healthcare costs by $63.9 billion to $580.8 billion...I think co-prescribing is an expensive way to saturate the population with naloxone. The at-risk population is not necessarily the ones that are being prescribed new narcotics...
- FDA keeps spotlight on GMP data integrity (biopharmadive.com)
The Food and Drug Administration...issued a reminder to drug manufacturers that data integrity remains high on the regulator's agenda of Good Manufacturing Practice-related concerns, publishing new guidance aimed at helping drugmakers meet its standards...The document, which updates a 2016 version, lays out a series of questions and answers for drugmakers explaining how companies can ensure manufacturing data sets are complete, consistent and accurate. While a technical concern, the FDA makes clear that data errors carry real risk to patient health...Guidance isn't the only lever the FDA can pull to help companies comply. In recent years, the agency has flagged data integrity issues in numerous warning letters following inspections and pre-approval assessments.
- Four Democrats Introduce Senate Bill to Allow HHS to Block “Excessive” Drug Price Increases (centerforbiosimilars.com)S.3754 - A bill to prohibit price gouging in the sale of drugs. (congress.gov)
...Senators Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, Kamala Harris, D-California, Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, and Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, introduced a bill on the Senate floor, S. 3754, that would allow HHS to block drug price increases that it deems as “excessive.”...The bill, dubbed “A bill to prohibit price gouging in the sale of drugs,” is just the latest in a series of actions that Congressmen and the government alike have taken to address high drug prices.
- Congressional report: Drug companies, DEA, failed to stop flow of millions of opioid pills (washingtonpost.com)Committee Report Details Alleged Opioid-Dumping in West Virginia (energycommerce.house.gov)Red Flags and War ning Signs Ignored: Opioid Distribution and Enforcement Concerns in West Virginia (energycommerce.house.gov)
A report from the majority staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee found that distributors, which fulfill orders for prescription drugs to pharmacies, failed to conduct proper oversight of their customers by not questioning suspicious activity and not properly monitoring the quantity of painkillers that were being shipped to individual pharmacies...The committee also found that the DEA did not properly use a database that aims to monitor the flow of powerful prescription painkillers from manufacturers to sellers, something that could have allowed federal agents — in real time —...The agency also curtailed enforcement of distributors...and infighting inside the agency affected the way cases were handled...
- Can blockchain stem the tide of counterfeit drugs in India? (pharmaceutical-technology.com)Blockchain use case: Healthcare supply chain (healthcareitnews.com)
The manufacture and distribution of fake prescription drugs is a global problem. Counterfeit products are causing a lot of damage to economies, industries, consumer health and safety. From the perspective of companies, they know they will suffer revenue and reputational losses whilst also incurring extra expenses for regulations, brand protection and legal advice if a solution to counterfeit drugs is not found...Now, an international partnership is bringing together IT giant Oracle, policy institute NITI Aayog, Apollo Hospitals and pharma manufacturer Strides Pharma Sciences to pilot a pioneering drug supply chain using blockchain digital ledger technology to try and tackle the issue...How can blockchain help companies to counter counterfeiters?...can this digital approach succeed where other anti-counterfeiting measures have failed?
- This Week in Managed Care: December 14, 2018 (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