- PhRMA-backed group launches round of ads in close legislative races (thenevadaindependent.com)
A political action committee backed by the national pharmaceutical lobby is again getting directly involved in key legislative races...The Healthy Nevada PAC — almost entirely funded by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA — is running a series of ads on Facebook boosting nine Republican and Democratic legislative candidates with slightly more than a week to go before the start of early voting. The group ran a series of similar ads on Facebook ahead of the state’s June primary election...The ads appear on a page called “Healthy Choice for Nevada” and include no mention of health care or drug pricing issues on the corresponding ad text...PhRMA spokeswoman Priscilla VanderVeer said the group is focused on supporting candidates willing to work with them on healthcare and medicine cost issues...
- Why Did I Get the Wrong Rx? (realclearhealth.com)
A recent memo from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services clarifies why many Americans aren’t getting the medications they need. The wrong person is choosing your prescription drug, and it isn’t your doctor...starting in 2020, Medicare Part D health plans can implement “indication-based drug therapy.”...Doctors do not treat indications; we treat patients, one at a time, each with his or her own name, unique medical history, and individual reactions to specific medications, whether good or bad...In other words, the person choosing your medications has no medical training, no license to practice medicine, and does not even know your name...Prescribing the wrong Rx for you occurs throughout health care. It is not limited to Medicare...Most health plans require doctors in their panels to use the “fail first” approach, also known as step therapy. When starting treatment, the treating physician can only prescribe the most “cost-effective, medically sound” medication. “Cost-effective” means cheapest drug for the health plan. “Medically sound” means lowest risk of side effects, which often means least likely to be medically effective. After the first drug fails to help the patient, the doctor is then allowed to take the next step with a second drug also chosen by the health plan. Eventually, when all the cheap alternatives fail, the doctor may be allowed to special order the right drug. The bottom line? An insurance actuary, not your doctor, chooses your Rx..
- Trump Signs New Laws Aimed at Drug Costs and Battles Democrats on Medicare (nytimes.com)President Trump Signs Bill to Cut Costs on Prescription Drugs - ENN 2018-10-10 (video) (youtube.com)S.2554 - Patient Right to Know Drug Prices Act (congress.gov)S.2553 - Know the Lowest Price Act of 2018 (congress.gov)
President Trump signed bipartisan legislation...that would free pharmacists to tell consumers when they could actually save money by paying the full cash price for prescription drugs rather than using health insurance with large co-payments, deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs...The legislation on gag clauses has been praised by lawmakers in both parties...The legislation...also includes a provision to combat agreements between drug makers that stifle competition by delaying the marketing of lower-cost copycat versions of expensive biotechnology medicines. Such biologic medicines account for a rapidly growing share of drug spending...Under the new law, manufacturers of the original product and the copy, known as a biosimilar, will have to report such agreements to the Federal Trade Commission, which can challenge them as violations of antitrust laws. The agreements are known as pay-for-delay deals because the branded drug company pays a potential competitor to delay entering the market...
- Nevada again lands at bottom of national health-care ranking (reviewjournal.com)Nevada treading water despite efforts to address doctor shortage (reviewjournal.com)
Despite improvements in several areas, Nevada is once again listed at the bottom of a new national health care ranking...Nevada ranked 50th nationwide in a review of more than 100 population-level and patient-level measures published by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Only the District of Columbia scored lower overall than the Silver State...“There (are) actually areas where Nevada does fairly well — chronic disease care, diabetes, heart failure, stroke...Access to care remains a big problem. Nevada’s physician workforce hasn’t kept up with the state’s ballooning population, causing a doctor shortage...issues in accessing care, including getting an appointment with a primary care physician, having enough time in a doctor’s office and finding a specialist.
- Price increases on top drugs drove majority of recent growth, analysis finds (biopharmadive.com)
Price increases accounted for roughly 60% of recent sales growth recorded in the U.S. for many of the pharmaceutical industry's top-selling drugs...Between 2014 and 2017, U.S. sales for 45 leading products increased by 28%, or about $23 billion. More than $14 billion of those newly won dollars stemmed from price increases during that span...the findings highlight just how reliant drugmakers have been on price hikes to drive growth. Without the boost from higher prices, eight of the drugs examined...would have posted revenue declines...While scrutiny on the industry has remained close since 2014, there are signs that government pressure could change the calculus for larger pharmaceutical firms...Growth is already a key question for many large-cap pharmas and biotechs, a number of which also face competition from biosimilar rivals to their top drugs in the coming years. Removing price increases from the equation could reveal just how precarious a position some companies are in...
- Nevada State Board of Pharmacy – Newsletter – October 2018 (bop.nv.gov)AB 474 (leg.state.nv.us)LCB File No. R047-18 (leg.state.nv.us)
- Assembly Bill 474
- National Pharmacy Compliance News
- FDA Issues Final Guidance Policy on Outsourcing Facilities
- EU-US Mutual Recognition Agreement Now Operational Between FDA and 12 Member States
- US Surgeon General Advisory Urges More Individuals to Carry Naloxone
- Expanding Pharmacists’ Scope of Practice Linked to Improved Cardiovascular Outcomes
- Pharmacists Are Critical to Drug Supply Chain Integrity, States FIP
- Emergency Department Visits for Opioid Overdoses Rose 30%
- Better insurance coverage of non-drug therapies might help ease opioid crisis (reuters.com)Coverage of Nonpharmacologic Treatments for Low Back Pain Among US Public and Private Insurers (jamanetwork.com)
When it comes to non-drug therapies for back pain, U.S. insurance plans vary widely in what they will cover, a new study finds...Private and public insurers are missing important opportunities to promote alternatives to opioids...insurers often provide little or no coverage for evidence-backed interventions for chronic pain such as acupuncture and psychological counseling...“Insurers can be part of the problem or part of the solution,” said study coauthor Dr. Caleb Alexander...at the Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness...“All too often doctors reach for the quick solution, prescription drugs, especially opioids, to manage pain that would be more effectively and safely treated with non-pharmacological approaches,” Alexander said. “This is a system that is designed with, and fosters, the idea that there is a pill for every ill...
- CVS Health and Aetna $69 Billion Merger Is Approved With Conditions (nytimes.com)
The Justice Department’s approval of the $69 billion merger between CVS Health and Aetna...caps a wave of consolidation among giant health care players that could leave American consumers with less control over their medical care and prescription drugs...The approval marks the close of an era, during which powerful pharmacy benefit managers brokered drug prices among pharmaceutical companies, insurers and employers...The two companies say that they will be better able to coordinate care for consumers as the mergers help tighten cost controls...critics worry that consumers could end up with far fewer options and higher expenses...Just last month, the Justice Department also approved the takeover of Express Scripts, a major CVS rival, by the big insurer Cigna...This type of consolidation in a market already dominated by a few, powerful players presents the very real possibility of reduced competition that harms consumer choice and quality...Facing the prospect of competition from outsiders like Amazon, whose tentative forays into the pharmacy business have already shaken up the industry, established players have also been looking for ways to stay relevant to their customers and enlarge their share of the health care market...The companies “are feeling pressure to do something different or it will be done to them,”...
- UK clinical trials fall as Brexit clouds drug approval process (reuters.com)
The number of new clinical trials started in Britain last year was 25 percent lower than the average for 2009-16, as anxiety about Brexit’s impact on future medicines regulation made companies hesitate about running studies in the country...Drugmakers’ confidence has been dented by fears research data collected in Britain might not be acceptable to the European Medicines Agency after the UK leaves the European Union...The pharmaceuticals industry has long warned that Brexit could have a serious impact on research and access to medicines, unless London and Brussels hammer out a deal for regulatory continuity and close liaison with the EMA...If there is no deal, the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency would have to operate as a stand-alone regulator and there is no clarity over how UK data would be treated by the EMA...
- Mesquite hospital’s closure of obstetrics unit opens generation divide (reviewjournal.com)
...Mesa View Regional Hospital closed its labor and delivery unit last week...The hospital’s labor unit and nursery closed...despite a 2002 development agreement under which the city provided the land for the hospital for $1 in exchange for it providing a list of services, obstetrics included...Since the closure, moms-to-be must now travel to deliver their babies in a hospital, either to St. George, Utah, about 40 miles northeast, or to a hospital in Las Vegas, 82 miles southwest...Mesquite residents...voiced concerns at...a...City Council meeting, saying that the closure of the town’s labor and delivery unit would drive out young families and keep new ones from moving to a city where more than half of the residents are over 50...Mesa View’s new CEO Ned Hill announced the closure, saying demand is “simply not there.”...deliveries at Mesa View have decreased by 74 percent in the last decade, dwindling to 63 in 2017...“Discontinuing elective deliveries will allow our hospital to continue building up the services most needed in our community,” Hill said, adding that the hospital hired five new practitioners in other specialties with the money saved from the closure...Rural hospitals nationwide are shutting down their obstetrics units...7.2 percent of rural hospitals ditched obstetric care between 2010 and 2014...