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The digital start-up Capsule, which opens for business...in New York City, is looking to compete in the already crowded Big Apple pharmacy market by focusing on home delivery of prescription drugs...At the same time, Capsule is eschewing selling customers candy, soda, shampoo, greeting cards and other nonpharmaceutical items...Capsule aims to solve what its executives call the "existing pain points" of conventional, bricks-and-mortar pharmacies: long wait times to get prescriptions filled; having to return to the store because a drug is out of stock; uncertainty about how much a drug will cost a patient; and getting questions answered about drugs...Instead of walking into a store, most of the start-up's customers will get their medications hand-delivered by couriers dispatched throughout the city — with the temporary exception of Staten Island — via bicycle, buses and subways, and by foot, after their doctors file the prescription electronically...To build its business, Capsule will rely on consumer and doctor awareness. Patients can request the service, or doctors can recommend it...We think eliminating folks going into the store is one way of creating a better experience or energy...Capsule is launching its new way of running a pharmacy in New York City...This would certainly make sense in a number of other markets across the country, if not most everywhere...

Mike Glaicar, Business Development: Pharmacy Times...(PTNN) This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

The U.S. Attorney's Office...is investigating contracts between drugmakers and companies that manage prescription benefits...Federal prosecutors have approached at least three companies, including Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co and Endo International Plc, demanding information about their contracts with pharmacy benefit managers...Pharmacy benefit managers...which administer drug benefits for employers and health plans and also run large mail-order pharmacies, have been challenging the rising cost of new medications...When drugs are knocked off their formularies, patients may have to pay full price for them. PBMs often keep or dump a product depending on whether they can obtain favorable pricing.

In the more than thirty years I have practiced pharmacy, I have witnessed a tremendous evolution in the profession. The clinical foundation and training of a pharmacist graduating today is leaps and bounds above where I started my practice. However, one thing has not changed: a pharmacists’ role in patient care goes well beyond dispensing medications...Today, as before, many pharmacists provide patient-centered services...We are the front line of the health care team and often see patients more than any other provider. Pharmacists have become the most over-trained and under-utilized professionals in America...While doctors should remain the quarterbacks, pharmacists must be given "provider status" so the profession is able to be the integral part of the health care team we are trained to be...With provider status, pharmacists would be added to the list of Medicare providers which would not only allow for the best possible care for patients but would also ensure it is done in the most cost-effective manner...In my short time in Washington I have come to realize just how hard it can be to advance commonsense reform...a bipartisan majority of 272 members have cosponsored the Pharmacy and Medically Underserved Areas Enhancement Act introduced by Representative Brett Guthrie. This legislation simply gives pharmacists provider status...let’s move forward...to improve access to quality and affordable health care for all Americans.

Walgreens has rolled out an online mental health platform that offers informational resources, screening tools, a therapist/psychiatrist locator, and live video chats with mental health professionals...The drug chain said...that in tandem with Mental Health America, it has launched Mental Health Answers...visitors can access MHA’s provider locator tool; free online screenings that enable users to assess symptoms for a range of conditions, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and PTSD; and a library of articles and other content on mental health...MHA also can facilitate follow-up treatment and care through providers and specialists in local communities, as well as via its affiliates nationwide...The mental telehealth service expands Walgreens’ current medical telehealth partnership with MDLIVE...Teletherapy is an excellent option if you’re looking for a more convenient, private, and affordable way to receive behavioral therapy...Through our relationship with Walgreens, we are making it easier for consumers to get help by providing the flexibility to schedule therapy at a time that works best for them, and without the need for travel time, waiting rooms or office visits...

If it’s been a while since you've taken the North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination (NAPLEX), test yourself on these NAPLEX questions to see how well you’d do on the test today.

With a regulator nod for full online prescription drug sales in China on hold for now...Jo-Jo Drugstores plans a TV loop direct to doctors who will listen to your ailments and write up scripts...The Zhejiang province-based pharmacy chain won China FDA approval for the plan to install the virtual doctor screens at 6 stores, allowing them to consult and write prescriptions if needed that the pharmacist can fill on the spot...China FDA has grown increasingly cautious about the sale of online drugs. But it is willing to experiment with models that may bring down costs and provide better services...Access to doctors in China has been difficult historically in many rural areas of China...Not only does our program rectify this problem, relieving hospitals of patient overflow; we are also able to save consumers between 10% and 30% in prescriptions costs as compared to the exact same service rendered at area hospitals...

The fight over how biosimilars should be named in the US isn’t over yet despite the Food and Drug Administration’s use of a non-proprietary name with a random suffix for the second approved biosimilar and plans to do the same for all future biosimilars...The group of nonprofits and other stakeholders, spearheaded by the Alliance for Safe Biologics, requested in a letter that FDA use meaningful suffixes for biosimilar non-proprietary names, such as the one used with the first biosimilar approval for Zarxio (filgrastim-sndz). The group said meaningful suffixes are preferable to the random suffixes described in the FDA’s draft guidance on biosimilar naming...In that draft guidance, FDA said the meaningless suffixes will help prevent inadvertent substitution (which could lead to medication errors) of biologics that are not determined to be interchangeable by the FDA..."Meaningful suffixes are easier for patients, providers and pharmacists to both recognize and remember, thus facilitating accurate association between adverse events and specific products."

Oncologists and other doctors are urging the Medicare agency to rescind a proposed demonstration that would test six different approaches for paying for Part B drugs that are administered in physician offices and outpatient departments...The American Society of Clinical Oncology said...that the CMS should "withdraw an experiment of this magnitude without first understanding its potential impact on patient care."...The proposed regulation, published in the March 11 Federal Register, "is particularly ill-suited to the delivery and treatment of cancer care, which is complex and highly personalized to each patient," ASCO President Julie M. Vose said in a statement...The Federation of American Hospitals said the CMS needs to go back to the drawing board to develop policy proposals that more directly and effectively address the problem of unsustainable increases in drug costs.

The U.S Attorney prosecuting the case against Richie West and Dr. Robert Rand and seven other defendants accused of operating an illegal Oxycodone distribution and street-buying operation says he has records from the Nevada Pharmacy Board. Those records identify when and where the defendants had their prescriptions filled. The system is part of the board's Prescription Monitoring Program...It’s not a perfect system, and there are some loopholes. But it’s helped keep track and monitor those who doctor-shop looking to feed their opioid habits...“So we know who wrote the prescription, what it is, the quantity. Who the patient is that got it, and all of that including who filled it. First thing we do is send an unsolicited report to every one of those physicians, all 10 of those guys, and ladies, and every one of those pharmacies. So now all of a sudden all of those people know the patient that is sitting in that office right now has been to nine other physicians in that same week and then, game over. We don't tell them what to do. We just tell them, doc, you need to know this,” says Executive Director (Executive Secretary) for the Nevada Board of Pharmacy Larry Pinson Pharm. D...Pinson says the information in the database is sensitive. A court order is needed if law enforcement wants access to it...Pinson says the system is designed to get the patient help rather than punish him. And he admits the system is geared toward the patient.