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...this Walgreens isn't your usual neighborhood pharmacy…Then again, it's not in a typical neighborhood. It's on the Strip, and investors have again paid big money for the building in America's gambling and party mecca…The 1.6-acre property, on Las Vegas Boulevard at Convention Center Drive, sold for $37 million on Friday, up 33 percent from what the sellers paid in 2012.

...latest fallout over the role that specialty pharmacies play in boosting prescription drug sales, Express Scripts has ended a contract with a company that is used by Horizon Pharma to distribute some of its medicines…Express Scripts cancelled its contract with Linden Care after determining the mail-order pharmacy was apparently dispensing drugs that are mostly made by Horizon, according to a spokesman. Express Scripts, which is the nation’s largest pharmacy benefits manager, is scrutinizing what it calls captive pharmacies. Those captive pharmacies appear to sell products for mostly one drug maker…In response, Linden filed a lawsuit accusing Express Scripts of making “a trumped-up charge that Linden Care is mailing drugs out of state purportedly in violation of [its] contract.” The pharmacy also maintains Express Scripts failed to provide adequate notice that the contract was ended. Express Scripts sent its termination notice yesterday, Nov. 10.

Supreme Court is weighing a request from Allergan to rule on whether drug companies can pull a medication from the market as generic competition looms in order to force patients to switch to new versions of the drug…The move, which may hinge on antitrust laws, will be closely watched by the pharmaceutical industry…Allergan’s request follows a heated battle between the drug maker and New York Attorney General...over a tactic known variously as product-hopping or forced switching, which involves pushing consumers from one product to another (Namenda IR to Namenda XR). A federal appeals court earlier this year ruled that a switch Allergan had planned would harm consumers.

Michael Zeglinski, vice president of Specialty Pharmacy Operations at BriovaRx, discusses the alignment between specialty pharmacies and ACOs.

Settlements sought for prescriptions written in cases where doctors never met patients…Federal prosecutors in at least four states are mounting investigations into what they describe as widespread fraud by compounding pharmacies in claims to the health-insurance program that covers 9.5 million U.S. military members and their families…In the latest move, four Florida pharmacies last month agreed to pay $12.8 million combined to settle civil allegations that they falsely billed the insurance program Tricare for expensive pharmaceutical creams and gels to treat pain, scars and other ailments…Two of the compounding pharmacies...employed salespeople who paid doctors to write prescriptions to Tricare beneficiaries…In some cases, doctors would conduct telephone consultations with beneficiaries and then write them prescriptions, despite having not met with the beneficiaries in person…Those prescriptions were illegitimate because they weren’t based on genuine doctor-patient relationships, a violation of the federal False Claims Act...

“Pharmacy is first and foremost a commercial enterprise and allowing pharmacists powers to prescribe and treat patients will lead to serious conflicts of interest.”…The President of the Irish Medical Organisation has issued a strong warning of the risks that will arise for patient health and safety if pharmacists are given permission to expand their role into areas which are more properly undertaken by doctors. Due to economic reasons pharmacists are seeking to expand their professional roles and move their scope of practice into the treatment and management of patients thus undermining the role of doctors and the patient/doctor relationship. Dr. Ray Walley said that the IMO (Irish Medical Organisation) will strongly oppose attempts to allow pharmacists increase their roles in respect of activities like managing repeat prescriptions, diagnosing minor ailments, Chronic Disease Management and any further expansion of vaccination programmes.

Today an oncologist-policy-maker-and-medical-ethicist reminds us that, in effect, we’re all paying for the sky-high price of new drugs. Which begs the question, if patients – or society – can’t afford the cancer treatments we’ve already got, why search for new ones?...bottom line: Precision medicine will help cancer patients. Already it’s a practice-changer, an oncology life-saver. So far, precision medicine has advanced care, and improved survival…it will take time, years, for physicians (and machines) to learn how best to give precise, targeted cancer treatments in combinations at the least toxic, optimized and effective doses for each patient. Doctors haven’t yet invented most of the “recipes” for good-quality PM, and are still searching for better ingredients (drugs)…Precision Medicine will emerge as a positive industry encompassing science, informatics and health care delivery. It makes no sense to keep science – or precision – out of clinics. Rather, science will, or should, become increasingly relevant to clinical practice…

Concerns about the soaring prices of prescription drugs have focused on new specialty treatments that can cost tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient. But insurers, health care providers, and industry specialists are now raising alarms about a new source of rising prices: generic drugs…Insurers say they are seeing huge cost increases for some commonly used generic drugs, with prices surging 15, 25, and even 75 times what they were just two years ago…In sheer dollars, the drugs remain cheap and the increases appear modest…Several factors contribute to rising drug costs. Generic drug companies say they sometimes raise prices to offset increasing costs, such as purchasing chemicals and other raw materials. Some drug makers say they hike prices when their competitors do…Industry analysts say rising drug prices are also a result of declining market competition, which can occur when companies stop making drugs or when drug makers merge and consolidate.

The IPU (Irish Pharmacy Union) has reacted angrily to claims made in a statement about Community Pharmacists issued by the IMO (Irish Medical Organisation) this afternoon, calling it an ‘unprecedented and unfounded attack on the pharmacy profession’…The IMO claim, ‘that there is a risk to patient’s health and safety if pharmacists are given permission to expand their role into areas which are more properly undertaken by doctors’ goes against international evidence that clearly shows the benefits of expanding the role of pharmacists in areas such as providing treatment for minor ailments and vaccination services…Various GP organisations have pointed out that general practice in Ireland currently faces a manpower crisis, which they claim will be worsened by the expansion of free GP care. In England, Scotland and Canada, where demand for GP services exceeds the available capacity, the unique skills and expertise of pharmacists have been used to enhance access to healthcare, generating considerable benefits to both patients and the State...

Beverly Schaefer, RPh, of Katterman's Sand Point Pharmacy in Seattle, Washington, talks about the benefits of having a travel section in a pharmacy.