Category:

...nearly half of U.S. pharmacies now participate in the 340B Drug Pricing Program...The four largest specialty pharmacies are owned by CVS Health, Cigna’s Express Scripts business, UnitedHealth Group’s OptumRx business, and Walgreens Boots Alliance/Prime Therapeutics...these specialty pharmacies have dramatically increased their participation in the 340B program. Hospitals are the primary 340B covered entities that engage with these specialty pharmacies...We estimate that specialty pharmacy dispensing accounted for nearly one-third of PBMs’ total gross profits in 2019...the 340B program is a significant and growing component of profitability for these large, for-profit, publicly traded companies...READ MORE

Drug pricing legislation hasn’t gained any steam in Congress lately, but legislatures in dozens of states are chugging ahead...States nationwide are advancing bills focused on numerous topics, a new analysis from Deloitte found. Legislation to regulate pharmacy benefit managers is the most common... while many states have passed—or are considering—measures such as transparency requirements for price increases, importation, value-based contracting and more...Overall, Deloitte found that state legislation targeting drug price transparency and PBMs—not importation or other measures—is affecting companies the most right now...READ MORE

Nearly one in five diabetes drugs and one in 20 asthma drugs experienced a significant price increase in the past year or two, with average one-year increases about 11.2 percent and 19.3 percent, respectively, according to the third annual drug pricing report released by the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services last week...The state identified 117 essential diabetes drugs and 13 essential asthma medications that had a significant price increase over the previous one or two years, meaning that their costs increased by more than the rate of medical inflation. Manufacturers attributed the price increases to a number of factors, including changes in marketplace dynamics, research and development and manufacturing cost...the findings of the report continued to be consistent with the results of the first two diabetes drug pricing reports...Here are some of the key findings of the report:...READ MORE

New York pharmacists can provide the coronavirus disease 2019 vaccine when it becomes available, according to new legislation...The Community Pharmacy Association of New York State and NACDS praised the new law, based on legislation (S. 8182-A / A. 10508-A) that adds COVID-19 to the list of illnesses for which pharmacists can vaccinate...The legislation was...was signed into law by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo...“Now is the time to make sure that people will be able to get their COVID-19 vaccination as soon as it becomes available. It is essential that all states continue to remove barriers for pharmacies to help meet the needs of patients during this phase of the pandemic,”...READ MORE

The stunning growth of specialty pharmacies in the 340B Drug Pricing Program has accelerated a troubling trend: Patients covered by commercial insurance and Medicare Part D are footing the bill for 340B savings...That's the uncomfortable reality of the 340B program’s hidden prescription economics...Whenever a prescription is eligible for 340B pricing, an insured patient could pay thousands of dollars out of pocket—even as the 340B hospital and its contract pharmacy generate substantial profits. Meanwhile, private health plans and Medicare pay full price for drugs that are sold to 340B covered entities at deep discounts, further subsidizing hospitals and PBM-owned specialty pharmacies...340B Health, which lobbies for hospitals that participate in the 340B Drug Pricing Program, argues that the program “does not cost taxpayers any money.” Be wary of this misleading half-truth. The harsh reality is that patients and payers are funding the savings that flow back to 340B covered entities and their contract pharmacies...This fundamental unfairness is discussed rarely if ever. Rather than touting how hospitals spend their 340B savings, it’s time to start asking where those savings come from...READ MORE

CVS Pharmacy has issued a face covering policy at all locations for customers...Since the pandemic began, we’ve done everything we can to keep people safe and healthy. This includes requiring that store employees wear face coverings and encouraging our customers to do so as well. In any community with state or local laws mandating the use of face coverings, we’ve made that very clear through signage and other reminders...With the recent spike in COVID-19 infections, we’re joining others in taking the next step and requiring all customers to wear face coverings when entering any of our stores throughout the country effective Monday, July 20...READ MORE

A group of pharmacies and pharmacy organizations urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to formally recognize and promote medical at home pharmacy services for long-term care —particularly in the wake of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic...“With medical at home pharmacy services being needed now more than ever due to the coronavirus public health emergency, long-term care pharmacy stakeholders are urging the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to formally recognize and promote these services to help improve value-based patient care, increase savings, and ensure pharmacy providers are fairly and properly reimbursed,”...READ MORE

A new report from the hospital industry predicts half of all U.S. hospitals will be operating in the red by the end of the year unless more federal relief is approved...The report...prepared on behalf of the American Hospital Association, paints a grim picture of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on hospital operating margins...Hospital margins could sink to negative 7% in the second half of 2020, and half of all hospitals are likely to operate with a negative margin...Hospitals were slammed financially by low patient volume and cancellation of elective procedures to preserve capacity to combat COVID-19...Normally, hospitals overall operate with a 3.5% operating margin. But margins are expected to drop to negative 3% in the second quarter of this year...That drop would have been negative 15% without funding from Congress, which gave providers $175 billion a few months ago...READ MORE

Robert Courtney, the former Kansas City pharmacist whose dilution of cancer medications led to the premature deaths of hundreds and possibly thousands of patients, will not be released from prison early...The decision to keep Courtney in prison would mark a reversal by the Bureau of Prisons to release him to a halfway house today and then to home confinement in Trimble, Missouri, because of the COVID-19 pandemic...Courtney was sentenced to 30 years in prison after he pleaded guilty in 2002 to various crimes associated with his drug dilution scheme...READ MORE

Auro Pharmacy has had a number of run-ins with FDA investigators...The FDA has had a long and troubled history with compounding pharmacies...sometimes those facilities bring it on themselves...Auro Pharmacies operated a veritable house of horrors at its...outsourcing facility, with ants in the sterile production areas and visibly dirty work surfaces, FDA investigators found during an August 2018 inspection...Those poor conditions could have produced supposedly sterile drugs that were "contaminated with filth,"...The FDA knocked Auro with a 10-observation Form 483 in August, 2018 that led to a voluntary recall of all the pharmacy's affected drugs and a stoppage to all sterile production...Even worse for Auro, the FDA followed up its August 2018 look-in with another round of inspections in September of last year that turned up most of the same sanitary issues, including "filth" on the end of hood-cleaning wands, and cracked and scratched production hoods...That inspection lead to a separate 11-observation Form 483 sent in October...READ MORE