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‘Next steps on the NHS five year forward view’ outlines progress made so far and highlights priorities for the next few years, including plans for 900 clinical pharmacists in GP surgeries by 2018 and over 1,300 by 2019...according to plans announced on 31 March 2017 by Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England...it expects GP surgeries to work in "hubs" or networks enabling them to share community nursing, mental health and clinical pharmacy teams and also work more closely with community pharmacists to make "fuller use of the contribution they make"...Sandra Gidley, chair of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s English Pharmacy Board, welcomes the document but says that the clinical skills of pharmacists are still an untapped resource...The National Pharmacy Association, the trade association for independent community pharmacies in the UK, shared this view in a statement. "Local pharmacies can do far more in urgent care and the management of long-term conditions, and take pressure off other parts of the system including GPs and hospitals...We will need to make sure that pharmacists have a significant role in clinical care, regardless of where they practice as the forward view is implemented."...

A Bay Area startup guru (Shawn Kernes, chief technology officer, StubHub) is gearing up to launch an on-demand mental health care app to reduce the cost and increase the availability of therapy across the country — and he's doing it from South Lake Tahoe...Enter: Larkr, an app designed to connect patients with certified mental health care professionals through video chat...There are 50 million people in the U.S. that are in need of some level of mental health care, and only about 20 million of them are actually receiving it...And in small towns with limited resources, it's even more difficult to find a practitioner when you need one...not to mention the cost when you do...By removing some of the costs associated with therapy, like office space and answering services, Larkr charges $85 for a 50-minute session and offers a simplified process through the app for submitting for reimbursement from insurance companies...Clients can book recurring appointments, get reminders for appointments, and have video therapy sessions from anywhere there is internet access...South Lake Tahoe is also a perfect example of the type of town that needs a service like Larkr...Kernes has plans to secure a physical office in South Lake Tahoe and hire a larger team as the startup progresses. The beta launch of the Larkr iPhone app is scheduled for July, with the full launch of the iPhone and Android apps slated for September...

Sixty-six percent of all oxycodone sold in Florida came from this company. But the DEA’s case against it faltered...Mallinckrodt’s blue 30-milligram oxycodone tablets became so popular among drug users and dealers that they acquired a street name — "M’s," for the company’s distinctive block-letter logo…the Drug Enforcement Administration trained its sights in 2011 on Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, one of the nation’s largest manufacturers of the highly addictive generic painkiller oxycodone. ..It was the first time the DEA had targeted a manufacturer of opioids for alleged violations of laws designed to prevent diversion of legal narcotics to the black market. And it would become the largest prescription-drug case the agency has pursued…But six years later, after four investigations that spanned five states, the government has taken no legal action against Mallinckrodt. Instead, the company has reached a tentative settlement with federal prosecutors…Under the proposal…Mallinckrodt would agree to pay a $35　million fine and admit no wrongdoing.

The new 2016 Medical Pharmacy Trend Report??...released...As always, the report includes a boatload of useful data on medical benefit spending and claims….Unfortunately, the latest edition also shows how hospitals continue to earn outrageous profits on specialty drugs. Commercial payers still use reimbursement approaches that permit hospitals to inflate specialty drug costs by thousands of dollars per claim...These hospital mark-ups translate directly into higher drug spending—regardless of how manufacturers set list prices. Using some fairly conservative assumptions about Remicade, I show below how hospitals are earning thousands of dollars more than the drug’s manufacturer does...Meanwhile, health plans are struggling to shift patients from hospital outpatient settings to physician offices—where costs are lower, at least until those sites are acquired by hospitals.

The future of pharmaceutical packaging operations is far from straightforward. The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies (PMMI) reveals where drug companies should be focusing their efforts. ...last year, the Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies released a comprehensive research report on the trends and opportunities in pharmaceutical and medical device packaging operations. The road ahead for drug companies certainly won’t be an easy one...Not only are companies scrambling to meet looming serialisation deadlines...they’re also being asked to manufacture more products for less money without sacrificing quality, and come up with innovative solutions for the pharmaceuticals of the future, which will be increasingly individualised, long-lasting and easy to self-administer. On top of that, mergers and acquisitions remain rife and generic drugs continue to gain market share...With both the pharmaceutical and medical device industries facing many of the same challenges and market realities, the two are also starting to converge, as they address new government regulations, often by purchasing new equipment, learn to produce more for less and work together on the combination products of the future.

• Serialisation
• Outsourcing
• New products, new packaging

A former New York assemblyman and a dozen pain clinic workers were arrested on Friday, accused of operating some of the largest "pill mills" in the northeastern United States and illegally prescribing more than 6 million opioid pills...Alec Brook-Krasny, who served in the New York State Assembly from 2006 to 2015 representing South Brooklyn, was charged with conspiracy and scheming to defraud by unlawfully selling prescriptions…Also arrested in the sweep of three pain clinics were at least one nurse practitioner, three physician's assistants, and two doctors including Dr. Lazar Feygin, who owned two of the clinics...They were accused of over-prescribing oxycodone...to clinic patients who showed signs of selling pills or abusing other narcotics...in exchange for oxycodone, the defendants also pressured patients to undergo unnecessary medical tests and procedures, then billed Medicare and Medicaid for millions of dollars...

Uruguay's three-year process of legalizing recreational cannabis consumption reached its final stage...when the government said it would authorize pharmacies to begin selling the substance as of July...Sixteen pharmacies have registered with the government of the tiny South American country to be able to sell marijuana for recreational purposes. That number is expected to increase to 30 in the coming months, said Juan Roballo, head of the National Drug Board...The government hopes the formalization process will "guarantee the quality and the purity of the product" citizens consume, Roballo said. The cannabis sold in pharmacies will be grown by producers licensed by the state...The process will be heavily regulated by the government...Interested Uruguayans 18 or older must enroll in a government registry...and are limited to purchasing 40 grams per month…

There are a lot of health insurance bills at state legislature this session, as there is great concern about what will happen if Congress does "Repeal and Replace" ObamaCare...After 7 years of the Affordable Care Act, we’re all kind of used to the bill that has provided subsidized insurance to about 80,000 Nevadans and expanded Medicaid coverage to about 300,000...Chair of the Assembly Health and Human Services Committee, Mike Sprinkle of Sparks, has a bill that would remove the income limits on the state’s Medicaid program and open it up to Nevadans who want to buy. People would be able to buy insurance on the Silver State exchange for a certain amount, while current Medicaid recipients could continue to receive government assistance through the program...I was opposed to expanding Medicaid in Nevada, as I was concerned about the cost to taxpayers. But maybe its expansion is actually helping lower costs for all of us. I’m not totally sold, but I’m more open to ideas like Assemblyman Sprinkle’s after a few years of seeing it actually enacted...By doing what is "morally" right — helping low-income and working class families access healthcare — may turn out to be fiscally right. But if you disagree, bring it on!

Laura Joszt, assistant managing editor at The American Journal of Managed Care. Welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network

Nicole Crisano, PTNN. This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.