-
Biotech Companies Lobbying to Impede Cost-Saving Biosimilars
We have previously written about how the Affordable Care Act’s provisions on biosimilar drugs represent a missed opportunity to bring cost-saving biosimilar drugs to market. Now, a new study from Grant Thornton shows just how much money these biosimilar drugs could save. According to the …
Read More -
Over-the-Counter Products Become More Important to Independent Pharmacy Profits
Independent pharmacies make up 38% of all pharmacies in the U.S. with a total of 23,106 stores in 2011. Sales of prescription medications, over-the-counter medications, and all other items sold in the front of the house totaled $88.5 billion in 2011. Many independent pharmacies survive …
Read More -
Garbage In, Garbage Out: How NOT to Design Survey Research
It’s not often an advocacy group releases quasi-research with findings antithetical to long-held public policy positions, but the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) recently did just that. The NCPA has been hostile to many of the pharmacy benefit management tools that private and public …
Read More -
Narrow Pharmacy Networks Widen Payer Savings
In earlier pieces we talked about the trend towards narrow pharmacy networks and the recent decision by Tricare to use such networks. Now we have a new report from Visante quantifying just how much narrow pharmacy networks could save payers. And the number is breathtaking. The …
Read More -
Emerging Threats to Prescription Drug Affordability
A new Business Insurance article details the strategies mid-size businesses are relying upon to mitigate pharmacy costs including increased generic drug utilization, specialty pharmacy utilization programs, value-based insurance design, and narrower pharmacy networks. Taken together, these tools and techniques (along with many others like mail-service …
Read More -
Sirturo, the first new Tuberculosis drug in 40 years, brings new hope to patients
Tuberculosis (TB), though largely treatable by a select combination of four first-line medications, has never been eradicated and is still a major public health threat worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that this infectious air-borne disease caused 1.4 million deaths and 8.7 million new …
Read More -
As Diabetes Cases Rise, so do the Costs for Care
Diabetes, the noninfectious pandemic of our age, is claiming more American lives each year. The disease results from the body’s improper use and production of insulin and the concomitant rise in blood glucose levels. The 2011 Affordable Care Act has recognized provisional gaps in diabetes …
Read More -
Improved Pharmacy Care May Help Prevent Costly Hospital Readmissions
In a rapidly changing health care system, one of the greatest challenges facing stakeholders is how best to ensure greater value for our nation’s health care spending. In 2011, our nation spent $2.7 trillion on health care. Prescription drugs account for about 10 percent of …
Read More -
Questionable Expansion of State Pharmacy Board Regulatory Activities
In an excellent piece published in the BNA Pharmaceutical Law and Industry Report, “Confounded in Compounding Apothecaries: The Critical Need for Confining State Pharmacy Boards to Self-Regulation,” William G. Schiffbauer takes a close look at state pharmacy boards and the conflicts of interest and other problems …
Read More