News

This year, the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions were held in Chicago, Illinois, from November 15 to 19. Of all of the late-breaking clinical trials presented at AHA 2014, the IMPROVE-IT (IMProved Reduction of Outcomes: Vytorin Efficacy International Trial) study of Merck’s low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C)-reducing drugs-the statin, Zocor (simvastatin), and the fixed-dose combination, Vytorin (ezetimibe/simvastatin)-stole the show.

Investigational, oral proteasome inhibitor, ixazomib (MLN9708, Takeda) has FDA has granted breakthrough therapy status for the treatment of relapsed or refractory systemic light-chain (AL) amyloidosis. This is the first proteasome inhibitor and first investigational therapy for AL amyloidosis to receive breakthrough therapy designation.

Just 13 health information exchanges (HIEs) out of an available 100 have been evaluated by examining usage information, making it hard to draw conclusions about their impact.

An estimated 50,000 fewer patients died in hospitals and approximately $12 billion was saved between 2010 and 2013 because of reduced hospital-acquired conditions,according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Total national health spending slowed from 4.1% in 2012 to 3.6% in 2013, the slowest rate of growth since it was first tracked in 1960, according to a report from the Office of the Actuary (OACT) at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

ACOs in Medicare’s Shared Savings Program (SSP) will have three more years before they are liable for losses if rules proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on December 1 are adopted.

While pharmaceutical manufacturer AbbVie’s new hepatitis C drug has not yet been approved by FDA, pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts has expressed interest in switching to the drug in its preferred drug formulary.

The costs of developing new prescription drugs have soared 145% since 2003, according to a new study from the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development.

The first experimental Ebola vaccine has been shown to be safe and prompt an immune response in results from a National Institutes of Health (NIH) phase 1 clinical trial. The vaccine produced immune system responses and was well tolerated in the whole study cohort of 20 healthy adults.

Following a priority review designation, FDA has approved rifapentine (Priftin, Sanofi) in combination with isoniazid (INH) for a new indication for the treatment of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) in patients aged 2 years and older at high risk of progression to tuberculosis (TB) disease.

Thomas Malone, MD will become chief executive officer at Summa Health, and Karen Rohan will become president of Aetna, as of January 1, 2015.

Once-daily rivaroxaban (Xartelto, Janssen) is associated with significantly fewer hospitalization days and outpatient visits compared to warfarin in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF), according to data presented at the American Heart Association (AHA) 2014 Scientific Sessions in Chicago.

In new guidelines, the World Health Organization (WHO) is recommending that countries significantly expand access to naloxone to help manage opioid overdoses.

The launch of the Small Business Health Options (SHOP) marketplace drew 200,000 visitors during the first week of open enrollment.

FDA is warning that a patient with multiple sclerosis (MS) who was being treated with Tecfidera (dimethyl fumarate), developed progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), a rare and serious brain infection, and later died. As a result, information describing this case of PML is being added to the Tecfidera drug label.

Specialty pharmaceuticals will have a profound impact on the practice of pharmacy over the next 10 years, affecting all pharmacy practice settings and accelerate the importance of medication management to ensure the appropriate use of these important therapeutic agents.

The 2014 deadline for eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals (CAHs) to attest to meaningful use of electronic health records (EHRs) has been extended to December 31 by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

Engaging patients is not simply about providing them with basic health information, but going beyond this to provide information that is truly relevant and of use to them.

There’s no hiding that hospital pharmacies have long been considered cost centers for healthcare systems. That positioning has been accentuated over the past 5 years, as the healthcare industry has seen a steady increase in high-cost, brand-name specialty medications that range from hundreds to thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of dollars per dose. Nearly every hospital, however, has untapped opportunities to substantially improve efficiencies and improve costs. One important factor is improving how these hospitals use generic medications.

Melanoma, an aggressive disease with a rapidly rising incidence rate, presents the oncology field with some of its greatest challenges and opportunities. Long considered one of the most difficult diseases to treat with pharmacotherapy, drug development within melanoma has lagged behind that of many other cancers, culminating in decades of limited progress. Developments in molecular biology, however, have led to an increased understanding of the molecular heterogeneity of melanoma in recent years, which has resulted in new insights into the roles of oncogenes, signaling pathways, immune checkpoints, and tumor-promoting events, accelerating the rate of discovery of therapeutic targets.

Adding tumor treating fields (TTFields) therapy to temozolomide significantly increases progression-free survival (PFS) for newly diagnosed glioblastoma patients versus giving temozolomide alone, according to data presented at 2014 Society for Neuro-Oncology (SNO) Annual Meeting, in Miami.

An extended-release (ER) opioid analgesic, hydrocodone bitartrate (Hysingla ER, Purdue Pharma) has been approved by FDA for the management of pain severe enough to require daily, 24-hour, long-term opioid treatment. Alternative treatment options must also have been found to be inadequate.

Treating skin cancer is having a major impact on the US healthcare system. The costs associated with skin cancer increased 5 times as fast as treatments for other cancers between 2002 and 2011, according to a Centers for Disease Control study published November 9 online in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Physicians debated the benefits versus the risks of aspirin for cardiovascular events in an editorial published in JAMA online November 17.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers got a better idea of the value of FDA’s Priority Review Vouchers (PRVs) recently after Gilead Sciences paid $125 million in cash for Knight Therapeutics’ Neglected Tropical Disease PRV.

Following Walmart’s entry earlier this year into primary care, Target is opening four new primary care clinics in Southern California in partnership with Kaiser Permanente.

An acute care facility replaces unproductive PCs with zero clients and no click access authentication, resulting in improved quality of care

A new Commonwealth Fund study finds that 21% of adults with health insurance spent 5% or more of their income on out-of pocket expenses and that 40% skipped medical treatment because of high deductibles.

Data from 2 phase 3 studies of lesinurad in combination with allopurinol in gout patients was presented at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) 2014 annual meeting in Boston.