Drug prices hitting hospital staffing

Why should employee pharmacists care about pharmacy laws and regs? Because of stories like this: “A quarter of US hospitals cut staff to cope with rising drug costs.”

It’s not just your patients who are being affected by these issues — it’s your job.

The FDA wants naloxone to go OTC

So for the first time it’s developed and tested “consumer-friendly” drug facts labels that are required on an OTC medication. It’s posted the results for manufacturers to use. “These efforts,” wrote FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, “should jumpstart the development of OTC naloxone products to promote wider access to this medicine.”

Grocers fight opioids

From pharmacist training to drug-takeback programs, working with law enforcement to partnering with schools, “Top Grocers Take Aim Against Opioid Epidemic” — Progressive Grocer reports.

How PBMs keep the cost of insulin high

KHN calls it the “rebate trap.”

Makers of established brands give volume-based rebates to insurers or intermediaries called pharmacy benefit managers. In return, those middlemen often leave competing generics off the menu of drugs they cover, called a formulary, or they jack up the price for patients. The result is that many can’t get the cheaper drugs unless they shoulder a bigger copay or buy them with no help from insurance.

What do drugmakers do when there’s a shortage of valsartan?

Raise the price, according to the Wall Street Journal.

At least three sellers of a widely used blood-pressure medication, valsartan, have raised prices since a series of safety-related recalls of the drug by other manufacturers began in the summer of 2018.

Support your team … and avoid mosquitoes at the same time

Researchers from Sweden and Hungary were curious about why indigenous peoples might wear body paint. What they discovered: It can ward off mosquitoes.

Here’s the plastic model they used:

Relax, it’s plastic

History-minded folks might make the connection with the “dazzle camouflage” used in WWI:

The modern equivalent might not be as effective, though, at least at Georgia Tech:

ICYMI

CVS and Walmart have patched things up, meeting after math class in the third-floor hallway and promising each other to keep dating for at least a few years.

Artist’s conception