WE DID IT!

On Thursday, we asked you to help the Arkansas Pharmacists Association and its partner, NCPA, with the fight — in the U.S. Supreme Court — against PBMs and their claim that ERISA preempts states from regulating them.

You came through, big time. In only two days, GPhA members* have donated $4,641. Together with the GPhA match of $2,500, that means we’ve already raised $7,141 — blowing past the $5,000 target we set!

If you donated, thank you! If you haven’t, it’s not too late!

Read more from GPhA President Chris Thurmond, APA CEO John Vincent, and NCPA CEO Doug Hoey here.

* And one non-member in West Virginia who read about the fight right here — thank you!

Good news for K Street bars and restaurants

Drug companies “together spent more than $120 million lobbying Congress in 2019,” including hiring 450 lobbyists, while their trade group, PhRMA, itself spent an additional $28.9 million — a record for the association. The goal, of course, was to fight any legislation that tries to lower drug prices.

No bill was too small to get PhRMA’s attention: The group lobbied on more than 90 drug pricing bills in the last quarter of 2019 alone, according to recently filed disclosures. Even bills like the Flat Prices Act, which has just eight largely unknown co-sponsors, didn’t escape [its] gaze.

And that money is only what was disclosed for lobbying; it doesn’t cover advertising or the cost of advocacy staff that doesn’t actually meet with lawmakers.

Live town hall with reps Buddy Carter (Ga.) and French Hill (Ark.)

GPhA and the Arkansas Pharmacists Association are hosting a live Pharmacy Town Hall this coming Wednesday, January 29 at 9:00 a.m. EST.

It’s free, but it’s only available for the first 100 participants to watch live. (Everyone else who registers will be able to see the recording, though.)

Click here to register — you may be in that first 100!

Fine. We’ll do it ourselves.

Tired of paying the world’s highest prices for medication, a group of health insurers is putting $55 million toward a partnership with Civica RX, a non-profit maker of generic meds created in 2018.

The insurers and Civica declined to name specific drugs that would be targeted, saying they did not want to tip off potential business rivals. They said that they would start with seven to 10 products that have little competition and that some initial products could become available by early 2022.

Maybe you could put in a word

The surgeon general reports that 40 percent of smokers aren’t given the advice to quit by their physicians — although two-thirds say they want to quit. (He also said that “there is presently inadequate evidence to conclude that e-cigarettes, in general, increase smoking cessation.”)

Aspirin might reduce pre-term birth

The headline kinda says it all: “Daily low-dose aspirin, from as early as the sixth week of pregnancy through the 36th week, may lower the risk for preterm birth among first-time mothers.”

This is particularly important in Georgia, which has one of the highest rates of pre-term births in the world.

Apocalypse Watch

A second person in the U.S. — a woman in Chicago — has been confirmed to be infected with the Wuhan coronavirus.

Three people in Michigan might have it as well, and maybe four in New York.

(Oh, yeah, and at least 8,200 Americans have died of the flu already this season, including at least 31 in Georgia, with 140,000 hospitalized.)

Quick prison note

The former CEO of Insys Therapeutics, maker of the opioid Subsys, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison.

John Kapoor and four other executives were found guilty last year of orchestrating a criminal conspiracy to bribe doctors to prescribe the company’s medication, including to patients who didn’t need it. They then lied to insurance companies to make sure the costly oral fentanyl spray was covered.

It’s like finding your significant other has a list of replacements in case you break up

Apparently, because of the well-known feuding between HHS Secretary Alex Azar and Medicare chief Seema Verma, White House officials had quietly created a list of potential replacements for both.