The meaning of the Centene-WellCare merger

Despite GPhA’s efforts (working with the Medical Association of Georgia and the Georgia Society of Clinical Oncology), the Centene-WellCare merger was approved, and the deal closed last week. Georgia Health News has an overview of what that means.

Apocalypse Watch

Learn point-of-care testing with GPhA and NACDS

Patients who use point-of-care “at home” tests need you. Don’t send them home without a helping hand. Learn how you can help them take control of their health with these tests … and how to best advise them when they show you the results.

Check out the 20-hours NACDS “Community Pharmacy-based Point-of-Care Testing Certificate Program” at GPhA.org/pointofcare.

Sunday, March 15
8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
GPhA Headquarters in Sandy Springs

$349 for GPhA member pharmacists, $149 for member technicians (techs can’t get the CE, though — sorry!)

Artificial phages to kill bacteria

Bacteriophages could be a powerful new weapon in the fight against antibiotic-resistant bacteria, but Notre Dame researchers have gone a step further: They’ve developed nanoparticles that mimic phages and then give the bacteria what-for.

Initial tests showed that the nanoparticle system was 50 percent to 90 percent effective in killing the bacteria strains for all but Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which was only 21 percent effective. However, when the researchers combined the nanoparticle system with peptides that also have antibacterial activity, the system was 100 percent effective at killing the bacteria.

No soap, nanobots

Are you still washing your hands with soap and water like some kind of … of ranch hand? You should be thinking about aerosolized engineered nanomaterials with an antimicrobial payload. Obviously. Harvard researchers certainly are.

Apnea and diabetes

Add sleep apnea — the serious, obstructive kind — to the list of conditions that can raise your risk of diabetes. Why? The lack of oxygen and the inability to get a proper night’s sleep “are likely in the pathway leading to type 2 diabetes.”

And we’re not talking a mild risk, either: “For every additional five events of apnea/hypopnea per hour, there was an 8% rise in type 2 diabetes risk for those with [obstructive sleep apnea].”

WellStar completes new health park

WellStar has completed the second phase of its Avalon Health Park — the fifth such location in the Atlanta area. The new additions include “lab services, primary care physicians and specialist appointments, some outpatient procedures, and physical therapy.”

With the opening of its second phase, the health park now provides an array of services that include primary care, cardiac diagnostics, cardiology, general surgery, rheumatology, hand surgery, urology and orthosport physical therapy.

DNA isn’t in charge after all

What we learned in school: DNA’s info goes to RNA, which then builds proteins*. But new research shows that RNA has a lot more to say about the process. For example, messenger RNA does more than carry the messages — it can tweak it as well.

Rather than directions going one-way from DNA to RNA to proteins, the latest study shows that RNA itself modulates how DNA is transcribed—using a chemical process [methylation] that is increasingly apparent to be vital to biology.

* Of course this is over-simplified.

The Long Read: drug-affordability

A new poll looks a little deeper into the American issue of people not being able to afford drugs. It found that, even when people have prescription-drug insurance coverage, they don’t always get what they’re prescribed.

First, insurers often refuse to cover a drug — that happened to 49% of people earning less than $35,000 a year, but also 32% of middle-income adults and 41% of high-income adults.

So then…

  • 18% of the highest earners skip the drug (the rest pay out of pocket)
  • 41% of high earners skip it
  • 48% of middle-income people skip it
  • 51% of lower-income people skip it