Big chains roll out hearing aids

Just a couple of months after the FDA approved the sale of over-the-counter hearing aids, the Big Pharmacy Chains have announced plans to sell them. Both Walgreens and WalMart said sales will begin in mid-October, while CVS said it already has some devices available and will be offering more.

(Walgreens entry is the $800 Lexie Lumen hearing aids, while WalMart will offer devices starting, it said, around $200.)

Side note: The GPhA Buzz research team still doesn’t have a clear answer as to how these are different than products that have been available on Amazon for years.

Carter announces damning report on PBMs

Georgia congressman and pharmacist Buddy Carter announced the release of a new report that details the role PBMs play in the highest-in-the-world prices Americans pay for prescription drugs.

The 18-page “Pulling Back the Curtains on PBMs” (note: only available as an electronic magazine) includes details about the cost of medications, PBMs’ role, and plenty of patient testimonials from across the country.

Carter, who has spoken out repeatedly against limiting what Medicare can pay for drugs or allowing it to negotiate drug prices, says that’s because drug manufacturers aren’t the big issue — PBMs, he says, are the problem:

“I’m a pharmacist, I’ve seen this firsthand. Congress can attack the drug manufacturers all they want, but here’s the truth: until PBMs are reined in, nothing is going to change.”

“Pharmacy Benefit Managers,” he said, “are the pharmaceutical supply chain’s hidden middlemen that are driving up costs for prescription medications, delaying access to necessary treatments, and robbing hope from patients.”

Put those energy drinks on the end caps

Students’ nightmare shows no signs of easing, as the nationwide Adderall shortage continues. Two more suppliers (Camber Pharmaceuticals and Sun Pharma) reporting trouble sourcing the drug, joining Amneal, Lannett, Par, Rhodes, Sandoz, and Teva.

What’s up? “Surging demand” plus other hiccups. And because Adderall is a C-II drug, “companies have limits on how much they can manufacture, leading to ripple effects when shortages happen.”

They have a very nice bridge to sell you

Remember when pharmaceutical companies were all pledging not to raise their prices very much — under 10% a year? Hahahahaha!

Sure, inflation is up now, so it makes sense if they want to compensate for rising costs, but…. We won’t call it ’price gouging,’ but the latest HHS report finds that pharma companies jacked up prices in 2021 on more than 1,200 meds an average of 31.6%.

Sadly for them, that run is over. Starting a week ago, Medicare Part D, at least, won’t pay for price hikes beyond the rate of inflation. Looks like some CEOs will have to wait a bit before buying another yacht.

Covid morsels

Four or five months’ protection

Cutting through the clutter, the latest research says that an mRNA booster — i.e., the first booster shot — offers solid protection from severe illness (around 94%) for four or five months, before it drops to about 66%. And that’s even true during the “omicron-dominant period,” although it was a bit lower (89%).

A fourth dose, the CDC-led researchers said, “improved vaccine effectiveness among those recommended for an additional booster,” but they didn’t provide numbers.

A few more boosters, a lot more lives

Right now, fewer than half of eligible people have received even one mRNA vaccine booster dose, according to data from the Commonwealth Fund.

What if a lot more people got boosters, especially with a fall/winter surge likely? They crunched the numbers based on two scenarios: 1) using the percentage of people who got flu shots last year^*, and 2) imagining 80% of eligible people got boosters.

• Scenario 1: 75,347 lives saved, 745,409 hospitalizations averted (Medicaid savings: $3,450,000,000)
• Scenario 2: 89,465 lives saved, 936,706 hospitalizations averted (Medicaid savings: $4,540,000,000)

I mentioned Medicaid savings because Georgia pays at least some of that — Medicare savings is a lot more. (Private insurance payers could save $27–35 billion. But don’t worry, they’ll just pass the extra costs down to you.)

* About 51%–68%, depending on age group

Hair of the … meds?

Did you know there are five classes of medication that apparently can change the texture of your hair? Now you do. They are (in order of occurrence) antineoplastic agents, antiepileptics, retinoids, immunomodulators, and antiretroviral therapy.

This comes courtesy of UC Irvine researchers who looked at data from 2,600 patients reported in 31 papers.

The most common texture changes were further curling of curly hair; kinking, waving and other texture changes; and curling of straight hair.

Changes from antiepileptics and immunomodulators were reversible, but “irreversible changes were associated with antiretrovirals, retinoids, and antineoplastics.”

Granted, it’s a pretty small study (only one patients on antiretrovirals reported a hair change), and they didn’t consider ethnicity, but it makes for one of those “Future grad students will have something to delve into” reports.

Medical science wow story

Scientists at CalTech were able to photograph electrical impulses travelling through nerve cells.

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Fun fact: We can (now) photograph signals in nerve cells, but we still don’t know why rubbing a balloon on your hair gives it a static charge.