Congrats to Hugh Chancy!

GPhA past president, UGA College of Pharmacy grad, father of a UGA CoP grad, and all around great guy Hugh Chancy was sworn in as 2022-2023 president of the National Community Pharmacists Association at the NCPA convention in Kansas City, Mo.

In his 6½-hour acceptance speech, Chancy touched on a lot, but most notably how the future of pharmacy is changing — and for the better.

“The pandemic has been a kick-start for pharmacy practice transformation. As a profession, we are finally looking at what we are capable of accomplishing differently. Because of this, payers and patients have greater expectations from us.”

To sell a treatment, sell the problem

Do you know about demodex blepharitis? No, not the Roman emperor — the eyelid condition.

Drug maker Tarsus wants to be sure you do, because it’s got a drug in testing to treat it. It’s hoping by raising awareness now, patients will rush to get it once it’s approved. Hence the new marketing campaign, “Look at the Lids.”

The campaign is set up to encourage eye care professionals to screen for Demodex blepharitis in all eye care patients to find and diagnose the disease sooner.

Considering that demodex blepharitis is caused by an infestation of mites, and the treatment is a drug used for mange, that’s gonna be a interesting tightrope to walk.

New diabetes drugs: High price, so-so effect

When you consider how much better newer diabetes drugs are (i.e., not much) and the value of a human life, those new drugs simply aren’t cost effective compared to old standby metformin, which costs a fraction of those newfangled meds.

That’s the conclusion of a study led by the University of Chicago (with help from the Medical College of Wisconsin and Imperial College London).

Compared to patients who received initial treatment with metformin, those who received one of the newer drugs had 4.4% to 5.2% lower lifetime rates of congestive heart failure, ischemic heart disease, myocardial infarction, and stroke.

To be cost-effective, SGLT2 inhibitors would need to be priced at less than $5 a day ($1800 a year) and GLP-1 agonists would have to cost less than $6 a day — meaning dropping by at least 70% and at least 90%, respectively.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

More evidence against plaque causing Alzheimer’s

The idea of Alzheimer’s being caused by the buildup of beta-amyloid plaques continues to come under scrutiny. The latest data come from the University of Cincinnati, where neuroscientists have a different idea: What if that plaque buildup is a result of the real cause of the disease?

They’re thinking is that Alzheimer’s might be caused by a decrease in amyloid proteins, rather than an increase in plaques. Those proteins are supposed to be soluble, but when something goes wrong, they don’t dissolve; they instead form plaques. The plaque is simply a biomarker.

[R]egardless of the buildup of plaques in the brain, people with high levels of soluble amyloid-beta were cognitively normal, while those with low levels of the protein were more likely to have cognitive impairment.

Bolstering their idea is the just-approved lecanemab, one of the first Alzheimer’s drugs that seems to work, at least a bit. And lecanemab does something besides attack beta-amyloid plaques: “It increases the levels of the soluble amyloid-beta.”

Hmm.

“Up to date” updated

The CDC has tweaked its definition of what it means to be “up to date” on Covid vaccinations. And it’s simple. Sort of.

• Aged 6 months through 4 years: just the primary series (e.g., two doses of Pfizer or Moderna’s mRNA vaxes)
• Aged 5 to 11: primary series and the monovalent booster
• Aged 12 to 17: primary series and the Pfizer (only!) bivalent booster … for now.
• Aged 17 and over: primary series and either the Pfizer or Moderna bivalent booster

Get the most out of your marketing person

Marketing and communications people aren’t just for decoration. For a pharmacy, they can help generate business (and, with the right training, be used to keep staff obedient and compliant).

Marketing isn’t (just) about creating ads or window posters — the idea is to have someone whose job it is to reach out to local prescribers and make a connection “by learning more about the specifics of the prescriber’s work and prescribing patterns, the pharmacy can better stock products specific to their patients’ needs,” as explained by Nicolette Mathey, owner of Palm Harbor Pharmacy in Florida.

“We ask questions to the prescriber, ‘What are you currently writing for,’ ‘Are you currently writing for compounds,’ ‘Are you currently using any other pharmacies?’ A lot of them send compounds out of state, and that’s an easy target in your area. You can go make that connection and that relationship, and tell them, ‘Oh, I can do that.’”

And if you can’t do that … well, that’s just another way of saying “There’s a great opportunity.”

Buck up and quit whining

“Orthopedic surgery patients do fine without opioid painkillers, according to new study.”

(Instead, use a combo of non-opioid painkillers, say Canadian researchers.)

Here’s glaucoma monitoring in your eye

Yesterday we told you about replacement lenses for the eyes that can deliver glaucoma meds for years. But while we’re in the eye, how about a way to monitor for glaucoma?

To that end, Purdue engineers have developed a contact lens “that can accurately measure intraocular pressure in a person’s eye.”

Instead of having to visit an ophthalmologist (and deal with that machine that shoots a puff of air — you know the one), these contacts can monitor interocular pressure for 24 hours, even during sleep, when it can often spike. Inside the lens — yes, inside it — is a transmitter than sends readings either to a pair of eyeglasses or to a special sleep mask. And yes, the lenses also function as normal contacts.

Result: Better, more-detailed readings, no office required — coming soon, perhaps.

Sell that gel

If you only watch one video about preventing razor bumps this week, let it be the one from the American Academy of Dermatology Association.