Track and trace delayed … again

Enforcement of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act — at least for smaller pharmacies — has been postponed until November 2026, according to the FDA. The delay is “to offer small dispensers more time ‘to stabilize their operations and fully implement the enhanced drug distribution security requirements’ of the law.”

The law was passed in 2013 and was supposed to go into effect in 2023, but pharma organizations argued that 10 years wasn’t enough time to implement it, so enforcement was postponed until 2024, and now again (for pharmacies with 25 or fewer full-time employees) for another couple of years.

A pneumococcal vaccine

The FDA has approved the first pneumococcal vaccine for adults — Merck’s Capvaxive.

While the nod applies to people at least 18 years of age, Capvaxive is specifically adapted for patients age 50 and older as the 21 serotypes it covers account for 84% of the pneumococcal disease of people in the age group.

Next up: The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will decide what uses of Capvaxive to officially sanction.

Attention pharmacy grad students!

The Southern Pharmacy Administration Conference is being held on UGA’s campus this year, August 8–10, and of course all grad students are invited to attend and to submit abstracts.

The goal of the conference is “offering enriching learning opportunities for graduate students” and giving them a chance to interact with faculty and peers. (There’s even “Dinner & Fun/Games” scheduled for Friday night.)

An allergy twist

Conventional wisdom these days says that early exposure to a bunch of bacteria is good for kids’ immune systems (the “hygiene hypothesis” v.2). And that seems to be true … but.

A group of Canadian researchers found a downside: Early exposure to weed pollen in urban areas actually increases the risk of kids developing asthma. So you’ve got competing effects, with the green spaces being good for the kids’ allergies and immune systems, but the pollen they’re exposed to reducing the benefit.

Good news for the lazy

People who sit all day and drink coffee have a lower risk of death than sedentary people who don’t drink coffee. (Well, we all have 100% risk of death. This was over the course of the study — 13 years for about 10,600 adults.)

Often stories about coffee are really about caffeine, but in this case it was actually coffee that made the difference. “[G]iven that coffee is a complex compound, further research is needed to explore this miracle compound.”

Fool me once….

With the huge success and popularity of pharmacy benefits managers, here comes their cousin to add to the complexity and cost of the US healthcare system: specialty benefit managers or SBMs.

Just as PBMs “help” companies manage their pharmacy benefits, SBMs …

… help payers manage high-cost, high-complexity disease states by leveraging provider networks and making coverage recommendations intended to improve outcomes and lower cost.

Ah, yes, “improve outcomes and lower cost.”

Typically, they drive volume to less expensive cost-of-care settings and high-performing specialists within their network, often contracting at lower rates.

What could possibly go wrong?

Healthcare is growing big-time

The US economy is booming (sorry, rest of the world), and healthcare is benefitting from that, too. The latest data show that there were more than 68,000 healthcare jobs created in May, with the biggest gains in ambulatory services, physician’s offices, and home healthcare.

In fact, healthcare accounted for a quarter of May’s job creation, even beating out government; leisure and hospitality; and professional, scientific, and technical services.

Thanks for … not much

We were happy to see a local news story about pharmacy deserts in Georgia (well, not happy about the deserts, but happy about the local coverage). Sadly, the story ended up not saying all that much, at least nothing new other than a pharmacy is opening in Tabbleton with a bit of government help.

The gist: Pharmacies, especially independents, are getting screwed like an Ikea bookshelf by the high cost of drugs. Patients are unhappy. U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter wants it to change. And … that’s about it. As you were.

The Long Read: Obesity First? edition

The conventional wisdom is that you treat each condition with a medication designed for it, but GLP-1 drugs are changing that thinking. For many prescribers, drugs like Ozempic make them want to treat obesity first and see how well those drugs also affect other issues like arthritis, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, and more.

Check out “Doctors Test the Limits of What Obesity Drugs Can Fix.”