Controlled chaos coming

Eventually the Covid public health emergency will end, and you know what happens then? Telehealth providers won’t be able to prescribe controlleds. Unlike other pandemic waivers that Congress has extended, when it comes to drugs, those restrictions pop into place.

That could leave patients scrambling to find providers who can see them, forcing some to travel long distances or endure extended wait times for an office visit.

Fun fact: The DEA was required to create rules for those telehealth prescriptions by 2019 … and never did.

Take two aspirin

Heparin, schmeparin. If a patient is hospitalized with a bone fracture, you don’t need those fancy-schmancy blood thinners. Good ol’ aspirin works just as well, according to a University of Maryland study — a clinical trial involving “more than 12,000 patients at 21 trauma centers in the U.S. and Canada.”

There was barely any difference in death overall from using aspirin, and…

…the researchers also found no differences between the two groups in clots in the lungs (pulmonary embolisms). The incidence of bleeding complications, infection, wound problems, and other adverse events from the treatments was also similar in both groups.

“Game changer”: Light that kills superbugs

Two skin-based bugs — golden staph and pseudomonas aeruginosa — are resistant to most antibiotics, and that’s a problem for people with skin wounds, catheters, or even those on ventilators. But now Aussie researchers have a way to kill ’em en masse.

They’ve created a lotion filled with nanotech — a compound that, when exposed to a UV laser, “generate[s] highly reactive oxygen molecules that eradicate microbial cells and kill deadly bacteria, without harming human cells.”

The goal is to use the tech to clean existing wounds and protect patients at risk during a procedure. But first, of course, more research is needed.

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An artificial intelligence — ChatGPT, which some of you may have heard of — has passed all three parts of the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination.

“[W]e were pretty amazed at the results. Not only at what it was getting right, but at how it was explaining itself.”

(You can read more about ChatGPT here. It’s causing schools fits because it can write students’ papers for them.)

Walgreens writes a check

Walgreens has agreed to pay West Virginia more $83 million over eight years for its role in the opioid crisis. (You may remember that other chains — CVS, Rite Aid, and Walmart — already reached settlements with the state of $82.5 million, $30 million, and $65 million, respectively.)

Contraceptive 3.0?

Boston University researchers are working on the pieces of what they hope will form a new kind of non-hormonal contraceptive that also prevents STDs including herpes simplex and HIV.

They’re testing two films that dissolve inside the vagina: Using monoclonal antibodies, one makes sperm immobile to prevent pregnancy, while the other contains antibodies against HSV and HIV…

… with the goal of combining them to make an effective reversible birth control […] The research team is also working to make birth control applicable to people who don’t have vaginas^*.

It’s particularly important, they say, because all three of the 95-plus-percent-effective birth control methods available today (implant, IUD, shot) require a doctor’s visit and don’t protect against STIs.

^* Someday we’ll come up with a simple three-letter word for “people who don’t have vaginas.”

Complex guidance on simplification

Irony, irony, all is irony. The FDA has issued “a wholesale rewrite” of its 2010 guidance on making sure drug labels are “pertinent and understandable” to health care practitioners.

It’s triple the length of the previous guidance.

TV ads don’t really help

In what must come as a total shock, it turns out that the drugs advertised on television are no better than — and may not be as good as — existing medication. Even if they are “As Seen on TV.”

Researchers from Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth “examined independent therapeutic value ratings for 73 of the most advertised drugs from 2015 to 2021.” Despite the $22 billion the pharma companies pumped into the economy…

Most drugs advertised on television don’t work better than existing alternatives, a new analysis shows. And manufacturers spend more on advertising for those less beneficial drugs than for ones that work better.

But let’s not forget, those high drug prices are needed to fund research and development.

The “Drugs to Watch” this year

Research and analysis company Clarivate has released its 2023 list of Drugs to Watch — what it calls “Blockbusters on the cusp and those with the potential to transform treatment paradigms.”

Click here to fill out the form, give away your info, and download a copy.

Please don’t read further where you’ll see the list of drugs and a link to download the report because we at Buzz have taken a hit for the team.

The drugs:

• Bimekizumab
• Capivasertib
• Daprodustat
• Deucravacitinib
• Foscarbidopa/foslevodopa
• Lecanemab and donanemab
• Lenacapavir
• Mirikizumab
• Pegcetacoplan
• Ritlecitinib
• Sparsentan
• Teclistamab
• Teplizumab
• Valoctocogene roxaparvovec

Do not click here to download the 87-page PDF from GPhA Buzz, no questions asked.