Pharmacists in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to reduce opening hours and stop home deliveries.

Research by NAM Pharmacy Fellow Dima M. Qato has shed light on “pharmacy deserts” and closures that reduce people’s access to medications.

NationDrugs.to Offers a Safe and Convenient Solution for Affordable Prescription Drugs

A Sudbury pharmacy technician has come up with a better way to do her job, while also improving patient safety. Now her method is being used at Sudbury's hospital, and is getting interest from others.

The government implied wholesalers had more personal protective equipment in stock than was the case during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Healthcare Distribution Association has said.

Community pharmacies will receive an estimated 12 referrals from the Discharge Medicines Service per year.

Around half of Wales’ community pharmacies have expressed interest to health boards in providing COVID-19 vaccinations as part of the national programme.

Pharmacy negotiators have discussed proposals to take “a patient registration-based approach” to the community pharmacy contractual framework.

NCPA Applauds Rep. Weiner for Introducing Bill to Rein in Pharmacy Benefit Manager Practices That Hurt Patients, Plan Sp

Chemists’ manifesto: Call for fair play gets louder amidst deep discounts from online pharmacies

We want a level playing field for all sellers: RSS affiliate.

Research by NAM Pharmacy Fellow Dima M. Qato has shed light on “pharmacy deserts” and closures that reduce people’s access to medications.

A semi-automated system suitable for use in a hospital setting for filling patient-specific liquid prescriptions to be administered by oral syringes on a just-in-time basis. The system enables hospital pharmacists to simplify and streamline their task, increasing the number of prescriptions that can be filled in a day, improving patient safety and care by minimizing medication errors and the consequences that ensue.

Apart from Covid-19 lockdown norms, paucity of adequate stocks and a minuscule discount in retail medicine shops shot the demand for medicine delivery through various e-pharmacy platforms.

SJM national co-convenor Ashwani Mahajan tweeted on this issue, tagging Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to flag his concern. . Mahajan had shared screenshots that said Aarogya Setu now brings to you online medical consultations (call and video), home lab tests and e-pharmacy.

(MENAFN - Khaleej Times) The civic body in Dibba Al Fujairah has ordered the closure of three pharmacies for unreasonably increasing the price of h... ......

Follow our live coronavirus updates HERE Coronavirus: the symptoms

I am pleased to announce our new 2020 Economic Report on U.S. Pharmacies and Pharmacy Benefit Managers, available for purchase and immediate download.

• Click here to download a free report overview (including the Table of Contents and a List of Exhibits)

• Pharmacy Industry Revenues Hit Record High—Amid Profit Pressures and Amazon Threat, Says New Drug Channels Institute Study (press release)

We’re offering special discounted pricing if you order before March 22, 2020.

The 2020 Economic Report on U.S. Pharmacies and Pharmacy Benefit Managers is a truly unique resource. With 203 proprietary charts, exhibits, and data tables, this 11th edition provides a comprehensive, fact-based, and non-partisan tool for understanding the entire U.S. drug pricing, reimbursement, and dispensing system.

The full document clocks in at 374 pages. I can safely say there is nothing else available that comes close to this report.

The chart below illustrates the depth and breadth of the 2020 edition. The numbers indicate the report chapter that corresponds to, explains, and analyzes each channel flow.


Below, you can read more info and some behind-the-scenes tidbits.

P.S. If you would like to pay by corporate purchase order or check, please email Tamra Feldman. If you preordered the report, you should have already received an email with download instructions. Please contact us if you did not receive the email.
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I hope you are staying healthy and are managing to navigate your work-at-home mandates.

Last week, I tapped the collective insights of the Drug Channels’ audience. Nearly 700 readers shared their perspectives and projections for how the coronavirus pandemic could ultimately affect behavior, policy, and industry structure. Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond.

I will share the results over three articles this week:

• Today, in Part 1, I will review the responses relating to patient behavior, pharmacies, and wholesalers. 
• In Part 2 (tomorrow), I’ll focus on expectations for pharmaceutical manufacturers and third-party payment. 
• In Part 3 (Thursday), I’ll examine how the coronavirus may affect the public perception of the industry’s participants.

P.S. A special shout out to the respondent who hoped that the coronavirus would not impact the quality of Drug Channels memes. Never fear, dear readers: Drug Channels will remain the internet’s top destination for pharmaceutical-related humor!
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In Drug Channels Institute's list of the top 15 pharmacies of 2019, we show that many of the largest U.S. pharmacies are now central-fill mail and specialty pharmacies operated by PBMs and insurers.

To complement that broader ranking, we present below our exclusive list of the top 15 pharmacies based on specialty drug dispensing revenues. Consistent with our previous analyses, PBMs and insurers have retained their dominance over specialty drug channels, while smaller pharmacies are facing increased competition and profit pressures.

I see upside for specialty pharmacies in the aftermath of the pandemic. This growth will come at the expense of provider-administered drug channels. I expect the top companies’ share will increase in 2020, due to mergers and business transitions among the largest PBMs. However, the increasing role of government payers may create opportunities for smaller pharmacies.

This Friday, I’ll discuss how COVID-19 will affect the specialty pharmacy market during the first of my two live video webinars.

Over the next two weeks, Drug Channels Institute will host two live video webinars: Industry Update and COVID-19 Impact: Retail & Specialty Pharmacies (May 1) and Industry Update and COVID-19 Impact: PBMs & Payers (May 8). CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE AND SIGN UP. Contact Paula Fein (paula@drugchannelsinstitute.com) for our special promo codes for multiple viewing sites. DCI will donate 20% of all profits from these events to The Center for Disaster Philanthropy’s COVID-19 Response Fund.

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This week, I’m rerunning some popular posts while I prepare for this Friday’s video webinar: Industry Update and COVID-19 Impact: PBMs & Payers.

Life was very different when I originally published today’s article. 2020 is not turning out to be quite what any of us expected. However, the pandemic has exposed some intriguing pros and cons of vertical consolidation. Click here to see the original post and comments from December 2019.

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The largest insurers, PBMs, and specialty pharmacies have now combined into vertically-integrated organizations. As I explain below, these companies have also been rapidly integrating with healthcare providers.

I also provide an updated look at these companies and highlight strategies that they are using—or could use—to control the channel. I believe that these insurer / PBM / specialty pharmacy / provider organizations are poised to restructure U.S. drug channels by exerting greater control over patient access, sites of care/dispensing, and pricing.

If they can effectively coordinate their sprawling business operations, they will pose a substantial threat of disruption to the existing commercial strategies of pharma companies.

Will they succeed by better managing care and costs, or merely by extracting higher profits from our convoluted system?
Read more »

Online search engine Google Inc. has agreed to forfeit $500 million for allowing online Canadian pharmacies to place advertisements through its AdWords program targeting consumers in the United States, resulting in the unlawful importation of controlled and non-controlled prescription drugs into the United States.

Posted by Reed Beall and Amir Attaran (respectively Phd Candidate and Professor, University of Ottawa) In 2005, the FDA launched an investigation into pharmaceuticals bought from “Canadian” internet pharmacies online and shipped to US consumers. Of 1700 packages these pharmacies supplied, fully 85 percent of those actually came from somewhere else, but 15 percent really came from Canada.  Worse, 32 of the drugs were found to be counterfeit.  All of these pacakges were ente [...]

Pharmacies dispensed approximately 35% more prescriptions in March 2020, compared with the previous month, according to a survey by the National Pharmacy Association.

To read the whole article click on the headline

Community pharmacies need millions of pounds extra “to keep their heads above water” during the COVID-19 pandemic, pharmacy bodies have warned.

To read the whole article click on the headline

NHS England has advised pharmacies to risk assess staff who may be particularly vulnerable to COVID-19, including those from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background.

To read the whole article click on the headline

When doctors team up with food banks, it improves health and staves off chronic hunger.

Most e-pharmacies are operating with minimal staff and are not able to fulfill customer orders

Interview with Troyen A. Brennan, MD, MPH, author of Ending Sales of Tobacco Products in Pharmacies

On Monday, the company announced it was buying VWash, an intimate hygiene brand from Glenmark Pharmaceuticals