Prescription Drug News and Research

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Middlemen who save $$ on medicines — but maybe not for you

Guess who's back grabbing headlines? Pharmacy benefit managers — those companies that serve as middlemen in the prescription drug pipeline.

21 May 2018

Vermont legislators pass a drug importation law. So what?

This week, Vermont passed a first-in-the-nation law that would facilitate the state's importation of prescription drugs wholesale from Canada. It represents the state's effort to tackle head-on the issue of constantly climbing drug prices.

18 May 2018

Reversing an overdose isn’t complicated, but getting the antidote can be

A few months ago, Kourtnaye Sturgeon helped save someone’s life. She was driving in downtown Indianapolis when she saw people gathered around a car on the side of the road. Sturgeon pulled over, and a man told her there was nothing she could do: Two men had overdosed on opioids and appeared to be dead.

16 May 2018

Majority of prescription drug commercials focus on lifestyle improvements, study finds

Prescription drug commercials are getting longer and providing less factual information. A study published in the Annals of Family Medicine finds that the majority of these ads focus on lifestyle improvements made post-medication rather than side-effects and the negative emotions associated with certain health issues.

15 May 2018

Trump vows (again) to lower drug prices but skeptics doubt much will change

President Donald Trump, armed with the expertise of staff seasoned in the ways of the drug industry, unveiled his blueprint to address sky-high drug prices Friday afternoon, promising that increasing industry competition will help Americans save at the pharmacy counter.

11 May 2018

Midterm elections are shaping up to be a referendum on Trumpism

Voters looking toward the midterm elections are more motivated by a candidate's stance on President Donald Trump than on any specific policy question.

10 May 2018

For shame: ‘Pharma bro’ Shkreli is in prison, but Daraprim’s price is still high

It was 2015 when Martin Shkreli, then CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals and the notorious "pharma bro," jacked up the cost of the lifesaving drug Daraprim by 5,000 percent. Overnight, its price tag skyrocketed from $13.50 a pill to $750.

4 May 2018

How a drug company under pressure for high prices ratchets up political activity

Business looked challenging for Novo Nordisk at the end of 2016. As pressure mounted over the pharma giant's soaring insulin prices, investors drove its stock down by a third on fears that policymakers would take action, limit prices and hurt profits.

30 Apr 2018

Illinois American Water encourages customers to dispose their unwanted medications at approved collection sites

Illinois American Water encourages customers to participate in the Drug Enforcement Agency's National Prescription Drug Take Back Day.

28 Apr 2018

Dissecting the rhetoric vs. reality of Trump’s tough talk on drug prices

President Donald Trump has railed against the high price of prescription drugs and famously bemoaned how pharmaceutical companies are "getting away with murder." Yet, many Americans aren't seeing a change in what they pay out-of-pocket.

27 Apr 2018

People who use medical marijuana have higher rates of prescription drug use, study finds

Can medical marijuana help to fight the opioid epidemic? Many believe that it can. But a new study finds that people who use medical marijuana actually have higher rates of medical and non-medical prescription drug use--including pain relievers.

18 Apr 2018

FDA launches criminal investigation into unauthorized herpes vaccine research

The Food and Drug Administration has launched a criminal investigation into research by a Southern Illinois University professor who injected people with his unauthorized herpes vaccine, Kaiser Health News has learned.

12 Apr 2018

Researchers suggest alternative therapy for heart attack patients with beta blocker intolerance

Beta blockers have become a prescription drug staple for recovering heart attack patients. However, these blood pressure-reducing medications cannot be tolerated by many patients who are at higher risk for developing cardiovascular disease, including those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma, the elderly, and diabetics.

10 Apr 2018

Graphic: Opioid painkiller is top prescription in 11 states

Americans fill about 4.5 billion prescriptions each year, at a cost of more than $323 billion. But what are we actually buying? In 11 states, the top prescriptions are opioid pain pills that are mixtures of acetaminophen and hydrocodone (brand names Vicodin and Norco), according to new data from GoodRx, an online prescription cost service.

22 Mar 2018

Viagra cuts colorectal cancer risk in animal model

A small, daily dose of Viagra significantly reduces colorectal cancer risk in an animal model that is genetically predetermined to have the third leading cause of cancer death, scientists report.

19 Mar 2018

Opioid maker funds efforts to fight addiction: Is it ‘blood money’ or charity?

A program to give naloxone overdose-antidote kits and training to front-line officers. Funding for pill disposal boxes in pharmacies, clinics and police stations across North Carolina. A radio campaign in Connecticut warning of the dangers of opioid abuse. A new medicine to treat opioid-induced constipation.

14 Mar 2018

Lifting therapy caps proves a load off Medicare patients’ shoulders

Physical therapy helps Leon Beers, 73, get out of bed in the morning and maneuver around his home using his walker. Other treatment strengthens his throat muscles so that he can communicate and swallow food, said his sister Karen Morse. But in mid-January, his home health care agency told Morse it could no longer provide these services because he had used all his therapy benefits allowed under Medicare for the year.