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The Partnership for Prescription Assistance (PPA) unveiled a national advertising campaign targeting the American Hispanic community to help draw attention to the free or nearly free medicines available to Americans in need. Montel Williams, syndicated talk show host, is the official national PPA spokesman.

McKesson Specialty, a subsidiary of McKesson Corp., has been certified by Celgene Corp. as one of a select group of RevAssist Program contract pharmacies to launch Revlimid (lenalidomide). To reduce fetal exposure to the drug, Revlimid is available only through RevAssist, a distribution network employing only certified, contracted specialty pharmacies.

Merck has launched an initiative to help consumers navigate government and private programs that offer free or discount medicines to low-income patients. The company's "Guide to Affordable Medicine" includes information about public programs, such as Medicaid and Medicare, and private programs, such as prescription assistance programs offered by drugmakers.

Sanofi-Aventis has voluntarily recalled 30 batches of syringes containing the anticoagulant Lovenox (enoxaparin), because of a problem related to the syringe-filling process. The company said the recalled syringes may contain too much of the active ingredient enoxaparin.

Bottles of fruit juice that appeared to be tampered with were found at a CVS store near where dozens of churchgoers in Connecticut recently fell ill. The bottles contained several different brands and types of juice and were found during an inventory check, according to police.

Benzocaine sprays used for numbing the mouth and throat are being investigated by the FDA for their tendency to cause methemoglobinemia, a condition in which the red blood cells are unable to carry oxygen. Until recently, the FDA considered the incidence of methemoglobinemia with these products to be low; however, new reports have prompted the agency to review all available safety data.

Cardinal Health has released a new software version for its Alaris System intravenous pumps, adding safety features and expanding the range of situations in which the pumps can be used.

Drug Mart, Tallman, N.Y., has filed a suit against Becton, Dickinson (BD), accusing the firm of "anti-competitive and illegal" behavior.

Delmarva, Medicare's Quality Improvement Organization for Maryland and the District of Columbia, has announced the winners of its Medicare Quality Excellence Awards. The hospital award recognizes the top 10% of institutions that improve the most in the composite of a set of 10 performance measures: five acute myocardial infarction (AMI), two congestive heart failure (CHF), and three pneumonia measures.

Radiological services encompass a broad array of diagnostic and treatment modalities used in patient care and performed by various healthcare practitioners. The number of radiological procedures performed in the United States per year has been estimated at 300 million, of which 20% involve a radiological pharmaceutical.

Missed laboratory tests recommended for safety monitoring is a serious problem, according to recently published studies supported by the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality. One study showed that 47%, 45%, and 44% of patients did not receive one or more recommended lab tests over three years. Another showed that 49.6% of all prescriptions that should have been accompanied by a lab test at the time the drug was prescribed were not.

Research reported at the 47th Annual Meeting and Exposition of the American Society of Hematology, held recently in Atlanta, featured upbeat findings for a new multiple myeloma agent for leukemia patients and found evidence supporting much wider prophylaxis against venous thromboembolism.

To commemorate its 50th anniversary, the Avon Foundation recently sponsored a global research symposium in New York City titled "Breast Cancer 2005: From Discovery to Delivery." There were a number of significant takeaways from the meeting.

The Coalition for Pulmonary Fibrosis (CPF) has issued the first-ever treatment guidelines for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) based on medical evidence. The guidelines, developed with Cerner Health Insights, were published in the October 2005 issue of the Journal of Sarcoidosis, Vasculitis, & Diffuse Lung Diseases.

The pharmaceutical management of hypertensive patients during oral surgery requires controlling patient stress and anxiety and knowing the uses and adverse interactions of antihypertensive drugs, according to recently released guidelines by the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (AAOMS).

Staring down the barrel of $6.3 billion in state and federal Medicaid reimbursement cuts over the next five years, NCPA and NACDS have vowed to take community pharmacy's case to HHS and the states, which must write regulations and implement the changes.

Three Massachusetts women plan to go to court to force Wal-Mart tostock emergency contraceptive (EC) agents in all its pharmacies inthe state. The plaintiffs contend that state pharmacy regulationsrequire pharmacies to stock commonly prescribed medications.

Pharmacists in all settings must take personal action to defend their profession against outsiders who wish to marginalize them as frontline healthcare providers, according to NCPA. Warning that 2006 is a "now or never" year, NCPA pointed to Medicare Part D, severe cuts to Medicaid reimbursement, and growing mandatory mail order as examples of efforts to undermine traditional community pharmacy practice.

Researchers in an NIH network have found that premature infants given a common class of nonprescription drugs used to treat acid reflux are slightly more likely to develop a potentially fatal bowel disorder than are infants who are not treated with the drugs. The drugs, known as H 2 blockers, inhibit the production of stomach acid and may put premature infants at risk of necrotizing enterocolitis, a serious inflammation of the intestines.

Problems processing Medicare Part D claims have created a cash flow crisis for community pharmacies, according to NCPA. In letters to Part D Rx plan sponsors, wholesalers, and pharmaceutical manufacturers, NCPA urged giving community pharmacies flexibility in paying their accounts as an emergency effort to ease the cash crunch.

Forty percent of claims submitted to Anthem under WellPoint's POS system for Part D dual eligibles have "junk" in the cardholder ID field, said a company spokeswoman during a CMS conference call. Since incorrect data slow down claims processing, Anthem instituted hard edits in the cardholder ID field to reject claims back to pharmacies that do not use the correct format for Medicare numbers.

Ranolazine extended-release tablets (Ranexa, CV Therapeutics) have received FDA approval for the treatment of chronic angina. Ranolazine prolongs the QT interval and should be reserved for patients who have not achieved an adequate response with other antianginal drugs.

Providing language-appropriate prescription labels could eliminate some of the medical errors responsible for 98,000 deaths each year in the U.S., but chain-owned pharmacies were less likely to provide them than were small, independent drugstores. This finding comes from a study in the February issue of the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, published by Meharry Medical College in Nashville.

Thirty days into the new Medicare prescription drug benefit, discounts on the top 25 drugs prescribed to seniors and the disabled are holding steady, with an average 35% savings on drugs purchased at a retail pharmacy compared with those purchased by cash-paying customers and 46% for drugs purchased through the mail-service pharmacy option, according to a new analysis of Medicare drug prices from the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA). "These data are an encouraging sign for beneficiaries paying Part D deductibles or concerned about their drugs costs in the donut hole as well as the overall costs of the Part D program," said PCMA president Mark Merritt.

The USP has submitted to CMS its Medicare Rx drug benefit model guidelines that Part D drug plans can use for formulary development during the 2007 benefit year. Version 2.0 of the guidelines reduced the number of unique drug categories and classes from 146 to 133 and increased the formulary key drug types from 118 to 141.

Publix Super Markets and The Little Clinic LLC have signed an agreement to open medical clinics within Publix stores. The first clinics will be located in the Atlanta and the Miami, Orlando, and Tampa, Fla., markets in the first half of 2006.

Merck's Rotateq, an oral, live, pentavalent vaccine, has received FDA approval for the prevention of rotavirus gastroenteritis in infants, an illness that causes vomiting, watery diarrhea, fever, and abdominal pain and results in 55,000 hospitalizations annually. Clinical studies of the vaccine included more than 72,000 healthy infants and closely examined the risk of intussusception, a serious life-threatening condition in which the intestines become twisted.