Pharmacy

The business of pharmacy extends across the entire continuum of care, but for some hospitals and health systems, pharmacy may be an undervalued and underutilized resource. An optimized pharmacy enterprise has the potential to significantly contribute to expense reduction, revenue…

The U.S. will not be able to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to all pharmacies in the country by late February as former HHS Secretary Alex Azar promised, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, told NBC Jan. 21.

Anthony Fauci, MD, said the U.S. would join Covax, the international effort to ensure equitable COVID-19 vaccine distribution across the globe, during his Jan. 21 address to the World Health Organization.

New York City has been forced to temporarily close 15 vaccination sites from Jan. 21-24 because the city isn't receiving enough vaccine doses from the federal government, CBS News reported. 

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy told CNBC Jan. 20 he thinks the federal partnership with CVS and Walgreens to distribute COVID-19 vaccines has slowed the state's vaccine rollout. 

SpecialtyRx, a pharmacy provider in Columbus, Ohio, was suspended from distributing COVID-19 vaccines Jan. 20 after the state's health department discovered the provider potentially mishandled and wasted 890 doses of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine. 

California's state epidemiologist, Erica Pan, MD, told healthcare providers Jan. 20 to "immediately resume" using a batch of Moderna COVID-19 vaccines the state stopped administering earlier this week after a higher than usual number of severe allergic reactions were reported…

The FDA on Jan. 20 approved Verquvo, a soluble guanylate cyclase stimulator developed by Merck and Bayer.

CVS Health has named Kyu Rhee, MD, as senior vice president and chief medical officer of Aetna. 

Amazon's CEO of consumer business, Dave Clark, sent a letter to President Joe Biden shortly after he was sworn in Jan. 20 offering Amazon's help in distributing COVID-19 vaccines, NBC News reports.