Pharmacy

Seven major health systems joined forces to form a nonprofit generic drug company, Civica Rx, to address drug shortages and combat the rising price of medications.

The FDA has approved a new medication for a rare neuromuscular disorder in children, adding unforeseen competition to Catalyst's $375,000 drug, Firdapse, which was at the center of a pricing controversy earlier this year, according to STAT news.

By using external reference pricing to match U.S. drug prices to those in Japan, the U.K. or Canada,  Medicare could have saved nearly $73 billion in 2018, according to a new study published in Health Affairs.

President Donald Trump has asked HHS Secretary Alex Azar to help Florida set up and quickly approve its program to import prescription drugs from Canada, according to Politico.

A new gene therapy for an infant muscle-wasting disease is about to launch at a potential cost of $2 million, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Vivimed Life Sciences issued a recall for 19 lots of losartan potassium tablets after detecting a potentially carcinogenic impurity.

Ten workers from the Global Compounding Pharmacy in Alabama, including a nurse practitioner, pharmacist and the pharmacy's owners, were charged in connection to a $200 million prescription drug fraud investigation, according to a WSFA news report.

A former pharmacy tech at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Mo., was sentenced to three years in prison last week for stealing painkillers, according to The Springfield News-Leader.

Pfizer received FDA approval May 6 for Vyndaqel, which treats a rare and fatal heart disease. The drug will launch with a list price of $225,000 per year in the U.S., according to Reuters.

A federal judge has denied Aetna's bid to derail a whistleblower suit against CVS Caremark that alleges the pharmacy benefit manager overbilled Medicare by more than $1 billion for prescription drugs, according to The Columbus Dispatch.