After its $69 billion acquisition of Aetna is finalized, CVS plans to introduce more health services, including chronic disease management, at select drugstores, according to CNBC.
Pharmacy
Insys Therapeutics is looking to sell its opioid-related assets after spending the last year battling lawsuits and facing criticism about its tactics to push prescriptions of Subsys, a mouth-spray version of fentanyl, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Novartis said it believes its new gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic disease affecting voluntary muscle movement, will be worth more than $4 million per dose, according to STAT.
Fueled by its improving pharmacy retail business, CVS Health posted a net income of $1.39 billion in the third quarter of 2018, up from $1.29 billion the same period one year prior, according to CNBC.
Novartis will stop working toward FDA approval for its biosimilar of rituximab, a medication used to treat certain cancers and rheumatoid arthritis, according to Reuters.
Advertisement
Aurobindo Pharma issued a voluntary recall of 22 batches of Irbesartan, a drug used in the treatment of hypertension, due to the presence of an impurity linked to cancer, according to LiveMint.com.
Novo Nordisk, a Denmark-based pharmaceutical company, will cut 1,300 jobs by the end of the year as it faces mounting pressure in the U.S. market, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Several "perverse" incentives for drugmakers have led to artificially high prices for insulin, which is placing the lifesaving drug out of reach for patients, according to a bipartisan report released Nov. 1 and cited by The Hill.
In the first earnings report after receiving federal approval for its proposed merger with Cigna, Express Scripts posted a third-quarter net income of $1.07 billion, a 27 percent year-over-year increase.
John Hammergren, McKesson's longtime chairman and CEO, will retire March 31, ending a 17-year career at the nation's largest pharmaceutical wholesaler.