CVS Pulls Some Cold Meds After Phenylephrine’s Fall From Favor
U.S. health regulators recently determined that phenylephrine doesn't work to clear congested noses, and now the impact is being seen on pharmacy shelves. In other news: Sanofi's Lantus insulin, its most commonly prescribed, will sell for $35 a month through GoodRx Holdings.
The Wall Street Journal:
CVS Pulls Certain Cold Medicines From Shelves And Will Stop Selling Them
CVS Health is pulling some of the most common decongestants from its shelves and will no longer sell them, after advisers to U.S. health regulators recently determined that an ingredient doesn’t work. The products contain oral phenylephrine, an almost-century-old ingredient in versions of decongestants and over-the-counter pills, syrups and liquids to clear up congested noses. ... Oral products that list phenylephrine as its only active ingredient include Sudafed PE. (Hopkins, 10/19)
On the high cost of drugs —
Bloomberg:
Sanofi’s Lantus Insulin To Sell For $35 Via GoodRx Site
Sanofi’s Lantus, its most commonly prescribed insulin, will sell for $35 a month through GoodRx Holdings Inc. in a deal that signals the drug-discount site’s growing business with large pharma companies. Under the agreement, GoodRx will sell Lantus supplies at the same price to both insured and uninsured patients, the companies said Thursday. While Sanofi said in March that it would lower list prices for Lantus and cap out-of-pocket costs for people with insurance at $35 a month starting next year, the GoodRx price goes into effect immediately for all customers. (LaPara and Tozzi, 10/19)
KFF Health News:
Biden Pick To Lead NIH Finally Has Her Day, But Still Gets Caught Up In Drug Price Debate
A Senate committee finally held a hearing Wednesday on President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the National Institutes of Health. But the panel’s chair, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), was focused on drug prices — an issue over which the NIH has very little control. After introducing the nominee, Monica Bertagnolli, at a hearing of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Sanders quickly pivoted to the high prices Americans pay for prescription drugs. (DeGuzman, 10/19)
In other pharmaceutical industry news —
Reuters:
Walgreens To Settle Rite Aid Investors' Merger Claims For $192 Million
Walgreens Boots Alliance has agreed to pay $192.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit by investors in Rite Aid who accused Walgreens of misleading them in 2017 about scrutiny of the two drugstore chain operators' then-pending merger. (10/19)
Stat:
Laronde Merges With Another Biotech After Data Integrity Issue
RNA medicines startup Laronde is merging with another startup, after closing the door on a scientific misconduct issue that affected its leading drug candidates. (DeAngelis, 10/19)
The Wall Street Journal:
Making Medicines Greener
Making and supplying medicines generates roughly a third of the global healthcare industry’s greenhouse-gas emissions. But Western companies say it isn’t easy to bring down that number without changing the way these drugs are produced and regulated. Pharmaceutical companies that have committed to lowering their carbon footprint in the coming years say the main challenges arise from emissions that occur in their supply chains and as a result of how patients use some of their products. These so-called Scope 3 emissions are often the hardest to reduce because they depend on a large web of external suppliers and energy-intensive chemical processes to make medicines. (Butini, 10/19)
