Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Walgreens To Pay $300 Million To Settle Opioid Script-Filling Case
CBS News: Walgreens To Pay $300 Million To Settle Claims It Illegally Filled Invalid Opioids Prescriptions
Walgreens Boots Alliance has agreed to pay $300 million to settle claims that it unlawfully filled millions of invalid prescriptions for opioids and other controlled substances. In its complaint, the Justice Department, along with other federal agencies, alleges that for more than a decade pharmacists at the second largest pharmacy chain in the U.S. knowingly filled prescriptions of controlled substances, despite clear signs of their illegitimacy. (Cunningham, 4/21)
More on the opioid crisis and substance abuse —
New Hampshire Public Radio: Money Set Aside To Help NH's Opioid Crisis Could Be Steered Elsewhere In The State Budget
New Hampshire lawmakers have proposed diverting millions of dollars meant to address opioid addiction to help close the state’s budget gaps – alarming advocates who say it would upend a wide range of treatment, recovery and prevention programs. (Cuno-Booth, 4/21)
Los Angeles Times: Newsom Makes $24 Generic Narcan Available To All Californians
California residents are now eligible to buy naloxone — a drug commonly sold under the brand name Narcan and used to treat opioid overdoses — for $24 through the state’s prescription website CalRx, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said in a news release Monday. “Life-saving medications shouldn’t come with a life-altering price tag. CalRx is about making essential drugs like naloxone affordable and accessible for all — not the privileged few,” Newsom said. (McDonald, 4/21)
ProPublica: New Law Increases Oversight Of Arizona Sober Living Homes
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has signed legislation increasing oversight of sober living homes, two years after state officials announced that a Medicaid fraud scheme had targeted Native Americans seeking drug and alcohol treatment. The bill, sponsored by three Republicans, amends state law for the regulation and licensing of sober living homes. It places new demands on the Arizona Department of Health Services, though a lawmaker from the Navajo Nation expressed concern that the bill does not go far enough in addressing root causes of the fraud. Hobbs’ office announced late Friday that the bill, expected to take effect in the fall, was among dozens she had signed into law. (Hudetz, 4/22)
In other pharmaceutical industry news —
FiercePharma: Top 20 Pharma Companies By 2024 Revenue
With only one of the biopharma industry’s top 20 revenue companies seeing a year-over-year decline in sales, 2024 was a remarkable year of revenue growth for the industry. Compare that to 2023, when eight of the top 20 drugmakers experienced revenue declines. Six of the top 20 drugmakers had double-digit increases in 2024, compared to just two in 2023. Five others saw a revenue bump of between 7% and 9%, compared to two reaching those figures in 2023. (4/21)
FiercePharma: TV Drug Ad Spending Grows Nearly 30% In Q1
Pharma advertisers have kicked off 2025 with a bang, with the top 10 spenders throwing almost 30% more money behind their TV commercials in the first quarter compared to the same period a year ago. Across the first three months of this year, according to iSpot.TV, drugmakers have spent a combined $729.4 million to air commercials for the top 10 brands, up from $567.3 million in the first quarter of 2024. That represents a slight sequential increase, too, growing close to 2% over the $717.4 million outlay from the biggest spenders in the fourth quarter of 2024. (Park, 4/17)
Politico: The Government Embraces AI Lab Rats
The Food and Drug Administration wants to replace animal testing with artificial intelligence, POLITICO’s Lauren Gardner reports. Politically speaking, the change has wide support. In 2022, Congress passed a bipartisan law, co-sponsored by Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), to drop an FDA mandate that all experimental drugs be tested on animals before they’re tested on humans, opening the door for new methods. But the FDA hasn’t fully implemented that rule, and in January, Booker and Paul reintroduced an updated version of the bill, the FDA Modernization Act 3.0, to nudge the process along. (Reader, 4/21)
