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Pharmacy

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  • Analysis looks at leading causes of medical fraud

    June 12, 2013

    Previous Truven research reported that $125 billion to $175 billion in annual spending in the publicly and privately insured population could be classified as abuse and fraud of the system.


  • Club-drug ketamine relieves depression in largest patient study

    May 23, 2013

    In the trial of 72 people whose depression hadn’t responded to at least two antidepressants, patients taking ketamine were twice as likely to report improvement than those on a placebo.


  • Iodine deficiency during pregnancy affects mental development

    May 22, 2013

    Children of such women were more likely to have scores in the lowest quartile for verbal ability, reading accuracy and reading comprehension than those whose mothers had sufficient iodine levels, according to the study published today.


  • Childhood mental illness costs $247 billion as U.S. cases rise

    May 20, 2013

    Meanwhile, doctors are protesting new guidance for the diagnosis of some mental disorders, including autism, contained in the revised edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.


  • Drugmakers get reprieve in cost-cutting panel inaction

    May 2, 2013

    Republicans and the drug industry have urged a repeal of the board, and Obama hasn’t yet appointed any of its members. A spokeswoman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry’s Washington-based lobbying group, didn’t immediately comment on the decision.


  • Prices of cancer drugs too expensive for patients, doctors say

    May 1, 2013

    Of the 12 cancer medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration last year, 11 cost more than $100,000 annually, the physicians said in an article in Blood, the journal of the American Society of Hematology, published online.


  • Most wasteful states for prescription meds

    April 26, 2013

    The U.S. health care system wasted $418 billion on bad medication-related decisions in 2012. While the entire nation suffers from these costly decisions, they have a disproportionate effect on the poorest states. In fact, nine out of the 10 poorest states rank among the most wasteful, according to research from Express Scripts. Waste stems from using high-priced brand name medications instead of clinically equivalent generics, not taking medications as prescribed, and using more expensive pharmacies than necessary. Here are details on the most wasteful states, as well as the most frugal. How does your state stack up in prescription spending? [Images: Shutterstock]


  • Study: Seizure drug during pregnancy increases baby’s autism risk

    April 24, 2013

    The epilepsy drug was also tied to a three-fold increase of autism spectrum disorder, which includes Asperger syndrome and other developmental disorders, according to research published Tuesday.


  • Breast cancer drugs recommended for high-risk women

    April 17, 2013

    About 232,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year and an estimated 40,000 will die of the disease, according to the National Cancer Institute.


  • Adults younger than 65 more likely to skip drugs to save money

    April 10, 2013

    Tuesday’s study found 13% of those ages 18 to 64 reported not taking their medications as prescribed to reduce costs compared with 5.8% of those 65 and older.


  • Supreme Court hints at ruling rewriting rules on generics

    March 27, 2013

    Hearing arguments this week in Washington, the justices voiced skepticism about the so-called pay-for-delay agreements, which the Federal Trade Commission says cost buyers as much as $3.5 billion a year.


  • Study: Diabetes drugs cause excess pancreas cell growth

    March 26, 2013

    Diabetes medications are multibillion-dollar drugs and the percentage of Americans diagnosed with the disease continues to grow, but there is evidence that major pharmaceuticals are causing pre-cancerous changes.


  • How to control specialty pharmacy costs

    VIDEO | March 20, 2013

    Specialty pharmacy continues to take up an ever-bigger slice of the pharmacy benefit, and generics certainly lack in this area. How can employers keep costs down? Mary Dorholt, clinical lead of specialty at Express Scripts, talks about positive cost-handling behaviors and how a specialty pharmacy can help you.


  • Top 10 drugs to watch

    March 20, 2013

    Drug spending declined 1.5% last year, according to Express Scripts’ most recent drug trend report, fueled in part by the release of many lower-cost generic drugs. The cost of generic medications dropped last year by 24%, while the cost of the most-used brand name drugs increased by 12.5%, the widest disparity in the past five years, according to the pharmacy benefit manager. Here are 10 of the top brand-name drugs that lost their patents in 2012. [Images: Shutterstock]


  • Report sees first drop in traditional prescription spending in 20 years

    March 7, 2013

    Express Scripts, however, says the decline was offset by an 18.4% rise in spending on specialty medications. The aggregate trend for 2012 was a bump of 2.7%, similar to that of 2011.