Community/Retail

CVS Health today announced that the company and its foundation has committed to invest more than $1 million in grants to support tobacco cessation and prevention programs. The grants will be distributed to leading health care and community partners working to promote tobacco-free communities, programs that help people kick the habit and help those who don't smoke to never start. Among the awards are funds to support quit lines operated by National Jewish Health and the American Lung Association, which also partners with CVS Health on the LUNG FORCE initiative to fight cancer. These investments also build on the partnership developed between CVS Health and the American Cancer Society. With this announcement, CVS Health joins the American Cancer Society and advocates across the country in recognizing the Great American Smokeout.

MinuteClinic has opened New Mexico's first retail medical clinics inside three CVS/pharmacy stores in Albuquerque and one in Rio Rancho. MinuteClinic is the retail medical clinic of CVS Health and the largest and fastest growing provider of store-based clinics with locations in 31 states and the District of Columbia.

Progress in stopping the spread of the Ebola has been achieved in 2 West African countries, though new cases of the virus are increasing in a third.

The prices for brand-name prescription medications commonly used by older adults increased by an approximate average of 13% last year, more than 8 times faster than the general inflation rate.

On the heels of the FDA approval of paliperidone palmitate as either a monotherapy or adjunctive therapy for schizoaffective disorder, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc, has submitted a new drug application for the medication's use as a 3-month atypical antipsychotic treatment for schizophrenia in adults.

A diverse collective of health care advocacy groups, patient organizations, industry representatives and other stakeholders today announced they have established the Alliance for Balanced Pain Management to support appropriate access to integrated pain management and responsible use of prescription pain medicines with an aim to reduce abuse. AfBPM will work collaboratively to educate, support and advocate on behalf of people affected by pain, both acute and chronic.

After the Drug Enforcement Administration revoked the Tampa-based pharmacy's registration to sell controlled substances and seized its drugs, the company fought back with a lawsuit.

Boehringer Ingelheim announced today that it received a perfect score of 100 percent on the 2015 Corporate Equality Index.

Fewer brand-name drugs are prescribed when their generic equivalents are displayed in the electronic health record first.

A new liquid drug formulation from Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. will allow some cancer patients to see their therapy administered faster.

The first FDA-approved "smart pill" documents medication adherence and physiologic response.

People whose jobs require more complex work with other people, such as social workers and lawyers, or with data, like architects or graphic designers, may end up having longer-lasting memory and thinking abilities compared to people who do less complex work.

Generics saved $239 billion in 2013 (a 14% increase in savings from 2012) and more than $1.46 trillion over the recent decade. Further, the Express Scripts 2013 Drug Trend Report issued in 2014 shows that since 2008, the price of brand drugs has almost doubled, but the price of generic drugs has been cut roughly in half.

A coordinated emergency response by healthcare teams to treat heart attack patients meant faster care that was associated with improved survival.

An experimental 3-dimensional printed model of the heart may help surgeons treat patients born with complicated heart disorders.

Children who receive a heart transplant as soon as a suitable donor is available are predicted to have better quality-adjusted survival - even if they have antibodies that may attack the new heart - than children who wait for a donor to which they do not have antibodies.

With administrators increasing staff training efforts for the Ebola virus at medical facilities throughout the United States, hospital radiology departments are emphasizing protocols for performing imaging procedures on isolated patients.

Some pharmacists feel tired after being on their feet all day and never getting a chance to sit down. To ease the annoyance of standing all day, one pharmacist in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, allegedly took matters into his own hands.

The first and only FDA-approved vaccine for active immunization to prevent invasive serogroup B meningococcal disease in patients aged 10 to 25 years is now available for order by retail pharmacies.

Patients with chronic cardiovascular disease who receive automated reminders for their prescription blood pressure and cholesterol medications are more likely to refill those drugs.

A Genzyme and Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc. study suggests that mipomersen sodium injections reduce the odds of major adverse cardiovascular events in patients with familial hypercholesterolemia, compared with the 2 years prior to therapy.

Perhaps you've heard of personalized or precision medicine, but what about P4 medicine?

A long-term study of Celgene Corporation's apremilast showed that the oral selective inhibitor of phosphodiesterase 4 provides relief to adult patients with active psoriatic arthritis, as well as adult patients with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis who are candidates for phototherapy or systemic therapy.

A sports supplement company is voluntarily recalling its Mayhem dietary supplement capsules marketed to bodybuilders, after the FDA found 2 undeclared drugs in the product.

Roetzel & Andress LPA is pleased to announce that Ned Milenkovich, Partner and Practice Group Manager of Roetzel's Health, Drug & Pharmacy Law group, has been elected by the Illinois State Board of Pharmacy to serve as the Board's Vice-Chair, a position in which he has served on two prior occasions. Mr. Milenkovich will hold the position for a 1-year term.

Cocaine users complaining of chest pain may have abnormal blood flow in the heart's smallest blood vessels that may not be detected in regular testing, putting these patients at risk for heart complications or death, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2014.

Adults whose mothers were overweight or obese before pregnancy have a dramatically elevated risk of dying from heart disease or stroke, according to a new study presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2014.

Men who have asymptomatic subclinical vascular disease are more likely to develop erectile dysfunction than men who don't have early stage vascular disease, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2014.