Content about Pharmaceutical sciences

NEW YORK — Watertree Health has hired former NBA champion John Salley to market its free prescription discount cards, the company said.

Salley, who maintains a vegan diet, is a health and wellness advocate and has appeared in film and television. Watertree provides prescription discount cards and distributes them to anyone who needs help paying for medicines. According to the company, more than 100 million Americans don't have full prescription coverage.

NEW YORK — A dramatic jump in the rates of misuse of prescription stimulants over the past four years is linked to lax attitudes on the part of parents, according to a new study, though misuse and abuse of prescription opioids has remained flat.

FRANKLIN LAKES, N.J. — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a second product in BD's new line of injectable drugs, the company said Tuesday.

BD Rx, the pharmaceutical arm of the medical technology manufacturer, whose name stands for Becton, Dickinson and Co., received FDA approval for metoclopramide, part of its BD Simplist line of ready-to-administer pre-filled generic injectables. The product is an antiemetic, a drug used to stop vomiting.

DUBLIN — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new contraceptive drug made by Warner Chilcott, the drug maker said.

Warner Chilcott announced the approval of Minastrin 24 FE (norethindrone acetate and ethinyl estradiol capsules and ferrous fumarate capsules) for prevention of pregnancy.

The drug maker said an unnamed third-party company would manufacture the drug, but it did not expect to launch it this year.

Last month, the Supreme Court heard Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, which could impact the future of the generic drug industry at a time when 80% of all prescriptions dispensed in the United States are generic.

One of the ways retailers help consumers realize their full healthcare value is through the kind of outcome management Safeway pharmacists adopted earlier this year to help people quit smoking. Safeway pharmacists have received specialized training — developed by the University of California San Francisco School of Pharmacy — that covers optimal smoking-cessation counseling techniques.

President Barack Obama sent his $3.8 trillion budget proposal to Congress on April 10, and the plan includes a number of provisions designed to cut spending on health care and promote health and wellness.

Overall, the budget is something of a mixed bag for the healthcare industry. While it would provide incentives for expanding the use of generic drugs, for example, it would also cut spending on Medicaid that have drawn opposition from pharmacy retailers, and even generic drug makers disagree with some of its provisions for that industry.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Results of a survey indicate a positive response among patients to redesigned patient medication information distributed to patients at retail pharmacy chains in two states as part of an eight-week program.

Catalina Health said it launched the eight-week quality improvement initiative in August 2012 to disseminate the information focusing on three medications dispensed in stores in an unnamed "leading pharmacy chain" in California and Michigan.

WASHINGTON — Food and Drug Administration commissioner Margaret Hamburg faced strong criticism Tuesday in a hearing before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce to investigate the nationwide outbreak of fungal meningitis linked to a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy, but she conceded the agency could have done more.

NEW YORK — Purdue Pharma's patent for OxyContin expired Tuesday, opening up the opioid painkiller to generic competition, but authorities have raised concerns about what they call the potential for generic versions to be abused.

SILVER SPRING, Md. — The Food and Drug Administration will not approve generic versions of Purdue Pharma's painkiller OxyContin based on earlier versions of the drug that did not include features to thwart abuse, the agency said Tuesday.

The FDA announced that it approved updated labeling for reformulated OxyContin (oxycodone) extended-release tablets indicating that it has physical and chemical properties designed to deter drug abusers from crushing or dissolving the pills in order to inject or snort them.

HAWTHORNE, N.Y. — Taro Pharmaceutical Industries reported last week that it has received approval from the Food and Drug Administration for its new drug application Topicort (desoximetasone) topical spray, 0.25%.

Topicort topical spray, 0.25% is a corticosteroid indicated for the treatment of plaque psoriasis in patients 18 years of age or older.

According to Taro, the corticosteroid spray market is approximately $100 million in annual sales in the United States.