Content about Prescription drug

NEW YORK — The leading maker of home prescription lockboxes has unveiled a high-tech security device that brings cutting-edge fingerprint recognition technology to consumers.


The Rx DrugSafe Medicine Lockbox, unveiled by Rx Safes, provides home security by only allowing access to parents, guardians or other authorized users, the company said. Each safe can recognize up to 120 users through their fingerprints, and can store up to 12 medication bottles.


MINNETONKA, Minn. — UnitedHealth Group will start a program next year that it said can reduce drug costs to as low as $2 per script, the company said Tuesday.

The program, Pharmacy Saver, will be available to Medicare Part D members and is a collaboration with Kroger, Safeway and Prescription Solutions. The program will allow members to purchase some scripts for $2 for 30- and some 90-day supplies and applies to hundreds of prescription drugs, including 8-of-the-10 most commonly used by UnitedHealthcare Medicare plan members.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Humana and Wal-Mart Stores on Monday announced that Mary Lee Reinscheld became the first Medicare beneficiary to sign up for the new Humana Walmart-Preferred Rx Plan at one of the Humana informational kiosks available in approximately 3,000 Walmart stores nationwide.

Reinscheld signed her Humana application at Walmart store No. 1170 here as the annual enrollment period for Medicare beneficiaries, including seniors and people with disabilities, got under way.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. The National Association of Chain Drug Stores is urging federal health officials to adopt a simpler means of communicating drug safety and efficacy information to patients, and to clear the way for an approval pathway for generic versions of biologically engineered drugs.

NACDS made its priorities known in a letter Monday to Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. The letter came from Kevin Nicholson, the group’s VP government affairs and public policy.

WASHINGTON The Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America and the Consumer Healthcare Products Association on Wednesday joined forces to kick off their annual National Medicine Abuse Awareness Month to raise awareness of the dangers of youth prescription and over-the-counter medicine abuse.

This initiative, annually held in October, features a coordinated and concentrated effort to educate parents and youth of the potential dangers associated with prescription and OTC medicine abuse.

BENTONVILLE, Ark. Shortly after Walmart and Humana announced that they would offer a Medicare Part D prescription drug program to customers, signage in Walmart stores popped up.

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. — Kmart Pharmacy is introducing an incentive program by which customers will be rewarded for transferring their prescriptions to a Kmart Pharmacy, and the retailer also will support The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. A group representing the nation's independent pharmacies heralded two pieces of legislation that pertain to the safe disposal of prescription drugs.

The National Community Pharmacists Association announced its support of legislative efforts made by the House of Representatives and the Senate, which passed their respective drug disposal bills Wednesday and last month. NCPA also added that it was “a giant step forward to allow for controlled substances, which had previously been precluded from any disposal programs, to be included.”