Health Care & Medical News

The Community Pharmacy Fairness Act is now out of Committee. In filing their committee report, the Congress House Judiciary Committee has noted strong support for H.R. 971, the Community Pharmacy Fairness Act of 2007.

The purpose of this bill is to ensure and foster continued patient safety and quality of care by making the antitrust laws apply to negotiations between groups of independent pharmacies and health plans and health insurance issuers (including health plans under parts C and D of the Medicare Program) in the same manner as such laws apply to protected activities under the National Labor Relations Act

The National Community Pharmacists Association has applauded saying:- “The more than 23,000 independent pharmacies in America are grateful that the House Judiciary Committee reported out H.R. 971, which is a milestone in this long-standing effort. This bill provides the fairness and access to prescription drug services that are being jeopardized by a system that is out of whack as a result of the unfettered power pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) wield over independent pharmacies in dictating reimbursement rates and patient care provisions.”

“H.R. 971 rectifies the imbalance by providing much needed regulatory relief for independent pharmacies in competing with larger pharmacy retailers. It gives independent pharmacies the ability to level the playing field with PBMs by allowing them to pool together to negotiate fairer terms in these contracts. By creating real competition at the retail level, consumers win with more choices and a higher quality of service and care.”

“Independent pharmacists believe their situation is quite different from the normal competitive marketplace: here small, independent businesses must compete directly with much larger companies at the retail level, with all the retailers reimbursed by a few large middle-men instead of the consumer. Of further concern is that one of the largest competitors also owns one of the largest PBMs.”

The National Community Pharmacists Association, represents American community pharmacists which dispense almost 50% of the US retail prescription medicines.

Amgen has announced that the District Court in Boston has upheld  the
court rulings regarding the infringement, validity and enforceability of 10 claims of four of Amgen’s erythropoietin (EPO) patents.

The district court also ruled that Amgen is entitled to a permanent injunction prohibiting Roche from selling its pegylated-erythropoietin (peg-EPO) product MIRCERA in the U.SA.

Previously, the Court gave a preliminary injunction preventing Roche from selling peg-EPO, which Roche had appealed.  The latest decision provides a permanent injunction once the appeal of the preliminary injunction is resolved.
The Court stated: “Failure to enter a permanent injunction…would risk undermining the incentives for innovation that have produced, and hopefully will continue to produce, medical advances that extend and enhance the value of life. The Court  therefore concludes that the public interest will not be disserved by a permanent injunction.”

 In a separate decision involving Amgen’s suit against TKT and Aventis, the District Court upheld the validity of claim 1 of Amgen’s U.S. Patent No. 5,955,422 that claims pharmaceutical compositions of human EPO and entered a permanent injunction  prohibiting TKT and Aventis from selling its gene-activated EPO in the U.S.

Amgen discovers, develops, manufactures and delivers innovative human therapeutics. A biotechnology pioneer since 1980, Amgen was one of the first companies to realize the new science’s promise by bringing safe and effective medicines from lab, to manufacturing
plant, to patient. Amgen therapeutics have changed the practice of medicine, helping millions of people around the world in the fight against cancer, kidney disease, rheumatoid arthritis and other serious illnesses.

After a New Zealand’s Fonterra spokesperson stated that none of the batch in question was exported out of China, it appears that there are very real fears that quite large tonnages of the contaminated milk powder have been exported to other countries from their China subsidiary.

Possibly in an effort to reduce the impact, the Fonterra website shows an article that states “All other ANMUM and ANLENE products in the market have been produced using only 100% fully imported milk from New Zealand and are free from any possibility of contamination with melamine from locally sourced milk, and adhere to the strictest New Zealand and international standards”.

However it has now been reported in the China Post that ” One thousand 25-kg bags, or 25 tons, of the milk powder contaminated with melamine was imported into Taiwan in late June by New Tai Milk Products, a branch of the New Zealand-based dairy ingredients company Fonterra.

 The Taiwan Department of Health Bureau of Food Safety, believe that most of the contaminated milk powder that has been sold, went to food processing factories, so could be containating a wide range of food products.

 In moves to get to the bottom of the problem the Chinese government has now said that tests on products from all 109 baby milk companies in China showed varying traces of melamine from 22 companies, and that milk collectors, who gather milk from dairy farmers, deliberately added melamine to make it appear the milk had more protein.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson has also stated that multiple other countries including Yemen, Bangladesh, Burma, Gabon and Burundi have imported milk powder made in China firms which has since been found to be contaminated.

The EU has moved to ban imports of dairy-based food products from China, including sweets biscuits and chocolate, aimed at children or infants amid  the escalating global health scare.

Fonterra have been critised for being slow to effect a recall of products following large scale sickness attributed to Anmum contaminated milk product in China.

In China over 6,000 babies are ill, three have died and around 150 have serious kidney failure after drinking milk powder which had been contaminated with melamine, a toxic substance used in plastics manufacture.

The contaminated product has been supplied from their 43% owned San Lu subsidiary who market the NZ owned Anmum brand under license from the NZ parent company Fonterra Co-operative Group.

In a statement of “what we Stand For”, Fonterra’s website boldly states”. “Dairy is our life’s work. It’s our passion and it’s what we do best.” “We have always marvelled at the simple nutrition of dairy. In an age when you need a chemistry degree to understand food labels, milk is pure milk, providing the building blocks for a healthy life.”
Since New Zealands dairy farmers’ Fonterra Co-operative Group was formed in 2001, they have become the world’s largest dairy exporter with over 11,000 dairyfarmer shareholders. Fonterra exports 95% of their New Zealand-made dairy products to more than 140 countries.

 Roche Diagnostics is investing 136 million euros in a research, development & production site in Penzberg, Germany. The fundswill be applied to construct a flexible building for Roche Diagnostics. The new construction will accomodate laboratories and production areas for the Roche Applied Science and Roche Professional Diagnostics businesses. The unit will be used by both the Development and Production sections. The site will be manufacturing products ranging from biotech constituents for immunodiagnostics and the life-science market through to complete immunodiagnostic test kits from 2010. Such test kits are used in diagnostic systems such as COBAS and Elecsys globally.