After a few years of revving up its regulatory engine, the Food and Drug Administra- tion (FDA) is ready to move forward with a proposal for bar coding pharmaceuticals. The idea is to use bar coding to cut down on the kinds of medication errors that were first highlighted in the National Academy of Science’s [...]

Speaker: Terry S. Latanich, JD, Senior Vice President for Government Affairs, Merck-Medco, Franklin Lakes, New Jersey.
Mr. Latanich’s presentation covered the Medicare drug benefit, Medicare-endorsed prescription cards, re-importation of prescription drugs, the Patient’s Bill of Rights (PBOR), generics legislation, and issues affecting the composition of P&T committees.

Speaker: Gary M. Owens, MD, Vice President, Patient Care Management, Independent Blue Cross, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Dr. Owens discussed the drivers for pharmaceutical costs. While health care costs are still rising, managed care growth has flattened and employer-based coverage is declining. And the increase in pharmacy costs exceeds other health care costs. The primary driver of increased [...]

Speaker: Joseph Eichenholz, MA, Managing Director, Trigenesis Management Systems, Chatham, New Jersey.
Mr. Eichenholz outlined data in the Aventis Managed Care Digest Series to review managed care trends and their implications for the pharmacy. He noted that the major trends in health care were an increase in consumer power, a redefinition of the patient-physician relationship, an [...]

Health Care Coat of Arms
Speaker: Jeffrey Lenow, MD, JD, Medical Director of JeffCARE, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Dr. Lenow, President of the P&T Society, opened the meeting by recounting some of his experiences in teaching medical school residents. These future doctors of America participated in an activity called the “Coat of Arms” exercise. In [...]

Speaker: F. Xavier Pi-Sunyer, MD, MPH, Professor of Medicine, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Chief, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Nutrition, Obesity Research Center, St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, New York, New York
Data from the second year of a two-year phase 3 study have confirmed the long-term benefits of rimonabant (Acomplia™, Sanofi-Aventis), the first [...]

Speaker: Ann L. Taylor, MD, Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, Minnesota
The addition of a nitric oxide-enhancing, fixed-dose combination of isosorbide dinitrate plus hydralazine (ISDN/HYD) (BiDil®, NitroMed) to standard therapy for heart failure increases survival significantly compared with standard therapy alone.