NCPA continues fight against surety bond
July 29th 2009The National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) is still working to urge Congress to exempt community pharmacies from the Oct. 1 accreditation and surety bond requirements needed to continue providing durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics and supplies (DMEPOS) to Medicare patients.
FDA approves new drug indication for Forteo
July 28th 2009On July 23, Eli Lilly and Company announced the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new use for its osteoporosis drug FORTEO to treat osteoporosis associated with sustained, systemic glucocorticoid therapy in men and women at high risk of fracture.
NCPA announces 2009 competition finalists
July 22nd 2009Earlier this week at the annual meeting of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) in Boston, Mass., teams of pharmacy students from three universities were named as finalists in the Pruitt-Schutte Student Business Plan Competition sponsored by the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA).
AACP session promotes humanity in pharmacy
July 20th 2009Carolyn Brackett, PharmD, Associate Professor of Clinical Pharmacy at Ohio State University?s College of Pharmacy believes it?s possible to bring more humanity and human-to-human interaction to pharmacy ? regardless of the area in which they practice.
AACP teaches graduate students how to market themselves
July 19th 2009As the 2009 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Annual Meeting started July 18, one of the first issues on the agenda was pharmacists who plan on entering academia and how graduate students can make the transition into a faculty position.
FDA moving cautiously on tobacco regulation
July 8th 2009Congress gave the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) jurisdiction over tobacco in June, but don?t look for any quick changes in tobacco policy, products, or marketing. The agency is asking the public for guidance before jumping into regulation.
How to reduce medication errors: Pharmacists weigh in (Web Extra)
July 1st 2009So what is actually happening behind the retail counter? To get an idea, Drug Topics took a brief, unscientific survey of individual community pharmacists. All the respondents felt that pharmacist counseling reduces medication errors.
What state boards are doing about medication errors (Web Extra)
July 1st 2009As of June 2009, it appears that North Carolina remains the only state to require any consistent public reporting of pharmacy-associated medication errors. In North Carolina, pharmacists must report errors associated with deaths.
Enhanced labels focus on consumer safety (Web Extra)
July 1st 2009Two new designs from Scriptchek add extra label space for patient information on prescription vials. The extended tab label more than doubles available label space. On the rectangular vial, three flat sides offer space for additional patient instructions, and its label offers up to four times more printing space.
Update: NCPA accuses CVS of questionable marketing practices
May 14th 2009More than 80 community pharmacists from the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) and several patients met with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) May 13 to discuss concerns about the impact of the March 2007 CVS/Caremark merger and to urge the FTC to re-examine it.
FDA approves new drug for enzyme replacement
May 6th 2009The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced recently the approval of Creon (pancrelipase), a pancreatic enzyme replacement product designed to help patients with cystic fibrosis and others with exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI) digest and absorb nutrients from foods.