Licensing

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Concerns that contracting rules affecting healthcare providers that service Tricare beneficiaries could extend to retail pharmacies has prompted the country’s largest chain pharmacy lobby to file a friend-of-the-court brief in a lawsuit over the regulations.

The National Association of Chain Drug Stores filed an amicus curiae brief in support of the defendant in the case, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, U.S. Department of Labor v. Florida Hospital of Orlando.

PITTSBURGH — A Mylan subsidiary has inked a nonexclusive license agreement with Tibotec Pharmaceuticals to manufacture, market and distribute a generic version of an HIV treatment.

Pending the regulatory approval of TMC278 (rilpivirine hydrochloride), Matrix Labs will have the right to manufacture once-daily 25-mg TMC278 as a single-agent medicine and a fixed-dose combination product, Mylan said. Matrix also will be able to market the drug in sub-Saharan Africa, certain developing countries and India.

WASHINGTON — More than 55,000 candidates sat for the Pharmacy Technician Certification Exam in 2010, the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board said Tuesday.

The PTCB said it has certified more than 400,000 pharmacy technicians since 1995.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A coming-soon pharmacy school has a new dean, according to published reports.

The Charleston, W.Va., Gazette reported Thursday that Marshall University’s pharmacy school, which has yet to be created, had named Kevin Yingling as its founding dean. The university’s board of governors authorized the school to begin its application process with the American Council for Pharmacy Education to establish the school in October.

WASHINGTON — The American Pharmacists Association on Wednesday announced the winners of its Remington Honor Medal and other professional awards.

WASHINGTON — A healthcare accrediting organization is revising three products in its Pharmacy Quality Management suite of programs.

URAC said its pharmacy committee approved revisions to its mail service, specialty pharmacy, and workers' compensation and property and casualty for pharmacy benefit management accreditation programs. The products revised include:

• Mail-service pharmacy, version 2.0;

• Specialty pharmacy, version 2.0; and

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The healthcare-reform bill promised to dramatically expand coverage for Americans, but healthcare consumer confidence hasn’t necessarily kept up, according to data released Monday by Thomson Reuters.

WASHINGTON — Partnership for Prevention on Tuesday named Jason Spangler the organization’s chief medical officer.

Spangler will work closely with Partnership’s Health Professionals Roundtable on Preventive Services, a group representing 1.5 million members from the leading primary care professional organizations. HPR collaborates on issues of common interest and concern in the delivery of clinical preventive services and also develops policy statements that advance preventive care recommendations.