Generics

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday awarded $137 million to states to boost prevention and public health initiatives, including support for smoking-cessation programs and vaccinations.

Awarded in nearly every state, the grants enhance state, tribal, local and territorial efforts to provide tobacco cessation services, strengthen public health laboratory and immunization services, prevent healthcare-associated infections, and provide comprehensive substance abuse prevention and treatment.

AMITYVILLE, N.Y. — Hi-Tech Pharmacal has acquired marketing and distribution rights for a product designed to treat coughs and upper respiratory symptoms associated with an allergy or a cold.

The generic drug maker said it attained rights for TussiCaps, available in 10-mg/8-mg and 5-mg/4-mg formulations, from Mallinckrodt. Hi-Tech's ECR Pharmaceuticals subsidiary, which markets branded prescription products, will promote TussiCaps, the only extended-release prescription cough-cold capsule product approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

WOODCLIFF LAKE, N.J. — Par Pharmaceutical Cos. will acquire Anchen Pharmaceuticals for $410 million, Par said Wednesday.

Based in Irvine, Calif., Anchen is a privately owned generic drug maker that expects to launch eight to 10 new generic drugs over the next two years. Par plans to finance the acquisition with a $350 million term loan and cash it already has.

The final outcome of the battle between Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and Canada’s Valeant Pharmaceuticals International to buy Cephalon serves as a good illustration of why it helps to have a plan B.


In May, Teva beat out Valeant’s $5.7 billion offer to buy Frazier, Pa.-based Cephalon with a $6.8 billion offer of its own, acquiring Cephalon’s hefty pipeline in the process. And last month, Teva bought Taiyo Pharmaceutical Industry, Japan’s third-largest generics company, for $934 million.



A worldwide flood of counterfeit and unsafe medications is seeping into the United States and other developed countries via the Internet and porous borders, threatening public health and the security of the pharmaceutical supply chain. In response, federal drug safety overseers and such drug manufacturers as Pfizer are working to shore up the integrity of drug supplies and stop production of fake and adulterated pharmaceuticals at their source.



Dispensing narcotics and other highly abused prescription drugs, pharmacies have always been potential targets for robbery and burglary. But a series of violent crimes over the past year and a half — including the killing of a pharmacist, a teenage clerk and two customers in Medford, N.Y., in June, as well as the murders of a pharmacist in Trenton, N.J., and a store clerk in Sacramento, Calif. — have thrown a spotlight on the dangers faced by pharmacy workers and customers, and have galvanized public opinion for tougher laws.


LAKELAND, Fla. — Publix announced that it now offers free 30-day supplies (up to 30 tablets) of lisinopril to customers with a prescription for the medication.

All strengths of generic lisinopril are free, Publix said, noting, however, that lisinopril-hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) combination products are excluded from the offer. Lisinopril is designed to prevent, treat or improve symptoms of such conditions as hypertension, certain heart conditions, diabetes and certain chronic kidney conditions.

PRINCETON, N.J. — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a chemotherapy drug made by Sandoz, the drug maker said Tuesday.

Sandoz, the generics division of Swiss drug maker Novartis, announced the approval and launch of docetaxel, an injectable chemotherapy drug that the company said was the 11th cancer drug it has launched in the United States.