Regulatory and Washington

LOS ANGELES — Standard Homeopathic Company last week recalled all lots of Hyland's Baby Teething Tablets and Hyland's Baby Nighttime Teething Tablets sold in retail stores to the consumer level.

OTTOWA, Ontario, Canada — The big news coming out of Canada Thursday was the introduction of a bill in the House of Commons whose passage would mean the legalization of recreational marijuana. And while the legislation does maintain a separate program for medical marijuana, a key addition that stakeholders wanted to see is missing, namely, the inclusion of pharmacists in medical marijuana dispensing.

The Canadian Pharmacists Association issued a statement Thursday expressing its disappointment in the legislation leaving pharmacists out of its language.

Legislation pending in both houses of Congress regarding DIR, or direct and indirect remuneration, fees are giving hope to drug stores and two of the industry’s largest advocacy groups that pharmacy benefits management companies will stop retroactively reducing payments.

“DIR fees pick the pockets of community pharmacies and their patients,” National Community Pharmacists Association CEO Douglas Hoey wrote last month in an opinion piece in Morning Consult, an online service that provides daily email updates on Congress.

WASHINGTON — The retail industry is ramping up its efforts against House Republicans’ proposed border-tax proposal.  
The National Retail Federation has launched the next phase of a television and digital ad campaign against the tax, which is included in the House Republican tax reform plan.

Although 2016 saw the Food and Drug Administration approve only 22 new drugs compared with 45 approvals in 2015 and the lowest tally since 2010, many in the pharmaceutical arena remain optimistic that this year will see a reversal of that trend.

The passage of the 21st Century Cures Act last winter and the number of drugs already approved by the FDA this year, they said, give hope to 2017 being a banner year for innovative new therapies hitting the market.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri’s State Senate passed legislation to make it the final state to adopt a prescription drug pricing database. The bill would create a database pharmacists and doctors could check to see if patients have recently filled or been prescribed addictive medications.

This could be the year.

Movement again is occurring in Congress on legislation that would confer professional provider status on pharmacists serving millions of older Americans in many parts of the country. Undimmed by a change in presidential administrations, the ascendancy of Republican lawmakers in both houses of Congress and the ongoing polarization and bitter divide of Washington politics, support for passage of a provider status bill remains strong on both sides of the aisle, following its reintroduction early this year.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — NACDS added two prominent speakers to the lineup at the NACDS Annual Meeting, set to take place April 22 to 25 at The Phoenician in Scottsdale. Retired Four-Star Marine Gen. John Allen, who has served in pivotal leadership roles related to the Middle East and Asia, will speak at the Business Program on Sunday, April 23. Richard W. Fisher, who served as president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas from 2005 to 2015, will speak at the Business Program on Tuesday, April 25.