Specialty Pharmacy

NEW YORK — A desire to save money is driving younger and older adults to request cheaper drugs from their doctors, but it's also driving younger adults not to take their drugs as prescribed, according to a new study.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A majority of Americans say chronic pain ranks far below drug addiction as a major health problem, according to a new poll.

ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla. — BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy will notify physicians within two hours whether a patient has been accepted for treatment, the company said.

BioPlus said the new "2-Hour Patient Acceptance Guarantee" program would let physicians know if their patients could be admitted pending insurance qualifications or would not be admitted and triaged to another pharmacy.

NORTH WALES, Pa. — Teva Pharmaceutical Industries has launched a generic opioid medication for treating pain, the company said.

Teva announced the introduction of oxymorphone hydrochloride tablets.

The drug is a generic version of Endo Pharmaceuticals' Opana and will be available in the 5 mg and 10 mg strengths in bottles of 100 tablets.

NEW YORK — An experimental drug developed by AstraZeneca for rheumatoid arthritis produced mixed results in measurements of patients' conditions, according to results of a late-stage clinical trial.

AstraZeneca announced initial results of the phase-3 "OSKIRA-1" trial of fostamatinib, which it calls the first oral spleen tyrosine kinase inhibitor in development for RA.

NEW YORK — A joint conference by the National Association of Specialty Pharmacy and the Association of Managed Care Pharmacy attracted hundreds of leaders from across the specialty pharmacy industry.

LONDON — GlaxoSmithKline has started a late-stage clinical trial of a drug in patients with an inflammatory disease that affects the blood vessels.

The drug maker announced the start of a phase-3 trial of Benlysta (belimumab) in patients with vasculitis, a condition in which the body's immune system attacks blood vessels, leading to inflammation, disruption of blood flow and possible damage to the organs. The drug is being tested in patients with a common form of the disease known as anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies-positive vasculitis.

HYDERABAD, India — The Food and Drug Administration has given preliminary approval to a drug made by Aurobindo Pharma for treating HIV infection in developing countries, the drug maker said.

Aurobindo announced that it had received tentative approval for efavirenz/emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate combination tablets in the 600-mg/200 mg/300-mg strength. The drug is a generic version of Gilead Sciences' Atripla.