Specialty Pharmacy

NEW YORK — Ideas are just as important to a winning company’s overall success as the products and services it sells. So, what’s your company doing to create a culture where the ideas that create your products and services are as important as the products themselves? That’s the question Dan Mack — EVP strategic business development for The Swanson Group and founder of the Mack Elevation Forum — puts to DrugStoreNews.com users in a hot, new content feature that debuted this week on DrugStoreNews.com.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A late-stage clinical trial of a drug under development as a treatment for multiple sclerosis has shown "successful" results.

Genzyme, acquired earlier this year by French drug maker Sanofi, announced results of the phase-3 "CARE-MS II" trial of Lemtrada (alemtuzumab), saying the drug "significantly reduced" worsening of disability and relapse in patients with MS, compared with Rebif (interferon beta-1a), made by Pfizer and German drug maker Merck KGaA, a separate company from U.S.-based Merck.

NEW YORK — CVS/pharmacy. Rite Aid. Walgreens. Sam’s Club. Ahold. H-E-B. The Katz Group. Giant Eagle. Good Neighbor. Health Mart. The list of participating companies in the 13th Annual Drug Store News Group Industry Issues conference — which will be held Tuesday, Nov. 29, here at the highly prestigious New York Athletic Club — reads like a “who’s who” of pharmacy retailing.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Genzyme has named leaders of two units that are part of the core focus of the drug maker's business.

Bill Sibold, former chief commercial officer at Avanir Pharmaceuticals, was appointed to serve as head of the multiple sclerosis business, while Rogério Vivaldi, who most recently served as president of Genzyme’s renal and endocrinology business, now is the head of the rare diseases business.

Both Sibold and Vivaldi will report to Genzyme president and CEO David Meeker, who recently became part of the company's executive team.

BASEL, Switzerland — The Food and Drug Administration has accepted a new drug application for a skin cancer treatment developed by Roche.

Roche said that the FDA accepted its NDA for vismodegib, designed to treat advanced basal cell carcinoma in adults for whom surgery is considered inappropriate. The application was granted priorit review status and has a confirmed action date of March 8, 2012.

CHICAGO — Walgreens now has certified more than 500 of its pharmacies as HIV Centers of Excellence in communities highly impacted by HIV, as identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the pharmacy operator announced Thursday at the U.S. Conference on AIDS.

FLINT, Mich. — Diplomat Specialty Pharmacy was recognized by MichBio, a biosciences industry trade association and the official Michigan affiliate of the Biotechnology Industry Organization.

SILVER SPRING, Md. — The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday launched a website for patients and caregivers on the safe disposal of needles and other “sharps” that are used at home, at work and while traveling.