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  January 12, 2012

State Lawmakers To File Supreme Court Brief Upholding Health Law
More than 480 state legislators, representing a least one district from every U.S. state, will file a brief urging the Supreme Court to uphold President Obama's healthcare law. "The idea that the federal government does not have the power to address a national problem such as the healthcare crisis has no basis in the Constitution's text and history," the brief states. The Hill

Pharmacy News

WVA Pharmacy School Plans To Open Satellite At Midway College
West Virginia's University of Charleston plans to open a branch of its pharmacy school at Midway College's Paintsville, KY campus. The new school, which will accommodate 50 students and begin classes in 2013, is now recruiting faculty and students. Charleston Daily Mail

Retail News

Delhaize America To Close 126 Stores, Retire Bloom Banner
Delhaize America will close 113 underperforming Food Lion stores, primarily in markets in which the company has the least store density; retire the Bloom banner; convert 64 Bloom and Bottom Dollar Food stores in Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia to Food Lion stores; close seven underperforming Bloom stores and six underperforming Bottom Dollar Food stores in overlapping Food Lion markets; convert one Food Lion store in Florida to a Harveys store; discontinue operations of its distribution center located in Clinton, TN, and accelerate the roll out of the Food Lion brand strategy in an additional 600 to 700 stores. All affected stores will close within 30 days. Delhaize America Press Release

Weis Markets Freezes Prices Of 1,700 Items
Weis Markets, Inc. lowered the prices on 1,700 items and will freeze the prices of these products for 90 days through Apr. 2. It is the company's eighth 90-day Price Freeze since 2009. Grocery, frozen, dairy, meat, health, beauty care and general merchandise items are among the 1,700 products. Weis Markets Press Release

Wal-Mart Plans Two Stores In Bellevue, WA
Wal-Mart Stores plans to open a 64-000-sq. ft. grocery this year and a 76,000-sq. ft. store next year in Bellevue, WA. The larger store is scheduled to open in the first half of 2013, and will offer dry groceries and frozen foods, but primarily general merchandise. The smaller Neighborhood Markets store will offer groceries, a pharmacy, health and beauty products and a small inventory of discount goods. The Seattle Times (Free Registration Required)

Amazon Wins Approvals To Build Fulfillment Center In Delaware
Amazon.com won approvals to build a one million-sq. ft. fulfillment center in Middletown, DE. The Philadelphia Inquirer (Free Registration Required)

Active Health Foods Launches Product For Dialysis Patients
Active Health Foods, Inc. launched The Double Chocolate Chip Bar for dialysis patients. Active Health Foods Press Release

General Mills Reformulates Cereals, Emphasizes Whole Grains
General Mills reformulated more than 50 products across its portfolio of Big G cereals, with the products displaying a white check that indicates the predominance of whole grain over any other single ingredient. The reformulations include Honey Nut Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Total, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Cheerios. General Mills Press Release

In Washington

Meaningful Use "Will Soar" This Year, Predicts Dr. Mostashari
The National Coordinator for Health Information Technology Farzad Mostashari asserted that "in 2012, meaningful use will soar," and "will continue to be the cornerstone of our activities," at the Jan. 10 meeting of the Health IT Policy Committee. While ensuring that every provider can be successful at meaningful use is a challenge, Dr. Mostashari predicted that interoperability and exchange would be the "second and more complex challenge" following meaningful use in 2012. Healthcare IT News

US Pharmaceutical Industry

Report Issues "Wake-Up Call" For Pharmaceutical Industry
The global pharmaceutical industry is facing a world in which profit margins will be substantially lower than they are today, and it must develop a bolder, more radical approach if it is to weather the difficult times ahead, according to a McKinsey report. McKinsey Report (Free Registration Required)

AstraZeneca, IMS Health To Evaluate Drug Impacts
AstraZeneca signed a three-year deal with IMS Health to use anonymized, real-world data from European electronic patient records to gain a better picture of how its medicines perform once they reach market. The main focus of the collaboration, which will study economic and treatment pattern data as well as clinical outcomes, will be on chronic diseases. AstraZeneca Press Release

Teva Seeking Deals In Asia To Bolster Sales Growth: CFO
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. is seeking acquisitions in Asia to bolster sales in the region and expand its product lines, two company executives stated, and Brazil is also considered a potential major market by Teva. While generic medicines remain the key focus at the firm, it is likely that the company will generate more deals involving companies with experimental medicines once new CEO Jeremy Levin transitions to the role in May. The Washington Post (Free Registration Required)

Statins Cost Four Times More In U.S. Than UK: Study
The price for statins used to lower cholesterol is more than 400% higher in the U.S. than in the UK, according to a study in Pharmacotherapy. The results are based on the MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters Database in the U.S. and the General Practice Research Database in the UK for the year 2005. By combining the annual cost for each statin with the number of patients, the estimated cost for U.S. patients with private insurance was $69.5 million compared to $15.7 million for patients in the UK. Drug Topics

CDC: Life Expectancy Rises; Heart Disease, Cancer Deaths Decline
Life expectancy in the U.S. climbed to a new high of 78.7 years in 2010 as fewer people died from heart disease and cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Homicide is no longer among the 15 leading causes of death, replaced by pneumonitis, an inflammation of the lungs caused by airborne irritants, chemotherapy or radiation, the CDC reported. San Francisco Chronicle (Free Registration Required), Report

Insurers Offer Health Club Memberships To Lure Healthy Patients
Health insurers including UnitedHealth Group and Humana are using health club memberships as an inducement to attract healthier and less costly older persons to their Medicare Advantage programs, according to a report in The New England Journal of Medicine. Bloomberg.com, NEJM Report

Cigna, Weill Cornell Launch Accountable Care Initiative
Cigna and Weill Cornell Physician Organization launched New York's first collaborative accountable care initiative, designed to improve care coordination and lower total medical costs. Under the program, patients covered by Cigna health plans will have their care overseen by 71 Weiss Cornell primary care doctors. Cigna Press Release

Soda Tax Could Prevent 26,000 Premature Deaths, Study Finds
A penny-per-ounce soda tax could reduce consumption by 15%, raise $13 billion a year and save $17 billion in medical costs, according to a study published in the journal Health Affairs. The research was compiled by Columbia University, UC San Francisco and Virginia Tech. The Los Angeles Times (Free Registration Required), Study Abstract

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." - W.B. Yeats




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