September 16, 2024: An ongoing lawsuit suggests peril for pharmacy-to-pharmacy market place users
Major Stories
Rxeed’s suit of CVS Caremark alleges predatory practices against independent pharmacies. Walgreens joins up with NABP’s Pulse.
PSM is watching a case making its way through federal court in New Jersey: Illinois-based pharmacy marketplace Rxeed sued CVS Caremark, a top-three pharmacy benefit manager, for unfair competition and abusive audit practices. The company's April 2024 amended complaint claims that Caremark has cost it more than $2 million by suppressing use of its platform. According to Rxeed, the PBM refused to reimburse pharmacies for medicine purchased on the platform, “clawed back” millions in reimbursements when it discovered past sales during audits and even threatened to drop them from its networks. These tactics could be a fatal blow to pharmacies already dealing with PBM’s systemic under-reimbursement.
The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) announced that American chain pharmacy Walgreens has joined Pulse, the NABP’s digital DSCSA platform, to help with Drug Supply Chain Security Act compliance and ensure that their prescription medication suppliers are appropriately licensed. Learn more about Pulse: Watch our August 2023 demo, and visit NABP’s Pulse website.
Pharmacy-to-pharmacy sales platforms have been a source of black market medicine in the past. In April PSM asked nine of these platforms, including Rxeed, to explain how they protect the drug supply from counterfeiters.
Domestic News
A bereaved family is suing the maker of a fatal tianeptine supplement. News involving pill presses in Missouri and Louisiana.
The family of a New Jersey man who died in December 2023 after taking Neptune's Fix, a tianeptine supplement, is suing its maker, Neptune Resources. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning about Neptune’s Fix and other tianeptine-containing products in February 2024.
A federal judge in Missouri sentenced a St. Louis resident, Landon Allen, to 75 months in prison. He was caught with fentanyl capsules, a pill press and firearms after throwing a dog out of a window while police were investigating the theft of two French bulldogs.
Police in Zachary, Louisiana seized a record amount of illicit drugs and a pill press during a raid on September 6, 2024.
In December, FDA warned that consumers who had used Neptune’s Fix tianeptine products had reported seizures and loss of consciousness leading to hospitalization.
International News
Cofepris warned about fake OTC products. Black market GLP-1 sales in South Korea. Counterfeit drug incidents in Thailand and Pakistan.
Cofepris, Mexico’s medicine regulator, warned the public about counterfeit lots of six over-the-counter painkillers and flu medicines: Cafiaspirina, Aspirina, Aspirina Protec, Desenfriol D, Desenfriol-Ito Plus and Tabcin Noche.
A recent article in The Chosun Daily noted that shortages of weight loss and diabetes injectables in South Korea had spawned a black market, particularly of Novo Nordisk’s liraglutide product, Saxenda.
Law enforcement in Thailand busted an illegal factory in Bangkok that was producing multiple fake drugs, including counterfeit Viagra, painkillers, and petroleum jelly.
The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan issued an alert about a counterfeit version of the sedative Ativan; as well as fake versions of an antiseptic and several different kinds of antibiotics.
Cofepris issued the alert on September 9.