Making Medicines Affordable

Making Medicines Affordable

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2018-03-01

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 0309468086

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Thanks to remarkable advances in modern health care attributable to science, engineering, and medicine, it is now possible to cure or manage illnesses that were long deemed untreatable. At the same time, however, the United States is facing the vexing challenge of a seemingly uncontrolled rise in the cost of health care. Total medical expenditures are rapidly approaching 20 percent of the gross domestic product and are crowding out other priorities of national importance. The use of increasingly expensive prescription drugs is a significant part of this problem, making the cost of biopharmaceuticals a serious national concern with broad political implications. Especially with the highly visible and very large price increases for prescription drugs that have occurred in recent years, finding a way to make prescription medicinesâ€"and health care at largeâ€"more affordable for everyone has become a socioeconomic imperative. Affordability is a complex function of factors, including not just the prices of the drugs themselves, but also the details of an individual's insurance coverage and the number of medical conditions that an individual or family confronts. Therefore, any solution to the affordability issue will require considering all of these factors together. The current high and increasing costs of prescription drugsâ€"coupled with the broader trends in overall health care costsâ€"is unsustainable to society as a whole. Making Medicines Affordable examines patient access to affordable and effective therapies, with emphasis on drug pricing, inflation in the cost of drugs, and insurance design. This report explores structural and policy factors influencing drug pricing, drug access programs, the emerging role of comparative effectiveness assessments in payment policies, changing finances of medical practice with regard to drug costs and reimbursement, and measures to prevent drug shortages and foster continued innovation in drug development. It makes recommendations for policy actions that could address drug price trends, improve patient access to affordable and effective treatments, and encourage innovations that address significant needs in health care.


China Rx

China Rx

Author: Rosemary Gibson

Publisher: Prometheus Books

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 1633883817

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Millions of Americans are taking prescription drugs made in China and don't know it-- and pharmaceutical companies are not eager to tell them. This probing book examines the implications for the quality and availability of vital medicines for consumers. Several decades ago, penicillin, vitamin C, and many other prescription and over-the-counter products were manufactured in the United States. But with the rise of globalization, antibiotics, antidepressants, birth control pills, blood pressure medicines, cancer drugs, among many others are made in China and sold in the United States. China's biggest impact on the US drug supply is making essential ingredients for thousands of medicines found in American homes and used in hospital intensive care units and operating rooms. The authors convincingly argue that there are at least two major problems with this scenario. First, it is inherently risky for the United States to become dependent on any one country as a source for vital medicines, especially given the uncertainties of geopolitics. For example, if an altercation in the South China Sea causes military personnel to be wounded, doctors may rely upon medicines with essential ingredients made by the adversary. Second, lapses in safety standards and quality control in Chinese manufacturing are a risk. Citing the concerns of FDA officials and insiders within the pharmaceutical industry, the authors document incidents of illness and death caused by contaminated medications that prompted reform. This is a disturbing, well-researched book and a wake-up call for improving the current system of drug supply and manufacturing.


Pain Management and the Opioid Epidemic

Pain Management and the Opioid Epidemic

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2017-09-28

Total Pages: 483

ISBN-13: 0309459575

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Drug overdose, driven largely by overdose related to the use of opioids, is now the leading cause of unintentional injury death in the United States. The ongoing opioid crisis lies at the intersection of two public health challenges: reducing the burden of suffering from pain and containing the rising toll of the harms that can arise from the use of opioid medications. Chronic pain and opioid use disorder both represent complex human conditions affecting millions of Americans and causing untold disability and loss of function. In the context of the growing opioid problem, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched an Opioids Action Plan in early 2016. As part of this plan, the FDA asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene a committee to update the state of the science on pain research, care, and education and to identify actions the FDA and others can take to respond to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on informing FDA's development of a formal method for incorporating individual and societal considerations into its risk-benefit framework for opioid approval and monitoring.


Managing Supply Chain Risk

Managing Supply Chain Risk

Author: ManMohan S. Sodhi

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-02-25

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 1461432383

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

“Supply Chain Risk Management is an issue that many companies face and yet few companies know how to deal with it in a systematic and pragmatic manner. While avoiding and reducing supply chain risks are certainly preferable, developing ways to restore and stabilize supply chain operations rapidly after a major disruption is critical for managing global supply chains. Sodhi and Tang present important concepts, frameworks, strategies, and analyses that are essential for managing supply chain risks. Not only does this book suggest some practical ways to work with different partners to manage the risks that are present in a global supply chain, it creates a framework that would enable practitioners to engage researchers to work on this important area.” —Thomas A. Debrowski, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Operations, Mattel, Inc. “When a firm outsources its operations to external suppliers, the firm is vulnerable to major and rare disruptions that can occur at any link in the global supply chain. Because these disruptions rarely occur, few firms take commensurable actions to identify, assess, mitigate and respond to various types of supply chain risks. By introducing frameworks and concepts along with several case studies and a review of academic literature, Sodhi and Tang treat this important subject with practical relevance and academic rigor. This book will bring practitioners and researchers to develop effective and efficient ways to manage supply chain risks.” —Marshall L. Fisher, UPS Professor, Professor of Operations and Information Management and Co-Director of Fishman-Davidson Center for Service and Operations Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania “This book ties observations in practice to methodologies and research. The rich case examples motivated the approaches and methodologies used to mitigate risks, and in the course of doing so, Sodhi and Tang provided insights on existing and new research opportunities. As a result, this book is highly relevant to both practitioners and academics. Also, the book is also written with management lessons on how risks can be mitigated, and how risks can be contained once disruptions have occurred. As such, it is also a book for management to gain insights and to develop management skills.” —Hau L. Lee, Thoma Professor of Operations, Information and Technology and Director of the Stanford Global Supply Chain Management Forum, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University “As companies have extended their supply chains globally and as the face increasing resource issues, they face a number of new risk challenges. While there are various case studies written about supply chain risks, this book gives a comprehensive treatment of the subject with clarity. The concepts and frameworks developed by Sodhi and Tang in this book would create awareness of this important and yet not well understood subject, and strategies described in this book would stimulate practitioners to develop a holistic approach for identifying, assessing, mitigating, and responding to different types of supply chain risks.” —Nick Wildgoose, Global Supply Chain Proposition Manager, Zurich Insurance​


Pharmaceutical Supply Chains - Medicines Shortages

Pharmaceutical Supply Chains - Medicines Shortages

Author: Ana Paula Barbosa-Povoa

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-06-01

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 3030153983

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book provides an insight of relevant case studies and updated practices in “PharmaceuticalSupply Chains” (PharmSC) while addressing the most relevant topics within the COST Action “Medicines Shortages” (CA15105).The volume focuses on the most recent developments in the design, planning and scheduling ofPharmSC, broadening from the suppliers’ selection to the impact on patients and healthcaresystems, addressing uncertainty and risk mitigation, and computational issues. It is directed at MSc/PhD students and young researchers (Post-Docs) in Pharmaceutics/Pharmaceutical sciences, Engineering fields, Economics/Management, as well as pharmaceutical decision makers, managers, and practitioners, and advanced readers demanding a fresh approach to decision making for PharmSC. The contributed chapters are associated with the homonymous COST Training Schools (TS), and the book creates a better understanding of the Action “Medicines Shortages” challenges and opportunities.


Countering the Problem of Falsified and Substandard Drugs

Countering the Problem of Falsified and Substandard Drugs

Author: Institute of Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2013-06-20

Total Pages: 377

ISBN-13: 0309269393

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The adulteration and fraudulent manufacture of medicines is an old problem, vastly aggravated by modern manufacturing and trade. In the last decade, impotent antimicrobial drugs have compromised the treatment of many deadly diseases in poor countries. More recently, negligent production at a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy sickened hundreds of Americans. While the national drugs regulatory authority (hereafter, the regulatory authority) is responsible for the safety of a country's drug supply, no single country can entirely guarantee this today. The once common use of the term counterfeit to describe any drug that is not what it claims to be is at the heart of the argument. In a narrow, legal sense a counterfeit drug is one that infringes on a registered trademark. The lay meaning is much broader, including any drug made with intentional deceit. Some generic drug companies and civil society groups object to calling bad medicines counterfeit, seeing it as the deliberate conflation of public health and intellectual property concerns. Countering the Problem of Falsified and Substandard Drugs accepts the narrow meaning of counterfeit, and, because the nuances of trademark infringement must be dealt with by courts, case by case, the report does not discuss the problem of counterfeit medicines.


Innovative Solutions for Sustainable Supply Chains

Innovative Solutions for Sustainable Supply Chains

Author: Hassan Qudrat-Ullah

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-08-28

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 3319943227

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book presents the latest tools, techniques, and solutions that decision makers use to overcome the challenges faced by their sustainable supply chains. Given the ever increasing significance of socio-economic and environmental factors, the management of sustainable supply chains has become a complex and dynamic task. Multiple and conflicting objectives of stakeholders including suppliers, manufacturers, service providers, and retailers add to the complexity of decisions that modern day managers of supply chains face. With the unprecedented technological developments and innovations at hand, sustainability can be maximized for all the activities of a supply chain including: service concept and product design, material sourcing and procurement, manufacturing processes, delivery of the final product, and end-of-life management of the product. Consequently, the sustainable supply chains' problems require a systematic and integrated approach. Modeling and simulation, in general, as well as system dynamics and agent-based modeling, in particular, have the capabilities to deal with the complexity of sustainable supply chain related problems. This book will appeal to professionals and researchers in the field.


Medications for Opioid Use Disorder Save Lives

Medications for Opioid Use Disorder Save Lives

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2019-06-16

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 0309486483

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The opioid crisis in the United States has come about because of excessive use of these drugs for both legal and illicit purposes and unprecedented levels of consequent opioid use disorder (OUD). More than 2 million people in the United States are estimated to have OUD, which is caused by prolonged use of prescription opioids, heroin, or other illicit opioids. OUD is a life-threatening condition associated with a 20-fold greater risk of early death due to overdose, infectious diseases, trauma, and suicide. Mortality related to OUD continues to escalate as this public health crisis gathers momentum across the country, with opioid overdoses killing more than 47,000 people in 2017 in the United States. Efforts to date have made no real headway in stemming this crisis, in large part because tools that already existâ€"like evidence-based medicationsâ€"are not being deployed to maximum impact. To support the dissemination of accurate patient-focused information about treatments for addiction, and to help provide scientific solutions to the current opioid crisis, this report studies the evidence base on medication assisted treatment (MAT) for OUD. It examines available evidence on the range of parameters and circumstances in which MAT can be effectively delivered and identifies additional research needed.