GNC on Thursday announced new the launch of new delivery systems and certification advancements across GNC's Pro Performance AMP Concentrated Intelligent Release Series and the Pro Performance X.R. Series, along with three new AMP formulas.

Church & Dwight, the maker of Arm & Hammer, has announced that pop sensation One Direction is joining the Arm & Hammer Tooth Tunes branded products family.

E-prescribing offers many well-known benefits to physicians, pharmacists and patients alike. Beyond the well-known patient benefits, real-time transactions with automated requests and responses promise to create efficiencies by speeding the medication ordering process, reducing or eliminating the back-and-forth communications between pharmacists and clinicians commonly associated with handwritten prescriptions.

They say hindsight is 20/20. With the Supreme Court’s ruling on healthcare reform, the luxury of looking back shows that the National Association of Chain Drug Stores and allies took the right course to battle the pharmacy Medicaid cuts of the Deficit Reduction Act. What we learned should inspire pharmacy to remain tenacious in its continued advocacy on this issue and in confronting all other challenges.

Healthcare providers in today’s environment are committed to promoting patient safety while providing access to the most reliable and innovative treatments. Medication reconciliation, which is defined by The Joint Commission as “the process of comparing a patient’s medication orders to all of the medications that the patient has been taking,” is designed to prevent drug-related errors — including adverse interactions, overdoses or allergic reactions — and can assist healthcare providers, especially during care transitions when patients are most likely to receive new medications or alternative doses.

The sweeping healthcare reforms encompassed in the landmark Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will transform parts of the American healthcare landscape. But the nation’s fiscal challenges and the unsustainable cost increases generated by the U.S. health system also will drive fundamental changes in the way providers, payers and patients search for a more cost-effective and accountable set of solutions to a health system in crisis, said McKesson’s top public policy expert at ideaShare 2012.

In healthcare technology circles, e-prescribing is among today’s hottest topics. A vital component of patient-centered care, it creates a connectivity platform that encourages collaboration between the physician and pharmacist who are in joint pursuit of an enhanced patient experience.

Appropriately promoting niche brands within the intimacy health space can be a little trickier than the average consumer packaged goods product. And social media isn’t necessarily the ideal platform — an adult may not be as comfortable “liking” an intimacy enhancement product on Facebook to show their brand affinity, for example. 


Through its beauty brands, Procter & Gamble has announced its pledge to donate $400,000 to the P&G|Team USA Youth Sports Fund to enrich and support youth sports programs across the country.

The Emdeon team always looks forward to the NCPDP Annual Conference. The 2012 version is coming up in early May at the Arizona Biltmore. As expected, NCPDP has done an excellent job in scheduling a large number of important and interesting topics. Emdeon’s Lathe Bigler will be discussing the impact of health information exchanges (HIEs) and accountable care organizations (ACOs) on our industry, and I am scheduled to talk about the industry’s observations and lessons learned regarding the implementation of D.0.

The National Association of Chain Drug Stores has submitted official comments to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services regarding its proposed rule on Medicaid pharmacy reimbursement using the average manufacturer price model.

Two groups representing the retail pharmacy industry are urging the federal government to provide guidance to the states on how to adjust Medicaid dispensing fees to determine pharmacy reimbursement.