Authorities in Massachusetts are looking to tighten regulations on compounding pharmacies as the state health department announced some changes to the makeup of the Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy and sent cease-and-desist notices to three compounding pharmacies for alleged violations.

Retail pharmacies looking to get into sterile compounding and exercise greater control over that supply chain — as Walgreens did last month when it bought an independent specialty compounding pharmacy in Indiana — should take note because it seems there will be increased scrutiny on the practice following a nationwide outbreak of meningitis linked to alleged unsanitary conditions at the Framingham, Mass.-based New England Compounding Center.

When it comes to medication nonadherence, the most oftcited statistic illustrating its effect on the healthcare system is the New England Healthcare Institute's estimate that it costs the healthcare system $290 billion per year. But a new report shows how much drug makers lose as well.

In recognition of Veterans Day, CVS Caremark paid homage to nearly 50 disabled military veterans from across New England on Nov. 10, treating them to a football skills camp at Gillette Stadium in partnership with the New England Patriots.

The National Community Pharmacists Association on Wednesday submitted comments to two congressional committees holding separate hearings examining the meningitis outbreak at the New England Compounding Center, including the the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and to the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions, respectively.

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., on Thursday announced plans to introduce legislation that would strengthen federal regulations of compounding pharmacies.

The Food and Drug Administration said it found a number of problems with cleanliness at a compounding pharmacy linked to a meningitis outbreak that has so far sickened hundreds of people and killed two dozen in a report released Friday.

An article recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine examines the role that impulse marketing and customer psychology in supermarkets contributes to obesity and related health problems.

“Drugs don’t work in patients who don’t take them.” Sounds simple enough. But that obvious truism, voiced by former U.S. surgeon general C. Everett Koop, fails to convince tens of millions of patients that they should take their prescription medicines through the full dosage regimen.

An Ahold USA executive has received honors from a New England business publication.

Medication nonadherence costs the U.S. healthcare system about $290 billion per year, according to New England Healthcare Institute. That big and scary number — the kind whose sheer enormity can make one’s eyes glaze over — is now even bigger.


More fans wished New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning well before his Super Bowl win Sunday than fans of the opposing quarterback — New England's Tom Brady.

Stop & Shop announced that it is debuting a new store format in Chelmsford, Mass.