With prescription drug prices rising and governments facing dire financial situations, elected officials have recently proposed legislation that would lower drug prices. However, the plans are not always popular with the pharmaceutical industry, leading to acrimony between the constituencies over the validity of each other’s claims.

Standard medical therapy following an acute coronary syndrome includes long-term antiplatelet therapy with aspirin and an adenosine diphosphate receptor inhibitor. Despite this therapy, patients remain at risk for recurrent cardiovascular events, due perhaps to excess thrombin generation that persists beyond the acute presentation in such patients. The risk of recurrent cardiovascular events has brought attention to the role of oral anticoagulants following an acute coronary syndrome.

In persons with a prior stroke, national guidelines suggest maintaining a normal blood pressure (BP), defined as systolic BP (SBP) of <120 mm Hg and a diastolic BP of <80 mm Hg. According to researchers, data specifically addressing the role of BP levels within the normal range for vascular risk reduction after stroke are limited. Recent studies have shown that there is no benefit in achieving more aggressive SBP targets in high-risk patients with diabetes.

High-risk patients who have an acute coronary syndrome are often treated with an invasive strategy of coronary angiography. Identifying the most appropriate adjunctive antithrombotic therapy prior to, during, and following percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) has been the subject of research for the past 30 years.

The use of aspirin for primary prevention of cardiovascular events was not shown to be beneficial for preventing fatal myocardial infarction (MI), stroke, or death related to cardiovascular disease (CVD) or cancer, according to results of a recent study reported online in Archives of Internal Medicine [doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2011.628]. Significant reductions in nonfatal MI, however, were observed.

The degree and duration of obesity, expressed as excess body mass index (BMI)-years, increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes more than BMI alone, but race and young age also are risk factors, according to the results of a longitudinal analysis [Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2012;166(1):42-48].

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) includes a provision requiring private individual and group health plans to provide all applicants and enrollees with a uniform summary of benefits and coverage (SBC). The provision is meant to help consumers compare health insurance options prior to enrollment and understand their coverage when they enroll. The SBC provision applies to all health plans, both individual and group, and takes effect March 23, 2012.

Future changes to Part D Reporting Requirements proposed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for contract year 2013 may pose new challenges to Part D plan sponsors if enacted. Responding to a request by CMS for comments on the proposed changes, the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) issued a letter to CMS in January 2012 responding to a number of potentially problematic issues particularly in 2 areas: Long-Term Care (LTC) Utilization and Waste (or currently referred to as Unused Drugs in Long-Term Care) and medication therapy management (MTM) programs.

Chicago—New recommendations for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are near completion and will provide evidence-based recommendations on a number of issues related to the use of biologics and traditional disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs).These include indications for the use of each class of medications, switching agents (with particular emphasis on biologics), tuberculosis screening, vaccinations, and the use of biologics in high-risk patients.

Chicago—In patients with anemia of inflammation due to chronic rheumatoid arthritis (RA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS), or psoriatic arthritis (PSA), treatment with golimumab was associated with greater improvements in hemoglobin at 6 months compared with placebo. In addition, a greater proportion of golimumab-treated patients achieved normal hemoglobin at 6 months, and patients who continued golimumab treatment maintained normal hemoglobin levels through 3 years.

Chicago—Data from a large epidemiologic study presented at the ACR meeting suggest a trend toward reduced cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) during the first 6 months of initiating treatment with tumor necrosis factor (TNF) antagonists.

Chicago—The risk of serious infection was not significantly increased in patients with autoimmune diseases initiating treatment with tumor necrosis factor (TNF) antagonists compared with those treated with nonbiologic disease regimens, even in older and low-income people, according to a study presented at the ACR meeting. The investigators retrospectively examined the incidence of serious infections in patients with autoimmune diseases during the first 12 months after initiation of TNF antagonists or nonbiologic regimens.

New Orleans—A retrospective cohort study found that patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) who took dabigatran did not have a significant reduction in length of stay in a hospital compared with those who took warfarin. However, the authors found that a hospital would save $766 per patient treated with dabigatran compared with warfarin due to the fewer days spent hospitalized.

Results were presented at the ASHP meeting in a poster titled Pharmacoeconomic Evaluation of Dabigatran Compared to Warfarin for Stroke Prophylaxis in Atrial Fibrillation.

New Orleans—According to an analysis of clinical trials, bazedoxifene is effective as a second-line therapy for postmenopausal women who have osteoporosis, although the drug is not cost-effective compared with raloxifene. Bazedoxifene and raloxifene are selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs), and raloxifene is the only SERM approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat osteoporosis.

An investigational vaccine for genital herpes was effective in protecting some women against genital disease and infection from herpes simplex type 1 (HSV-1) but not from herpes simplex type 2 (HSV-2). Although the results are puzzling since 2 earlier studies of an HSV-2 glycoprotein D–based subunit (gD-2) vaccine in discordant couples showed efficacy against HSV-2, the investigators of the current study said the findings showed progress toward a genital herpes vaccine [N Engl J Med. 2012;366(1):34-43].